Brothers in arms - Vester Flanagan, Dylann Roof & Ayoub El-Khazzani: Column

With Vester Flanagan dead, we’ll never know the full story of why he allegedly opened fire on TV reporter Alison Parker and video journalist Adam Ward. But beyond being both angry and mentally off kilter, Flanagan has a deeper connection to both Dylann Roof, who allegedly killed nine in a Charleston church this summer, and Ayoub El-Khazzani, who was apprehended by three Americans before he could slaughter civilians on a French train last weekend.

If you read the sad biographies of all three men, there is a thread of failure to thrive in an increasingly complicated world, of being run over by the 21st century. The trio thought of themselves as victims. And they reached back to a comforting us vs. them tribalism in an imaginary world more to their liking.

They are not alone in that feeling, and we can expect more violence from those who feel the same way.

You can see the us vs. them mentality in our own politics. Donald Trump’s cynical and dishonest populism taps into a vein of white anxiety and a nationalism that bleeds from patriotism into xenophobia. His popularity shows there is a market for ideas that have failed and failed again.

You can see the imaginary world in the quaint, happy-faced socialism offered by Bernie Sanders. Just as race and nationalism have combined so often to create bloody disaster, most recently in the Balkans and Central Africa, the empty promises of socialism have turned into economic chaos time after time, as in Greece and Venezuela. Bloodshed and repression often go hand in hand.

And you can see the tribalism seeking to regain imaginary glory overseas. Russia’s territorial aggression and bluster in the Ukraine, bare-chested President Vladimir Putin and a propaganda machine that has the Russians living in another reality all focus on reviving a time when the stagnant nation was considered a global leader.

We’ve been where Trump, Sanders and Putin would lead us. In each case, we know how the story ends. But anxiety creates a ready market for such snake oil.

The same failure to thrive in our complicated world that binds the three accused killers, and the similar anxiety about the future among a broader class of people, is what drives thousands of Westerners with more opportunity than anywhere else into the arms of the Islamic State terrorist group. Perhaps the scope of that opportunity and the challenge of finding a place in a confusing, complicated world are what drive vulnerable teens to embrace something simpler, a world where it's easy to see the forces of good and evil, even if that world is backward and barbaric.

The irony is that our technologically advanced world — even as it sows seeds of alienation and resentment among those who do not understand it — is also fueling their delusional ambitions. You can see it in Flanagan’s Glock, as refined a piece of killer engineering as you’ll ever see; in the global reach of the racist Web page that inspired Roof; and in the gleaming high-speed train that gathered Khazzani’s potential victims. ISIL, and its sixth century agenda, wouldn’t be thriving without the global audience and the electronic marvels that 21st century capitalism offers them.

As the shock wears off from the pointless Wednesday morning killings, the debate is already turning to guns and mental health, workplace violence and partisan politics. I fear that as we grapple with obvious challenges, we'll miss the bigger one that seems to loom larger by the day.

David Mastio is USA TODAY's deputy editorial page editor.