The Media Is Hiding Cole Allen's Ties To A Far-Left Group That Advised Biden. Now The Evidence Is Vanishing From Their Website.

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Why White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooter Cole Tomas Allen’s reported link to a group known as “The Wide Awakes” receiving such little scrutiny from the media?

The name is associated with an arts-and-music-adjacent activist collective that describes itself as a creative, pro-democracy movement inspired by the original Civil War-era Wide Awakes. That’s what the media wants you to believe.

But that cultural collective is not the only relevant use of the term: a mainstream progressive group’s own materials repeatedly reference “Wide Awakes” as a direct-action protest tactic. Including specifically targeting the tactic towards Hilton hotels, where the WHCD took place, due to their hospitality of ICE agents in Minnesota.

Though the artsy “Wide Awakes” have denied any affiliation with Allen, the media seems hesitant to probe any further. Given that the relationship was reported by Allen’s sister to law enforcement (read: highly credible), you’d think it would garner more interest. For even more proof, they’re also part of the No Kings movement, which Allen reportedly attended.

The real reason why not?

It leads back to mainstream left-wing donors, protest infrastructure and a coverup — including deleted webpages.

Enter the Sunrise Movement, the left-wing youth climate group that became famous for Green New Deal pressure campaigns and Democratic Party agitation. It has used “Wide Awakes” as the name of a direct-action protest tactic for years. The group revived the term in 2020, promoted “Wide Awake” actions against Republican politicians, and now uses the same language in a recent anti-ICE campaign targeting Hilton hotels.

Now, the same hotel chain whose Washington, D.C. property hosted the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

Sunrise Movement’s Democratic pipeline

Sunrise Movement is often presented as a youth climate group, but its influence has long extended into Democratic politics.

Its own website describes the group as “the climate revolution” and says it is building a movement around climate, housing, jobs, public transportation, and community power. L

InfluenceWatch notes that Sunrise “played a significant role in the early days of Joe Biden’s presidency” and reports that, according to The Hill, Sunrise had been in “regular contact” with Biden administration officials as Biden moved on environmental priorities, including halting Keystone XL construction and restricting fossil fuel activity on federal lands.

Sunrise also sits inside the familiar progressive funding architecture.

The Guardian reported in October 2025 that Sunrise had received $2.1 million from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations from 2019 to 2023.

Other reports have traced earlier Soros-linked funding. The Washington Free Beacon reported that Open Society Foundations gave $500,000 to Sunrise in 2019, and that Democracy PAC, described as heavily funded by Soros, contributed $250,000 to Sunrise’s political action committee in April 2020.

InfluenceWatch also lists 2019 grants to Sunrise Movement including $175,000 from Tides Advocacy and $28,750 from the Tides Foundation, placing Sunrise within the broader mainstream progressive donor infrastructure.

The deleted page Sunrise no longer shows the public

The strongest receipt is the one Sunrise appears to have deleted from its website.

Sunrise previously maintained a page titled “Summer 2020 — Wide Awake Actions” at a URL that now returns “Not Found / Error 404.”

Archive records show the page was captured as late as December 2025 before disappearing from public view.

What the archive shows is explosive.

The deleted page said Sunrise hubs around the country were “inspired by a century-old tactic developed by the Wide Awakes,” which it described as “a pre-civil war abolitionist movement of 100,000-500,000 young people demanding urgent action on slavery.”

Sunrise then explained the tactic: “This group gathered and made noise to make themselves impossible to ignore.”

Then came the modern adaptation. The now-deleted page declared:

“When our government does nothing to stop federal agents from snatching us off the streets… we will shout and sing at their doors from dusk until dawn and make them hear us.”

And then the warning:

“We are wide awake and we’ll ensure that the architects of this death economy will be too.”

The deleted page also listed actual Sunrise “Wide Awake” actions, including actions targeting Mitch McConnell, Thom Tillis, Baltimore officials, and Cleveland figures.

Several pictures revealing protesters with signs glaring with “Wide awake” were also on the webpage.

The Hilton playbook

The tactic did not disappear with the deleted page. In fact, it was used as recently as the violent protests against ICE in Minnesota, as shown below:

Sunrise’s current “ICE OUT FOR GOOD” campaign uses the same phrase and applies it to hotels.

The campaign accuses ICE of relying on “hotels, restaurants, car rental companies, airports, universities, local government officials, and more” and then identifies hotels as the target. “Right now, we’re targeting hotels,” Sunrise says. “We’ve got two tactics: Wide Awakes (in person), and mass bookings (online).”

Under the section “What are Wide Awakes?” Sunrise defines the tactic in language that should be read closely:

“Wide Awakes are pretty much what they sound like. You and your friends show up outside a Hilton and make so much noise that ICE agents can’t get a good night’s sleep, sending a strong message to the hotel that your community doesn’t want them housing an occupying army.”

The same campaign contains a section titled “Tell Hilton to stop housing ICE,” where Sunrise says activists have been “booking out Hilton hotels,” using refundable reservations, then cancelling them “last minute” while telling Hilton why.

This is a two-front Hilton pressure campaign: physical disruption outside hotels and online booking warfare against the reservation system. The name of the physical tactic is “Wide Awakes.”

That is what makes the Washington Hilton detail so hard to wave away. Allen’s alleged attack took place at the Washington Hilton.

“Our generation is done asking nicely”

Sunrise’s older writings make the ideology behind the Wide Awakes even clearer.

In a July 2020 article titled “How Sunrise is giving 100-year-old tactics new life in the revolution,” Sunrise described young activists showing up outside the homes of politicians and then asked:

“So why are young people around the country interrupting the sleep of local politicians?”

Its answer was blunt:

“Because it works.”

The article said the tactics were inspired by the Wide Awakes, “a pro-abolition mass youth movement in the 1860s” that “turned anti-abolition representatives’ lives into waking nightmares.”

Then Sunrise framed the escalation as generational necessity:

“We were born into crisis, inheriting a failing world. We tried signing petitions. We tried calling and visiting government offices. Through it all, most politicians ignored us. Now, we’re taking actions they cannot ignore. Our generation is done asking nicely.”

The rhetoric only escalated from there:

“This is not just an uprising, it’s a mothaf*cking haunting.”

Sunrise went on to vow:

“We will make their lives a waking nightmare.”

And the article closed by tying the tactic to abolition and Reconstruction:

“Our generation will fight for true abolition and complete the unfinished work of the Reconstruction.”

The actual question

The question is not whether the Sunrise Movement pulled a trigger.

The question is why Allen’s reported “Wide Awakes” link is being treated as some obscure cultural breadcrumb when Sunrise Movement itself has spent years attaching that phrase to a concrete left-wing protest tactic.

A Sunrise “Wide Awake Actions” page existed. It is now gone from the live site. Archives show it was still captured as late as December 2025. The page documented Sunrise’s use of “Wide Awake” actions against political targets. Sunrise’s current anti-ICE campaign revives the same label and tells activists to conduct “Wide Awakes” outside Hilton hotels.

Allen reportedly attended No Kings marches. Sunrise has publicly invoked No Kings as part of the same anti-Trump activist moment. Sunrise has been in contact with Democratic administrations and has received major progressive funding. And the alleged attack happened at the Washington Hilton.

That is not an art-world footnote.

That is a left-wing protest trail hiding in plain sight.