Unabomber Admirers, He Wasn't the Man You Thought

Suspected CEO shooter Luigi Mangione appears to have been an admirer of the Unabomber, writes author Maxim Loskutoff in a guest essay at the New York Times. Mangione posted a glowing review of the Unabomber's manifesto online and—like a surprising number of young men—appears to have embraced Ted Kaczynski's anti-corporate anarchist mindset, writes Loskutoff. "But what is lost in this lionization of one of the most notorious terrorists in American history is that for Mr. Kaczynski, the desire to kill came first, and the ideological justifications followed," he adds. For proof, don't just read Kaczynski's manifesto, read his personal diaries. They show the true man.

"Lonely rage defined him, and he spent far more time tormenting his neighbors than he did on his grandiose plans to bring down industrial society," writes Loskutoff. "He killed dogs for their barking, strung razor wire across dirt bike paths and fantasized about murdering a neighboring toddler." His anarchist manifesto was just a "con" to lure susceptible people into his dark world, writes Loskutoff, who suspects Mangione fell into this trap. He looks for all the world to be "a young man with a promising start in life lost in naïve convictions, and poisoned by his newly formed and corrupt ideology." Read the full essay. (More Ted Kaczynski stories.)