Our New Crisis: 'Violent Losers' Who Copy Each Other

Alleged attacks by perpetrators who seem to lean left are on the rise, writes Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times. But Goldberg writes that men such as Luigi Mangione, Tyler Robinson, and Joshua Jahn are "less men of the left than men of the internet." Goldberg, a liberal, acknowledges that "this might sound like a rationalization," but she makes the case that the internet is breeding a dangerous new breed of copycat killer—"loners lashing out, cloaking their personal grievances and homicidal impulses in political rationales." This kind of violence is "particularly hard to counter," and Goldberg fears President Trump is only going to make things worse.

• "It should go without saying that Trump's plan to wage war on his enemies will do precisely nothing to address this building crisis. But as long as America is a country awash in guns and choking on hatred, full of people retreating into the disembodied half-life of the internet, it's hard to see what will."

Read the full column, in which Goldberg writes that we need "a base-line social compact about the speech private platforms should allow and promote." In the meantime, "we're stuck in a ratchet, where violent losers copy one another, and their deeds become an excuse to oppress the rest of us."