On the menu today: The mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Ill., raises questions about the culture of angry young men in America, and we take a quick look at the Illinois gubernatorial race.
Horror in Highland Park
Yesterday’s horror at Highland Park’s Fourth of July parade is yet another case of an angry and seemingly disturbed young man “known to law enforcement” whose social-media feed “videos foretell his alleged violent acts.” In one, he “appears to dramatize a school shooting. In another video, [he] appears to animate his own demise in a confrontation with police.” He “left a long trail of tributes to mass shootings and public killings on social media platforms, according to numerous profiles that appear to belong to him.”
This is going to spur yet another round of arguments about gun control, but many of us who don’t hang around angry young men are left wondering about a separate issue: How many guys like this are out there? How many social-media accounts feature “long trails of tributes to mass shootings and public killings”? Just how many posts along those lines does a person have to publish before the company that operates the social-media platform contacts law enforcement? (Doesn’t this put the suspensions of the parody site the Babylon Bee, which seem to occur with metronomic regularity, in perspective?)
Are there far too many social-media accounts with material glorifying mass shootings to investigate? Is this just a way people strike rebellious poses or try to be edgy these days?
Back in 2018, the New York Times published an in-depth and surprisingly revealing look at what it characterized as the contagious nature of mass shootings, and what it characterized as a “Columbiner” online subculture:
The May 18 mass shooting at Santa Fe provides the latest evidence of a phenomenon that researchers have in recent years come to recognize, but are still unable to explain: The mass shootings that are now occurring with disturbing regularity at the nation’s schools are shocking, disturbing, tragic — and seemingly contagious.
Interviews with law enforcement officials, educators, researchers, students and a gunman’s mother, as well as a review of court documents, academic studies and the writings of killers and would-be killers, show that the school-shooting copycat syndrome has grown more pervasive and has steadily escalated in recent years. And much of it can be traced back to the two killers at Columbine, previously ordinary high school students who have achieved dark folk hero status — their followers often known as “Columbiners” — in the corners of the internet where their carefully planned massacre is remembered, studied and in some cases even celebrated.
Investigators say school shootings have become the American equivalent of suicide bombings — not just a tactic, but an ideology. Young men, many of them depressed, alienated or mentally disturbed, are drawn to the Columbine subculture because they see it as a way to lash out at the world and to get the attention of a society that they believe bullies, ignores or misunderstands them.
Jillian Peterson, an associate professor of criminology at Hamline University, and James Densley, a professor of criminal justice at Metro State University, studied mass shooters and put together a profile of their most common traits:
Peterson: There’s this really consistent pathway. Early childhood trauma seems to be the foundation, whether violence in the home, sexual assault, parental suicides, extreme bullying. Then you see the build toward hopelessness, despair, isolation, self-loathing, oftentimes rejection from peers. That turns into a really identifiable crisis point where they’re acting differently. Sometimes they have previous suicide attempts.
What’s different from traditional suicide is that the self-hate turns against a group. They start asking themselves, “Whose fault is this?” Is it a racial group or women or a religious group, or is it my classmates? The hate turns outward. There’s also this quest for fame and notoriety.
Where does this anger come from — an anger so dark and so deep that it makes someone want to point a rifle at a child and pull the trigger? Where does this sense of entitlement come from, to believe that your problems are so severe, so unique, and so abominable, that they justify mass murder?
We don’t know a lot about the Highland Park shooting suspect, but apparently, his father ran for mayor in 2019. The alleged shooter was an aspiring rapper with a face full of tattoos and an IMDb page on which he calls himself a “phenom,” and that features the seemingly false boast that one of his songs “amassed millions of plays so far across online streaming platforms.”
Was it just that this young man thought that by age 22, he should have been a superstar? Did he conclude that the world and his life was epically unjust because he hadn’t achieved fame and fortune yet? His songs and videos, full of blood-spattered violence, reimagine his life as being full of carnage and mischief and deadly conflicts — power fantasies that showcase his toughness and fearlessness.
Meanwhile, his reality was mundane; he is the son of a businessman who lives in the affluent suburb where John Hughes set many of his 1980s teen-movie classics, and the Chicago Bulls have their practice facility. Vanity Fair once declared that, “Highland Park has the feel of a gated community without the actual gates.” No doubt, compared to his lurid, bloody fantasies, his life was boring and safe and disappointing.
Was it just to deal with that gap between fantasy and reality that this young man — allegedly — picked up a rifle and shot 32 people, killing six?
Meanwhile, in the Governor’s Race . . .
One of my readers in the area noted that the Illinois Republican gubernatorial nominee, Darren Bailey, posted a video that, after calling for prayers for the shooting victims, declared, “Let’s move on and let’s celebrate — celebrate the independence of this nation.”
As much as there may be that sentiment of “If we cancel our holiday celebration plans, then the gunman wins,” many people in and around Highland Park and other parts of Illinois didn’t feel like celebrating yesterday. It’s hard to begrudge people feeling too overwhelmed with grief, shock, and anger to feel good about their country at that moment.
Incumbent Democratic governor J. B. Pritzker was already ahead by 13 points in the first post-primary poll; as recently as March, Illinois Democrats were worried about Pritzker. Despite the perception of Illinois being a heavily Democratic state, Republicans won the gubernatorial races in Illinois in 2014 and every race from 1976 to 1998, and Mark Kirk won the Senate race in 2010. In a good year for the GOP like this one, Republicans should have a shot at beating Pritzker, or at least make him sweat.
Bailey is the Trump-endorsed candidate who “benefited from tens of millions in Democratic Party advertising, with Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker and allies figuring Bailey would be the more beatable candidate to face in November.”
This reader fumes, “Bailey is truly one of the dumbest state level politicians elected in the country. . . . The Pritzker plan is to destroy the ‘Trump loving’ Bailey in Illinois and show Democrats nationwide he’s the candidate who can take it to Trump in 2024. He’s unique in the sense that he has the resources to outlast a weak field [of Democratic rivals]. . . . It’s obvious to many, but maybe not to a lot of Republicans, but the horrendous ‘Trump picks’ are adding up. Walker in Georgia, Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, and Bailey in Illinois.”
Herschel Walker hasn’t led a Georgia Senate-race poll since April. The Pennsylvania Senate race is still considered a toss-up, but Oz was last seen trailing by nine points to a guy whom no one has seen on the campaign trail for more than a month because he’s recovering from a life-threatening stroke. And so far, there’s little sign that Pritzker is sweating his reelection bid much.
ADDENDA: Today is July 5, and I have long argued that this day should be a national holiday. Sure, it may seem self-interested to call for my birthday to be a day off for everyone in America, but let’s face it: There’s an excellent chance you’re dragging yourself to work or summer school this morning after enjoying the fireworks late last night.
Speaking of Independence Day, yesterday, Greg and I broke from our usual format on Three Martini Lunch to each come up with three aspects of America that we love, and that probably aren’t appreciated enough. Check it out.