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Rod Dreher: What the San Diego Mosque Shooters Believed
Women embrace after a shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego, on May 18, 2026. (Mike Blake via Reuters)
The teenage killers’ manifesto contains ominous echoes of the past, and is a dark warning of our future.
By Rod Dreher
05.21.26 — U.S. Politics
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What kind of hatred motivated the teenage San Diego mosque shooters, who killed three men and died in a murder-suicide before capture? Well, take your pick.

According to the 75-page unfinished manifesto left behind by Caleb Vazquez, 18, and Cain Clark, 17, the pair hated Muslims, Jews, blacks, legal migrants, illegal migrants, Latinos, Asians, industrial society, gays, trans people, Donald Trump, “MAGAtard boomers,” liberals, conservatives, moderates, and women.

Oh boy, did they hate women. “After the Jew the most evil creature in this world is the woman,” wrote Vazquez, in his contribution to the two-part document. He identifies himself as a short man on the autism spectrum. This, he believed, is why women ignored him.

“Being short, especially now more than ever, is nothing short [of] a torturous humiliation ritual. As someone who’s been short my whole life, trust me, I know from experience and they’ve never let me forget it.”

“When a girl is shy or introverted it’s cute, but I, as a guy, for being the exact same, am seen as weird and awkward,” he continued. “When a girl is autistic it is seen as quirky, but I, being an autist as a guy, am treated like a retard.”

The manifesto reads like what you might expect teenagers marinated 24/7 in intersecting currents of internet hate to produce: crude, stupid, self-pitying, and overflowing with rage at all the people these self-described National Socialist Ecofascists identify as the Enemy. Clark calls himself a Christian, but Vazquez, who is Latino, said, “my religion is the white race.” In fact, Vazquez acknowledges that some will consider him a Latino who pretends to be white, “but that’s honestly fine and I could care less.”

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Rod Dreher
Rod Dreher is an American journalist and author of the Substack Rod Dreher's Diary. His most recent book is Living in Wonder, and he is currently working on a new book exploring the parallels between 1920s Germany and 2020s America.
Tags:
Crime
California
Political Violence
Faith
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