I’ve written about the Luigi Mangione case before.
But this post isn’t really about him.
And it certainly isn’t about taking the side of Luigi or the CEO who was killed.
This is something different.
This is about what this case says about us.
Let me start with something that shouldn’t even have to be controversial:
What happened to that CEO was awful.
I don’t care if you thought he was a terrible person. I don’t care if you thought he represented everything wrong with the healthcare system. I don’t care if you think he had too much power over other people’s lives.
A person lost their life.
That matters.
At the same time, we also shouldn’t pretend that powerful people are automatically above criticism, or that their actions and the consequences those actions have on other people don’t matter.
Both things can be true.
Someone can have done things you strongly disagree with.
And you can still believe they shouldn’t be murdered.
Because this isn’t really about whether someone “deserved it.”
It’s about what happens when we start accepting vigilantism as a legitimate way of dealing with people we have grievances against.
And that’s where Luigi becomes a test.
A litmus test.
Because allegedly, whatever else was going on, there was a personal grievance involved.
And all of us have grievances.
All of us have people we’re angry with.
All of us have people who have hurt us, pissed us off, betrayed us, screwed us over, or made our lives harder.
Does that mean we get to kill them?
No.
Obviously not.
Because the moment we start making exceptions for violence based on how justified someone feels, we start opening a door that we may not be able to close.
At first, maybe the people being targeted are wealthy CEOs.
Maybe they’re politicians.
Maybe they’re people with enormous amounts of power.
And people cheer because they believe those people “had it coming.”
But what happens when someone decides you had it coming?
What happens when someone has a grievance against you?
What happens when someone decides that your politics, your beliefs, your words, your actions, or even something entirely personal gives them the right to make themselves judge, jury, and executioner?
What then?
That’s the part people don’t seem to be thinking about.
Because when you justify vigilantism, you aren’t just justifying it for the person you agree with.
You are creating a precedent that can eventually be used by people you absolutely despise.
And we’ve been watching this door slowly open for years.
Since 2020.
Since Kyle Rittenhouse.
Since January 6th.
Since the political violence and social unrest that followed.
Then came the Luigi Mangione case in 2024.
Then the Charlie Kirk case in 2025.
And with every new incident, I’ve watched people find reasons why this particular act of violence was different.
Why this person deserved it.
Why this time it was justified.
Why this side was allowed to do it.
And that is exactly how we lose the fucking plot.
Because this isn’t about left versus right.
It isn’t about conservative versus progressive.
It isn’t about whether you like CEOs.
It isn’t about whether you hate politicians.
It isn’t about whether you think the healthcare system is evil.
It isn’t even really about Luigi.
It’s about whether you believe human beings should be allowed to take someone else’s life simply because they believe they have a good enough reason.
I don’t.
And I don’t care how unpopular that makes me.
Fuck it.
I would rather stand by my principles when they are inconvenient than abandon them because I happen to like the person committing the violence or dislike the person on the receiving end.
And yes, I understand why people are angry.
I understand rage.
I understand wanting justice.
I understand wanting accountability.
I understand looking at a system that feels completely broken and wanting someone to pay for it.
But vengeance is not justice.
And feeling justified does not make something morally right.
What scares me is that some people are so blinded by rage, bloodlust, vengeance, tribalism, or whatever else you want to call it that they aren’t looking at where this leads.
They’re looking at the immediate moment.
They’re looking at the person they hate.
They’re looking at the person they believe deserved it.
They aren’t looking ten steps ahead.
They aren’t asking what happens when everyone starts deciding for themselves who deserves to live.
And that is how vigilantism grows.
That is how violence becomes normalized.
That is how society slowly becomes less safe for everyone.
And yes, the right has contributed to making political violence and extremism more acceptable.
But that doesn’t give the left a free pass when people on the left start cheering or rationalizing violence simply because they like the target less.
Two wrongs don’t magically become a right because one of them happens to be committed by someone on your side.
That’s the test.
Can you condemn something even when the person you dislike is the victim?
Can you maintain your morals when your emotions are screaming at you to make an exception?
Can you see beyond the immediate situation?
Can you recognize patterns?
Can you understand that the precedent you create today might eventually be used against you tomorrow?
That, to me, is what makes Luigi a test.
Not a test of whether you’re left-wing or right-wing.
Not a test of whether you like him.
Not a test of whether you hate the CEO.
A test of your values.
Your morals.
Your ethics.
Your ability to look beyond yourself, your anger, and your feelings in the moment.
Because if your morality disappears the second the person you disagree with becomes the victim, then maybe it wasn’t morality to begin with.
Maybe it was tribalism.
And I don’t want a society where everyone gets to decide that their own personal grievances are enough to justify violence.
Because eventually, everyone becomes someone’s grievance.
And then what?
I honestly didn’t think we’d get this far.
I didn’t think I’d have to write something like this.
But here we are.
And I, for one, won’t fucking stand for it.
And there’s another part of this that I think is important.
Vigilantism is, by definition, outside the law.
And the moment we start deciding that certain acts of violence are somehow outside the law—that the law doesn’t matter because we think the person deserved it—then what exactly are we left with?
A fucking free-for-all.
Because if the law doesn’t matter when we really, really hate someone, then what’s stopping the next person from saying the exact same thing?
“Well, I had a grievance.”
“Well, they deserved it.”
“Well, the system wasn’t going to do anything.”
“Well, I felt justified.”
And suddenly everyone gets to be their own judge, jury, and executioner.
That’s fucking dangerous.
And honestly, seeing people justify Luigi sickens me.
And no, it isn’t because I feel bad for the CEO.
I’ve already made my position on that clear.
It sickens me because I can see where this shit can lead if we allow it to go unchecked.
And what’s especially concerning is that this isn’t just some isolated political phenomenon anymore.
To me, this is Kyle Rittenhouse 2.0.
Except this time, it’s different.
Kyle Rittenhouse became a kind of hero to a segment of the right.
Luigi has become a kind of hero to people across a much broader spectrum.
Conservatives.
Moderates.
Leftists.
People who otherwise agree on almost nothing.
And that’s what makes this even more concerning to me.
Because Luigi did something Kyle couldn’t.
He became a figure that people from very different political backgrounds could rally around.
And that makes the precedent more powerful.
Because now imagine what happens if the next person is even worse.
What happens if the next vigilante is more charismatic?
More influential?
More politically savvy?
What happens if they have an even broader appeal?
What happens if they become even more celebrated?
What kind of message does that send?
That there is a path to becoming a hero by taking the law into your own hands?
That if enough people agree with you, your violence becomes acceptable?
That if your target is unpopular enough, the rules no longer apply?
No.
Absolutely fucking not.
I don’t care who the next person is.
I don’t care what political side they’re on.
I don’t care how sympathetic their grievance might be.
I don’t care how many people cheer for them.
We shouldn’t be celebrating vigilantism.
Because once we start making exceptions for it, we don’t get to control where those exceptions lead.
And eventually, someone else will come along and take that precedent somewhere even darker.
That’s why this isn’t about defending a CEO.
It’s about defending the idea that there are rules.
That there is a law.
That there is due process.
That people don’t get to kill other people because they personally decided justice wasn’t good enough.
Because once we throw that shit away, everything is fucked.
And I refuse to pretend otherwise just because the person who broke the rules happens to be popular.
And here’s probably my biggest hot take in all of this.
When Luigi was initially charged with terrorism, I remember thinking:
That’s a bit extreme.
But I’ve changed my mind.
Knowing what we know now, seeing the reaction to him, seeing how many different kinds of people have turned him into some sort of folk hero, and looking at the larger pattern of political violence and vigilantism that has been developing in this country, I can now understand why a terrorism charge is warranted.
And no, I’m not saying that simply because someone was killed, that automatically makes it terrorism.
That’s not my argument.
My concern is bigger than the individual act itself.
It’s the influence.
It’s the symbolism.
It’s the power that someone can have when their actions inspire people across political and ideological lines to celebrate what they did.
Because that’s where I think people are missing something.
You don’t necessarily have to personally be a threat to everyone around you to become a threat through your influence.
A person can become dangerous because of what other people are willing to do in their name.
Because of what their actions inspire.
Because of the precedent they establish.
Because of the people who look at them and think:
“Maybe I should do the same thing.”
And maybe that never happens.
Maybe I’m wrong.
I hope I’m fucking wrong.
But I can see the possibility.
And that’s what concerns me.
People keep looking at Luigi and asking whether he himself is dangerous.
I’m looking at something bigger.
I’m looking at what happens when society turns someone who allegedly took the law into his own hands into a hero.
I’m looking at what happens when people start believing that this is an acceptable way to address their grievances.
I’m looking at what happens when someone else comes along and takes that idea even further.
And maybe the next person is more influential.
Maybe they’re more charismatic.
Maybe they have an even larger following.
Maybe they’re more politically motivated.
Maybe they’re willing to do something even worse.
That’s the part I don’t think people are considering.
And that’s why I’ve changed my mind about the terrorism charge.
Not because I suddenly think Luigi is some cartoon supervillain.
Not because I think everyone who supports him is a terrorist.
And not because I suddenly care more about the CEO than I did before.
I don’t.
I’m looking at the bigger picture.
I’m looking at the influence.
I’m looking at the precedent.
I’m looking at the possibility of imitation.
I’m looking at the way political violence can spread when society starts romanticizing it.
And I’m thinking about where this could go.
Maybe people won’t see it.
Maybe they’ll never see it.
But I see it.
And that’s why I think we should take this shit seriously before it becomes something even bigger.
Because by the time everyone finally recognizes the danger, it might already be too late.
And maybe I’m one of the few people looking at this critically.
Maybe I’m one of the only left-leaning people who is willing to say all of this.
Maybe there are plenty of others who agree with me and just aren’t saying it.
I don’t know.
But honestly?
I don’t fucking care.
If being critical of Luigi puts me in the minority, then so be it.
If people think I’m crazy for looking at this differently, fine.
If people think I’m defending the CEO, even though I’ve repeatedly said I’m not, whatever.
I’m not writing this to win a popularity contest.
I’m writing this because I see where this could go.
I see the patterns.
I see how these things build.
I see how one act becomes a precedent.
How a precedent becomes normalized.
How normalization becomes glorification.
How glorification can inspire someone else.
And how eventually, something that once seemed unthinkable becomes something people casually justify.
Maybe I’m seeing it before most people do.
Maybe I’m wrong.
I sincerely hope I’m wrong.
But I’m not going to wait until everything falls apart before saying something.
Because sometimes the most important thing you can do is recognize the pattern before everyone else does.
And if that makes me one of the few people saying this right now?
So fucking be it.
I’d rather be early and wrong than late and say:
“How the hell did we let this happen?”
And here’s another thing I think people are getting wrong about the CEO.
I’ve seen people talk about him as though he personally sat there and denied people’s healthcare claims.
As though every person who had a claim denied had him personally looking at their file and saying, “Nope. Fuck this person.”
That’s not how large organizations work.
He was the CEO.
There were policies.
There were departments.
There were executives and managers underneath him.
There were employees making decisions.
There were systems and procedures that existed throughout the organization.
Could he have had influence over those policies?
Of course.
Could he have had responsibility as the person at the top?
Absolutely.
And if there were things the company was doing that were harmful, I have no problem with holding leadership accountable for those things.
But there’s a difference between being responsible for leading an organization and personally being responsible for every individual decision that organization makes.
Those aren’t the same thing.
And I think some people have flattened that distinction completely.
They’ve taken every terrible experience someone had with the healthcare system and essentially placed all of it on one person’s shoulders.
And that’s just not accurate.
Even if he wasn’t a great person.
Even if you believe he contributed to policies that harmed people.
Even if you believe he represented everything wrong with the American healthcare system.
You still have to be intellectually honest about what he actually did and what he was actually responsible for.
Because if we’re going to talk about justice, then facts matter.
Responsibility matters.
Context matters.
And so does proportionality.
You can’t just take an enormous, complicated system involving thousands of people, millions of customers, corporate policies, insurers, healthcare providers, regulators, shareholders, executives, and employees and reduce all of it down to:
“This one guy was personally denying people’s healthcare.”
That’s not how it worked.
And that’s another reason why I don’t think this whole situation can be reduced to “CEO bad, therefore what happened was justified.”
You can believe the healthcare system is deeply broken.
You can believe corporations have enormous power.
You can believe executives should be held accountable.
You can believe people have suffered terribly because of decisions made by healthcare companies.
And you can still say:
This particular person was not personally responsible for every single thing that happened under the organization he led.
Those ideas aren’t contradictory.
They’re called nuance.
And honestly, if we’re going to have a serious conversation about healthcare, corporate power, and accountability, we’re going to need a hell of a lot more of it.
And there’s something else about all of this that I find really fucking strange.
Look at how mainstream the cultural support for Luigi has become.
You’ve got Marc Jacobs talking about wanting to “dress Luigi.”
You’ve got Bill Burr publicly expressing support for him.
You’ve got Charlie Day, the voice of Luigi in the Super Mario movies, making jokes about Mangione.
And there have been other celebrities and recognizable public figures who have expressed sympathy or support for him too.
Now, I’m not saying that any of these people are secretly working with the government or that their support somehow proves that Luigi is an establishment operation.
I don’t have evidence for that.
But I do find the broader phenomenon worth paying attention to.
Because these aren’t random people posting from some obscure corner of the internet.
These are celebrities.
People with enormous platforms.
People who are, at least culturally, adjacent to what we might call the establishment.
And they’re helping turn Luigi from a criminal defendant into a cultural figure.
A celebrity.
A fashion icon.
A meme.
A folk hero.
And honestly, that makes me step back and ask:
How the fuck did we get here?
How did someone accused of killing a person become somebody that major cultural figures are comfortable publicly celebrating?
How did we get from discussing the failures of the healthcare system to celebrities wanting to dress the accused killer?
That’s a pretty massive cultural shift.
And no, I’m not saying celebrity support means Luigi isn’t legitimate.
I’m not saying it proves some conspiracy.
I’m saying it makes the phenomenon itself even more interesting to me.
Because if the concern is that vigilantism is becoming normalized, then this is exactly the kind of thing I think we should be examining.
When someone involved in an act of violence becomes fashionable, memeable, marketable, and broadly celebrated, we’re no longer talking only about the individual case.
We’re talking about what society is doing with that person as a symbol.
And that brings me back to my larger concern.
Maybe I’m wrong about where this goes.
Maybe this cultural fascination amounts to nothing.
Maybe all of this eventually fades away.
I hope so.
But I’m not going to ignore the pattern simply because it’s uncomfortable.
Because the more mainstream the glorification becomes, the more concerned I get about what message we’re sending to the next person who has a grievance.
And that’s ultimately what this whole thing keeps coming back to for me.
Not “Was the CEO a good person?”
Not “Is Luigi attractive?”
Not “Do celebrities like him?”
Not even “Do I personally sympathize with his alleged motives?”
The question is:
What happens when a society starts turning people who take the law into their own hands into cultural heroes?
Because if we don’t think carefully about that question now, we may eventually have to deal with the consequences of not asking it.