If there was any lingering doubt about the moral unraveling of parts of American society, the scene outside Manhattan Supreme Court this week should erase it.
They call themselves the Mangionistas. They wear handmade bracelets. They camp out in sub-zero temperatures. They chant. They cry. They compare a man credibly accused of cold-blooded assassination to Robin Hood. They refer to him in saintly terms, sell candles bearing his image, and hang on his every wardrobe choice like it’s divine symbolism.
This isn’t satire. It’s happening.
Luigi Mangione, 27, is accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel in December of 2024. His alleged motive? To make a political statement about America’s health insurance system. “These parasites had it coming,” he reportedly wrote in a note found on his person. Prosecutors believe it was premeditated, ideologically motivated, and targeted.
Let’s be clear: this was not whistleblowing. It was murder.
And yet, thousands of self-anointed activists—overwhelmingly young women, and some older ones proudly branding themselves as “Cougars for Luigi”—have made Mangione into a folk hero. They praise him as a “soldier for the American people.” They call his victim a “terrorist.” They equate private health insurance with mass murder, and his alleged act of violence as righteous vengeance.
Let that sink in.
They are not arguing that Mangione is innocent. In fact, their reverence depends on the assumption that he is guilty. This is no miscarriage-of-justice crusade. It’s not “Free the Innocent.” It’s “He did it—and we’re glad.”
It’s difficult to overstate just how poisonous this moment is. This isn’t civil disobedience. It’s not even activism. It is the deification of political violence, wrapped in hashtags and Tumblr fan fiction. It’s what happens when victimhood becomes a personality and moral clarity collapses under the weight of groupthink.
Psychologists are warning that this behavior is the product of a generation raised in a digital world of extremes. Binary thinking. No nuance. No spectrum. Just us versus them, good versus evil, Luigi versus the “capitalist machine.” But that doesn’t make it less dangerous—it makes it more so.
Even some left-leaning figures are alarmed. Reverend Jeff Hood, an anti-death penalty activist, warned that the “religion of Luigi” is becoming something unrecognizable. Something cultish. Something obsessive. And yet, it’s growing. He’s received more than 6,000 letters while jailed. Reddit groups with thousands of members analyze his court attire for secret messages. Volunteers maintain a Stats 4 Lulu project, tracking data about his case like it’s fantasy football.
This is a level of cultural derangement that goes far beyond politics. This is the celebration of a man accused of assassination. This is a society segment declaring: “So long as we hate the same people, anything goes.”
Even more chilling, prosecutors believe Mangione has already inspired copycat violence, including a mass shooting at NFL headquarters in July. If true, that would make Mangione’s cult not just morally bankrupt, but actively lethal.
What’s happening now is a collision between personal grievance and public hysteria—where emotion is weaponized, where justice is optional, and where murder becomes performance art if it aligns with the right narrative.
And let’s not forget the real victim here: Brian Thompson, a husband, father, friend—not a monster, not a caricature, but a man who was executed for being an executive. His death is being laughed at, memed, and mythologized by a generation that’s decided their feelings are more important than someone else’s life.
