Steve, my historian husband, often says that the world’s biggest problems happen when too many young men are unemployed, disconnected, and discontent. He wrote his dissertation on the interwar years in Germany, so he’s always on the lookout for emergent fascist dictators. (He’s fun at parties, too!) My vigilant husband likes to say that the best way to avoid upheavals and civil wars is to give those guys jobs and babies. 

There are plenty of warning signs to keep my husband on edge. America’s young menare underemployed, single, depressed, and glued to their computers and game consoles. Their votes for Trump this November were rooted in nihilism, despair, and populism. But populism doesn’t necessarily have to be a conservative force. That same energy is also brewing in anti-capitalist Reddit forums that worship Bernie Sanders, not Donald Trump. 

On December 4th, Luigi Mangione, a handsome young man who looks like a Jonas brother, cooly gunned down the CEO of United Healthcare in the streets of Manhattan. Outraged by profiteering in the insurance industry and plagued by unknown demons, a smart young man used a 3D-printed gun to commit this act of violence. But unlike other shooters and assassins — who even remembers the guy who shot Trump this summer — Mangione is the face of a new social movement.

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