The sad irony of the Charlie Kirk assassination is that it was allegedly accomplished by one of the “lost boys” of America he was trying to save.
He is Tyler Robinson, 22, who police have charged with Kirk’s murder.
Part of Charlie Kirk’s mission through Turning Point USA was to save lost, lonely, resentful and vulnerable young men like the one who was charged with killing him.
Robinson, a radicalized college dropout, is one of the lost boys in their early twenties who, filled with hate spread over the internet, have become disengaged from society, out of work, out of education, out of hope.
Others include Hunter Nadeau, 23, who allegedly shot up a wedding venue at the Sky Meadow Country Club in Nashua a week ago. The unemployed Nadeau lived in a condo with his grandmother.
He shouted, “free Palestine” and allegedly killed Robert Steven DeCesare, 59, who he did not even know.
Or there is Luigi Mangione, 26, a well-educated Ivy Leaguer who is accused of shooting UnitedHealthcare executive Bryan Thompson in the back, killing him with a 9mm pistol in Midtown Manhattan last December.
Or there is Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, who used an A-15-syle rifle to shoot and wound Donald Trump at a political rally in Butler, PA on July 13, 2024. A Secret Service agent killed crooks.
The “lost boys” appear to follow a pattern. They live with or off their parents. They do not work or have fulfilling and meaningful jobs. They do not marry. They have no children. They have no friends.
They live meaningless lonely lives and assuage their loneliness by searching for the dark sites on the internet, of which there are many.
When they come up for air after scouring the sewer sites on the internet, they hear hateful politicians, mostly crazed Democrats, accuse President Trump of being Hitler and his supporters Nazis.
Brainwashed, they feel compelled to do something, anything. So, they act. And even when they kill, or try to, they do it alone, like the ICE-hating loner Joshua John, 29, did at the ICE detention center in Dallas last week.
Some twenty-five years ago, before the establishment of the internet, author Robert D. Putnam published “Bowling Alone,” a study of the decline of social interaction in the U.S
He used the decline in bowling teams as an example of how the teams were replaced by individuals bowling alone and thereby losing out on social engagement and interaction.
Were Putnam to write that book today, a suggested title would be “Trolling Alone,” because that is what the lost boys do day after day, night after night. They troll the internet alone, and the results are what you see,
Kirk was a political figure, to be sure. But he was also a social and religious one as well. He believed in engagement, In faith and family. He believed you could disagree with a person yet defend his right to free speech.
It was best put in an amazing talk by Charlie’s wife Erika at Kirk’s memorial.
She said, “Charlie passionately wanted to save the Lost Boys of the West, the young men who feel like they have no direction, no purpose, no faith, and no reason to live on, the men wasting their lives on distractions, and the men consumed with resentment, anger and hate. Charlie wanted to help them.
“He wanted them to have a home with Turning Point USA, and when he went to campuses, he was looking to show them a better place and a better life that was right there for the taking. He wanted to show them that.
“He wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life.”
Then she forgave him, she said, because that is what Christ did to his tormentors.
Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com.