America Has A Loser Problem

It’s not any less awful for being so familiar.

The last three high-profile attacks that have convulsed the nation, two in just the past week or so, have been carried out by fringe loners who fit the stereotype of the perpetrators of such crimes precisely — they didn’t fit in, they were “off,” they kept to themselves.

The word that comes up again and again in accounts of their lives is “alone,” always alone.

The life of Cesar Sayoc, who mailed crude pipe bombs to Democrats ranging from George Soros to Hillary Clinton to Robert De Niro, was a pitiable wreck. His father abandoned his family as a child, and after dropping out of college, Sayoc lived with his grandmother. Then he went from place to place, performing as a male stripper. He compiled a record of petty crime, lost his home, declared bankruptcy and carried around what money he had in a briefcase, because he didn’t trust the banks. He was estranged from his family and resisted its pleas for him to get help. Sayoc lived out of his van, bizarrely festooned with pro-Trump stickers.

Not much is known about Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter, besides his vile social-media postings. A childhood friend called him “pretty much a ghost.” He may have dropped out of high school. As an adult, he lived alone in an apartment, and no one ever came to see him. One neighbor said she couldn’t remember Bowers ever talking to anyone. “I don’t know,” another said, “if he had any friends, anywhere.”