Remember Thomas Crooks?
How quickly we moveon, to our detriment.
Crooksis the 20-year-old man who tried to kill Donald Trump. For a time, we all wanted to know his name.
You can blame his transienceon social media, and you wouldn't be entirely wrong. You can try to rationalize thatby sayingsocial media is not real life. But for some, like manyin Crooks' generation, social mediais where life is lived, for better and often for worse.
Trump was not yet at a hospital before social media platforms were awash in dark humor. Memes ran rampant. Some were gleeful that Trump had been shot, manywere angry even if that meant Trump became a hero. Somethrew shade at people taking the matter seriously, at our politics in general, at the idea that this was something to worry about.
The apathy was obvious, the desensitization to violence alarming. And then the circus moved on, the attempted assassination of a past and possibly future president reduced to a TikTok sideshow that flares and quickly fades. Now we're several hundredtrends removedfrom the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania just eight days ago.
Mainstream media, too, seems to be moving on. Now the shootingis being parsed for its impact on the campaign and specifically on Trump himself, and for what it reveals about Secret Service failures.
And now we're starting to lose sight of Crooks and, more importantly,the urgency to understand what brought him to that rally with murderous intent, placinghim in the company of so many others who have committed similarly dark and violent acts.
Social media might well be part of the toxic broth in which young men like Crooks are cultured. But what else is in it? It's important tokeep asking questions and searchingfor answers.
So we grasp at shards of what we want to callevidence.This post. That tweet. The politics of the parents. The bullying in the school cafeteria. The way he dressed. The music helistened to. Theway hesat by himself.
Crooks searched online for both Trump and President Joe Biden, looked up rally dates for both, and had on his phone photos of Attorney General Merrick Garland and a member of the British royal family.Was the shooting political?
He searched online for information about Michigan high school mass murderer Ethan Crumbley and the parents who bought him a gun, and for lessons in how to make explosives. Did he want to go out in a blaze of glory?
He searchedonline for informationabout major depressive disorder and treatment for it. Was he going through the kind of crisis that often precipitatesmass shootings?
The vacuum of certainty was briefly filled by a post on a gaming site allegedto be fromCrooks saying he would be making his "premiere" on the day of the shooting, but it was soon shown to be a fake accountand the grasping for answers continued.
He had been bullied inschool, butgraduated fromcommunity college in May with an associate degree in engineering science. He was kind. He was quiet. He was a loner.
He might have had father issues. So did rocker Bruce Springsteen and painter Paul Cezanne. Ernest Hemingway had problems with his mother. None of them tried to shoot their way out of their problems. Crooks' home was filled with guns.Do we need more homes filled withguitars,paintbrushes and pens?
What, in other words, goes into the stew that makesyoung men like Crooks? How do we make sense of the random clues? What enables them? What triggers them? What is the balm?
So much is unknown and will remain so, if wecast Crooks and his like aside asjust another fleeting spectacle.
Columnist Michael Dobie's opinions are his own.
Michael Dobie is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
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Puzzling anatomy of Trump's would-be assassin - Newsday