We failed Robert Paul Westmen. Two children are dead. Fifteen others are injured by Westman. Yes, I’m deadnaming him. One way we failed Westmen is placating his mental illness. He pretended he was Robin and demanded we play along. Because not playing along could cause harm. Our delusion driving hunger for sweet bitterness isn’t healthy. Affirming Westmen’s gender identity got people killed.
I listened to the hymns sung about this tragedy. “Take away the guns!” “We need more reasonable gun control!” “Don’t blame trans people!” All dutifully shouted through social media to get clicks. Because one must as a condition of being included with the fashy set. It can’t be true that the eschatology preached by secular humanism built the gestalt that helped Bob conclude the answer was violence. No, that would be very evil, very apostate.
Westmen had angels and devils talking to him. The angels prayed he would stay faithful and Catholic. The devils sang from a hymnal of resentment and grief. A good Catholic boy coming of age as the tantrum over Orange Foolius arose. So said the voices on social media and in Westmen’s circles, to be included you needed a grievance, a malady, a kink, an addiction and declare oneself to be atheist. God had to be dead, no exceptions.
An Exception
I may be full of shit. If so, so be it. Sometimes, “why?” has no answer. I can speculate about what drove Westmen to shoot through the windows of the Church of the Annunciation, injure fifteen, kill two kids, and end his life. Sweet bitterness is a messed-up characteristic of those whose truth includes grievance as a core belief. I only know Westmen through the headlines. The headlines make me wonder if he chose bitterness, sweet bitterness, as a ticket to inclusion in his tribe.
No, I didn’t view his manifesto posted to YouTube. My choice. I have enough of my own lingering sweet bitterness. I don’t need Westmen’s. I’ve seen enough on social media demonizing my adjectives to feel some kinship to Westmen. He was young, his youth filled with the shade thrown at us, at WASP men like him, like me. We were to blame.
Because to be woke is to be angry at the world you are born into. It isn’t your fault that life sucks. No, it’s [those people, those *ists and *isms]. They are the reason life sucks. And you need a kink because normal isn’t cool. Something about you has to be click worthy. Social media is a clown show, and you just aren’t vibing enough.
Clickety Click Clique Worthy
Westman left behind a four-page manifesto that reads like a tragic confession and a warped justification, “I was corrupted by this world and have learned to hate what life is… I know this is wrong, but I can’t seem to stop myself”. That line alone suggests a mind steeped in torment, possibly convinced that the act was a response to some internal or external command—whether divine, delusional, or ideological.
Police described Westman as having a “deranged obsession with previous mass shooters”, and the attack appears to have been premeditated with the intent to cause maximum trauma and notoriety. There’s no clear evidence yet of external coercion, but the manifesto hints at a haunting surrender to voices or ideologies that had colonized his psyche.
What a brutal eschatology to grow up with—masculinity is suspect, male-coded traits are dangerous, trans identity is not just accepted—it’s celebrated as brave, enlightened, and socially rewarded. Westmen, coming through puberty, hearing that his gender is to blame, can reasonably conclude that he should be a woman. Because he wants friends and is among peers who celebrate trans-identity. In that environment, a young man doesn’t just ask who am I? —he asks what version of me will be safe, loved, and seen? If the answer is “not male,” then yes, the pivot to trans identity can feel not only reasonable, but redemptive.
Guns are the Problem
I can imagine a through-line where a tween boy transitions only to arrive at escalated conflict. Now with hormone fueled anger. If extreme enough, murder. But guns are the problem—Westmen the ersatz hero. A sixth pillar after grievance, malady, kink, addiction and athiesm—the dictum that blue tribe members are never at fault.
Puberty doesn’t pause for ideology. Hormones surge, even if redirected. Anger blooms—not because of identity, but because of unresolved grief and unmet expectations. The promised belonging never fully arrives, instead of transition making things smoother the body feels alien and the mind feels betrayed. Last, the boy-now-girl is still treated with suspicion, still unsafe. Woo.
Robin was trying to fit in, trying to be good. But the means of being good were all corrupt. When Robin erupts—whether in rage, violence, or collapse because he believed the catechism. He blamed himself when it failed to deliver peace. We said, “erase your masculine self so you can be loved.” Perfect.
The Hand We Are Dealt
We don’t choose our parents. Nor is our gender fungible. Some of us are born with hot dogs, others are born with clams. Hormone therapy and surgery won’t change our gender. It is butchery to create a lie. Surgery to turn a hot dog into a clam creates a new problem. The body treats the new clam like a wound and tries to heal it over. Cutting the body to cosplay as a different gender becomes an incurable chronic condition. Because this is the better way. And our parents made mistakes.
No amount of performative street protests or propaganda on social media can change that. Someone who completed their transition arrives with an addiction to hormone therapy and a painful, mutilated body. Turns out we can only cosplay as our fantasy of a better body. We can’t truly change who we were born as.
This was our gift to Westmen—he is a victim of the power structures controlling his life. He also is told he has no agency. He is white so in addition to not having agency Westmen inherited the label of patriarchy. So good to be among the oppressor class, right? This miserable zeitgeist is immutable. His fate is set and it can’t get better. Fantastic.
After Failure, Hope
We failed Westmen. That story is tragic. I have no better answers to “why” than anyone else. Hope can be found, though. First the brutal eschatology promulgated by my boomer peers is losing the culture war. We indulged in utopian fantasies where we could have all seven deadly sins without consequence. Our grandkids are tired of us.
Indulge me for a sentence or two. My version of the abuse cycle: explosive or ecstatic event, depression, apology, honeymoon, calm, repeat. Westmen grew up in the ecstatic event of Obama’s rise followed by the slow revealing of leadership failure with Biden. We skipped apology, honeymoon, and calm to roll right into this explosive event: Salmon Vodemort.
Trump’s election to office as our forty-seventh president is a symptom of the end of a century old empire. Starting with Woodrow Wilson we’ve had more or less of socialist rule. Westen, I believe, ingested the core beliefs of his community. Democrat, Socialist, Woke, pick your label.
The hope is the fading power of socialism. Obama was the god-king who would begin a thousand-year dynasty. He left office to play golf instead. Westmen was 14 when Obama lost. Promises made, promises not kept. It became Cheeto Satan’s fault.
Now What?
Now we see more sunrises and sunsets. It is Labor Day as I write this. The kids start school or have started school this week. The Monday things at work will happen Tuesday. Time keeps moving along. We are still here. Kids need us. The job we have still needs us. It’s all very unremarkable and necessary. Yeah. “Do what?” I don’t know. Do what seems best.
I do desire something. Social media and major news outlets make money on sweet bitterness. Bitterness generating salacious content is a huge revenue stream for social media. Ditto news outlets like CNN and Fox News. The thing I desire is be entertained but be careful about making impactful choices based on the media junk food served up.
Some more of what’s in my desire: people and spiritual life. The tribe I write shade about tells us that we are oppressed or oppressor. My adjectives put me among the oppressors. I worry that Westmen heard critical theory as a challenge to him. I hope he didn’t feel the insult “oppressor” as a personal label. That’s a rough thing to tag a young man with.
People because right from the beginning God saw that Adam wouldn’t be complete without a helpmate. He made us to be in relationships, starting with our spouses, expanding to our family, then close friends, and rippling out from there.
Spiritual Life
This isn’t an altar call. If you find the martyred stone mason from Nazareth to be speaking truth to you, awesome. Otherwise, find your people. Be careful though. There are problematic congregations out there. Faith challenges you. But it should make you healthier.
I grew up Presbyterian. Westmen and I share a youthful rebellion against our childhood worship. Crucial difference–I didn’t buy a bunch of guns to shoot people and kill myself. I backslid and came back because I could ask questions and challenge the pastors in the churches I joined. Earl Palmer was Senior Pastor when I joined First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley.
“That saved a wretch like me . . .” Me? I need Jesus. By myself I am a hot mess. Low impulse control, anger management issues, default mode is loner, a little sweet bitterness clinging to my skin. Then all my adjectives–WASP, wife beater, and near-do-well. Because of Jesus, of decades of discipleship, I’m pretty good. I was/am a hard case. Odds were ?are? things wouldn’t go well. But today I’m happy with who I am.
What’s Up With Westman?
I don’t know. Not sure I will ever know. “Why?” doesn’t always have an answer. I don’t like pursuing, “Why?” It tended to keep me chained to the explosive event.
For me, “how” is better. Not, “how did this happen?” Instead, “how shall I live to improve things in my circle of influence”. In the end, all we can do is trust God and keep on keeping on. That has to be good enough.
❖ ❖ ❖
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