A 26-year-old Maryland man has been charged with the attempted murder of Russell Vought, the Trump-appointed director of the Office of Management and Budget, after allegedly showing up at Vought's Northern Virginia home wearing a surgical mask, gloves, sunglasses, and a backpack. A criminal complaint filed in Arlington County identifies the target by initials — "R.V." — and describes him as someone who "has served as a presidential appointee."
The accused, Colin Demarco, was captured on a Ring doorbell camera at Vought's front door. He was also seen looking through Vought's mailbox and asking a neighbor if anyone was home. Vought has been under U.S. Marshals Service protection since the charge was filed. 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 retaliatory — grateful. That restraint deserves noting, because what investigators found about Demarco's intentions suggests gratitude barely covers it.
According to Breitbart, in a U.S. Marshals Service investigation, Demarco claimed to have written a manifesto that detailed weapons and a "Body Disposal Guide." He told agents he found the November 2024 election to be the "lowest point in his life" and feared "impending war and a fascist takeover."
He also expressed support for Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin of the UnitedHealthcare CEO.
Take the full picture: a young man radicalized by an election result, inspired by a public assassination, drafting a manifesto with a disposal guide, then traveling to a senior government official's home in disguise. This is not mental illness operating in a vacuum. This is ideology channeled into a target list.
DeMarco reportedly feared Trump's reelection would lead to a "fascist takeover." The irony should not be lost on anyone. The man allegedly preparing to murder a government official in his home — in front of a Ring camera, in a residential neighborhood — convinced himself he was the one fighting fascism.
Nobody walks out their door with a manifesto and a body disposal guide because they lost an election. Something bridges the gap between disappointment and attempted murder. That something is years of rhetorical escalation that tells people their political opponents aren't just wrong — they're existential threats to civilization itself.
Vought has been a particular lightning rod. His role in the formulation of Schedule F — a policy that would make it easier for the federal government to fire workers — and his involvement in the creation of Project 2025 drew sustained fury from the left. He received numerous death threats tied to that work.
Schedule F is a workforce accountability measure. Project 2025 is a policy blueprint. Neither is a crime. Neither justifies showing up at a man's home with gloves and a backpack. But when mainstream voices spend months describing these initiatives as the architecture of authoritarianism, when every policy disagreement is recast as the last stand of democracy, some people take the rhetoric at face value. DeMarco appears to be one of them.
He didn't invent the phrase "fascist takeover." He absorbed it.
DeMarco's expressed support for Luigi Mangione reveals something darker than a single radicalized individual. It reveals a permission structure. Mangione's alleged assassination of a healthcare executive was met with widespread celebration on social media and in certain political circles — memes, fan art, calls to free him before he was even tried. That cultural moment told a specific kind of person that political violence isn't just tolerable; it's heroic.
When society lionizes one act of targeted killing, it lowers the threshold for the next. DeMarco didn't operate in isolation. He operated in a culture that had already provided the moral framework for what he allegedly planned to do.
The U.S. Marshals Service investigation and the subsequent charge in Arlington County represent the system working as it should. DeMarco was identified, investigated, and charged with attempted murder. Vought was placed under protection. The doorbell camera footage, the neighbor interaction, and the manifesto claims — investigators assembled the picture and acted on it.
This is the unsexy, essential work of law enforcement that rarely generates headlines until after something goes wrong. It went right this time.
But "this time" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Vought had already received numerous death threats before Demarco appeared at his door. The question isn't whether this particular threat was neutralized. The question is how many more Colin Demarcos are sitting in apartments right now, writing manifestos, checking addresses, and telling themselves they're saving democracy by planning to destroy a man's life in his own driveway.
Imagine the coverage inversion. Imagine a 26-year-old man showing up at a Biden cabinet member's home in 2021 wearing gloves and a surgical mask, caught on camera looking through the mailbox, later found to have written a manifesto with a weapons list and a body disposal guide. Imagine he told agents that Biden's inauguration was the lowest point of his life and that he feared a "communist takeover."
Every network would carry it for a week. Congressional hearings would be announced before lunch. The incident would become a permanent exhibit in the case against right-wing extremism — cited in reports, referenced in legislation, invoked every time a conservative questioned an election result.
DeMarco allegedly tried to murder a sitting OMB director. The silence from the institutions that lecture endlessly about political violence and threats to democracy is its own kind of statement.
For years, the political left has operated under the assumption that its rhetoric carries no consequences — that calling officials fascists, comparing policy proposals to authoritarian coups, and treating every election loss as the death of the republic is simply vigorous democratic participation.
The right gets blamed for "stochastic terrorism" when a podcaster uses a sharp metaphor. The left gets a pass when its entire communications infrastructure runs on apocalyptic language that a 26-year-old takes literally enough to draft a body disposal guide.
This is not a call to regulate speech. It is a call to apply the same standard. If political rhetoric creates a "climate of violence" — a phrase the left deploys with mechanical regularity — then the climate that produced Colin Demarco has an origin, and it isn't conservative talk radio.
DeMarco faces an attempted murder charge in Arlington County. No information about his legal representation, custody status, or plea has been made available. The investigation by the U.S. Marshals Service presumably continues.
Russell Vought, meanwhile, continues to serve as OMB director — now under the protection of federal marshals at his own home. A man whose job is to manage the federal budget now requires armed security because he took a government position, and a segment of the population decided that made him a legitimate target.
That is where we are. A public servant's family lives behind a security detail because a young man consumed enough political hysteria to believe murder was self-defense. The people who built that hysteria will not reflect on it. They never do. They will move on to the next policy fight, the next breathless warning about the end of democracy, the next round of language designed to make their audience believe that the other side isn't just governing — it's conquering.
Colin Demarco believed them. He showed up at the door.
