A 26-year-old Maryland man has been charged with attempted murder after allegedly showing up at the Northern Virginia home of Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, reportedly plotting to kill him.
Colin Demarco appeared at Vought's front door wearing a surgical mask, gloves, sunglasses, and a backpack — all captured on a Ring doorbell camera. He looked through Vought's mailbox. He asked a neighbor if anyone was home.
A criminal complaint has been filed in Arlington County. Vought, identified in the complaint by his initials "R.V.," has been placed under U.S. Marshals Service protection since the charge was brought. The Marshals Service also conducted the investigation.
What separates this from a trespassing case is what investigators reportedly found behind the mask and gloves. DeMarco reportedly claimed to have written a manifesto that detailed weapons and a "Body Disposal Guide." That phrase alone should stop every reader cold.
According to Breitbart, court records reveal that Demarco told agents he found the November 2024 election to be the "lowest point in his life." He feared "impending war and a fascist takeover." He also expressed support for Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing the UnitedHealthcare CEO.
So here is the profile: a young man radicalized by election results, steeped in apocalyptic political fantasy, idolizing an accused assassin, and arriving at a presidential appointee's home with a backpack and a disposal plan. This was not a protest. This was not civil disobedience. This was, if the charges hold, a premeditated attempt to murder a government official for his political work.
Vought played a central role in the formulation of Schedule F, a policy that would make it easier for the federal government to fire workers — a long-overdue reform that threatens the job security of an entrenched bureaucratic class that has operated with near-total immunity for decades. He was also involved in the creation of Project 2025.
These roles have made him a lightning rod. According to reports, his involvement with Schedule F has prompted numerous death threats.
None of that context excuses what allegedly happened at his front door. But it does explain why it happened. Vought's work strikes at the heart of the administrative state — the permanent government that answers to no electorate and resists every attempt at accountability. That work made him a target, not because it's radical, but because it's effective.
There is a pattern here that demands attention, not because it's new, but because it keeps accelerating without consequence.
A man who lost an election — not his home, not his livelihood, an election — described the result as the lowest point in his life. He then allegedly wrote a manifesto with a body disposal guide, expressed admiration for an accused killer, and traveled to a government official's residence to carry out what prosecutors believe was an assassination attempt.
This did not happen in a vacuum. It happened in a culture where political violence against the right is treated as an understandable, if regrettable, expression of frustration. It happened in a media environment where Project 2025 was described for months in the most hysterical terms imaginable — as a blueprint for dictatorship, as the end of democracy, as an existential threat to the republic. When you tell people daily that fascism is at the door, some of them will decide to answer it with a backpack and gloves.
DeMarco's fear of a "fascist takeover" did not materialize out of thin air. That language has been pumped relentlessly through mainstream outlets, activist networks, and social media for years. It is the lingua franca of an entire political movement that has convinced itself that democratic outcomes it dislikes are inherently illegitimate.
And then when someone acts on that belief — when someone shows up at a man's home prepared to kill — the same voices fall silent. No reckoning. No accountability for the rhetoric. Just a brief news cycle and a pivot to the next outrage.
DeMarco's expressed support for Luigi Mangione deserves particular scrutiny. Mangione, accused of murdering a corporate executive, was elevated by corners of the internet and even mainstream commentators into something approaching folk hero status. T-shirts were printed. Memes circulated. The underlying message was unmistakable: political murder can be justified if the target is sufficiently unpopular.
That message landed. It landed with Colin Demarco. The celebration of Mangione's alleged crime did not stay confined to ironic social media posts. It seeped into the worldview of a man who then allegedly tried to replicate it against a different target — this time a government official whose sin was implementing the agenda of a duly elected president.
When political violence is romanticized, it reproduces. Every time.
An OMB spokesperson offered a measured response:
"We are grateful for the work of law enforcement in keeping Director Vought and his family safe."
Grateful. Not outraged. Not demanding apologies from the political class that spent years painting Vought as a threat to civilization. Just grateful that their colleague is alive.
Vought now operates under U.S. Marshals Service protection — a reality that should disturb every American regardless of party. A presidential appointee carrying out lawful policy cannot answer his own front door without armed federal protection because a segment of the population has been convinced he is building a dictatorship.
The criminal case against Demarco will proceed through Arlington County. The attempted murder charge is serious, and the evidence — the doorbell footage, the manifesto, the statements to agents — appears substantial. Justice should be swift and unsparing.
But the legal system can only address the individual. It cannot address the ecosystem that produced him. It cannot hold accountable the commentators, the activists, and the politicians who spent years constructing a narrative so apocalyptic that a 26-year-old concluded the only rational response was assassination.
Consider what DeMarco reportedly told investigators. The election was the lowest point in his life. Not a personal tragedy. Not the loss of someone he loved. An election — a democratic exercise in which millions of Americans made a choice he disagreed with. That level of psychological devastation over a political outcome is not organic. It is manufactured. It is the end product of a years-long campaign to convince half the country that the other half is an existential threat.
Russell Vought is alive because he wasn't home. His family is safe because a Ring camera caught what was coming. The system worked this time — barely, and by accident more than design.
Next time, the doorbell might not be enough.
