Luigi Mangione continues captivating everyone with his beauty every time a new image comes out. But is it his mouth-watering looks that explain his popularity?
What are we writing about?
Let’s make one thing clear: this blogger does not know whether or not Luigi Mangione murdered Brian Thompson. As far as the law and this blog are concerned, he is innocent until proven guilty.
That being said, we won’t discuss whether or not he committed the crime the state accuses him of. Hopefully, the justice system—if it survives two Trump presidencies—will handle that.
Nor will we debate whether Luigi’s alleged act deserves praise or condemnation. Instead, this blogger will be transparent about his biases. He will explore both the hypocrisy of those expressing performative outrage. He will also examine the idiocy of those celebrating an assassination.
What we’re truly interested in is the significance of Luigi’s popularity. Why are so many people praising what appears to be a cold-blooded killing? What does that say about the cultural and political health of the United States?
The events’ chronology
We don’t know exactly how all the events actually unfolded. That’s one of the many issues under investigation to decide Luigi Mangione’s guilt.
But we do know how the story unfolded publicly. On the morning of December 4th, many of us woke up to a chilling video: a man approached from behind on a Midtown Manhattan sidewalk, shot multiple times just before sunrise. The shooter’s gun appeared to malfunction; he calmly unjammed it, then finished his victim. A woman passing by fled the scene, seemingly ignored by the shooter, who left the scene unbothered. The horror intensified when we learned it happened in front of the Hilton Midtown. This is a safe, affluent part of the city.
The first reaction was shock at what seemed like a senseless, brutal crime. But that didn’t last long.
On December 5th, CBS News reported that bullets and shell casings at the scene were inscribed with the words “delay,” “deny,” and “depose.” Overnight, the nature of the crime shifted: this wasn’t random violence—it was a political assassination. We still didn’t know who the shooter was, but the victim’s identity—Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare—gave the inscriptions a chilling resonance.
Public discourse shifted radically. For some, this was an act of domestic terrorism. For others, it marked the arrival of a new American hero.
Before we met Luigi Mangione
It’s essential to note that the killer’s popularity began the moment the act took on political meaning. That was before anyone knew what Luigi Mangione looked like.
The NYPD’s first images showed only a smile—someone under a hoodie checking into a hostel. No name. No face. No full-body shot. Yet support was already surging.
Privately, on December 5th, Sergeant Michael Horan of the SFPD identified the smile as belonging to Luigi Mangione. His mother had reported him missing weeks earlier, on November 18th. Horan recognized Luigi’s smile from his social media accounts and discretely share the information with law enforcement agencies.
But that identification remained confidential until December 9th, when the police arrested Mangione in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Let’s be clear. The groundswell of support began well before the public had any idea Luigi Mangione was conventionally attractive. His beauty may have added fuel to the fire, but it didn’t spark it. Even if he had been ugly, praise for the act was already widespread.
After we met Luigi Mangione
Support grew even further when journalist Ken Klippenstein made public what appeared to be Mangione’s handwritten statement. Now referred to as his “manifesto,” the document read:
“To the Feds, I’ll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience… I do apologize for any strife or traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy… Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument… Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”
Additionally, and simultaneously with Luigi’s arrest, someone posted a PDF at https://pepmangione/manifesto, a link no longer active. This document is allegedly signed by Luigi Mangione. It is a well written and articulate “manifesto”, expanding on the ideas drafted on the hand written note. Fortunately, this blogger downloaded the document before the link went dead. If you want it, you can downloaded at the beginning if this section.
Some data
Granted, most of the data we have comes from after Mangione’s face and body went viral on social media. So we can’t separate how much of the support is political and how much is thirst-driven, but we do have some numbers.
Generation Lab
A Generation Lab poll conducted between December 19–23, 2024, surveyed 1,026 U.S. college students. Published in January 2025, it found:
- 50% viewed Mangione favorably
- 48% considered the killing of Thompson totally or somewhat justified
- 81% held a negative view of Thompson
These numbers are not just provocative—they are revelatory. Among younger, college-aged Americans, there is clearly a level of moral disillusionment with the establishment that Thompson represented. The fact that nearly half of respondents found the killing justifiable—even in theory—signals a deep erosion of faith in institutional justice and corporate ethics.
This isn’t a marginal or fringe view. When 81% of young adults hold a negative opinion of a prominent healthcare CEO, it reveals a collective indictment of an industry perceived as exploitative. And when those same respondents express favorable views toward someone accused of murdering that CEO, it suggests a willingness to valorize radical—possibly violent—acts when conventional avenues of reform appear broken.
Older generations may be more inclined to view Mangione’s alleged act as a threat to democratic order. But for a growing segment of younger Americans, it looks like a symptom of that order’s failure. They aren’t calling for violence en masse, but they’re no longer shocked when it happens. That is the generational rupture—and it should terrify us all.
Blatant hypocrites?
We live in a time of profound moral inconsistency. One of the things we lack most is self-awareness.
Let me go first: as a matter of principle, I oppose murder in all its forms. I oppose the death penalty and find extrajudicial killings—by police, by soldiers, by civilians—abhorrent. Brian Thompson’s assassination is no exception.
Yet my emotional response varies. My blood boils when I see Israel’s war crimes or police brutality. But when I hear about Thompson’s murder, my instinct is to rationalize. That’s my hypocrisy. I am ashamed but I own it. By acknowledging it, I gain the power to confront my bias and make ethically sound decisions.
What about you?
If you support capital punishment, cheer police shootings, and excuse drone strikes—but demand the death penalty for Mangione—then you’re a shameless hypocrite.
About stupid hypocrites
The Right and Center are not alone in their contradictions. The Left—my political home for four decades—is just as guilty, and arguably even more self-defeating.
Many progressives now flirt with the fantasy of political assassination. In certain corners of the discourse, Brian Thompson’s killing is being framed not just as understandable, but as righteous. This is more than a moral failure—it is an intellectual and strategic catastrophe.
The Left can’t afford to romanticize violence. Doing so doesn’t challenge power; it reinforces it. History is unequivocal on this point: when violence becomes the Left’s tool, it rarely strikes the powerful—it ricochets back on the vulnerable. Authoritarian regimes do not respond to political assassinations with soul-searching—they respond with crackdowns. The working class, immigrants, activists, and dissidents—not CEOs—are the ones who pay the price.
Worse yet, this flirtation with violence betrays the Left’s own core principles. It undermines the moral high ground that movements for justice depend on. It conflates catharsis with strategy, vengeance with liberation. We are not supposed to emulate the tactics of those we oppose; we are supposed to expose and transcend them.
Even if you can’t summon moral clarity, at least try for tactical intelligence. Political assassinations don’t galvanize broad social movements. They provoke repression, isolate radicals, and sow fear among would-be allies. If history has taught us anything, it’s that real transformation requires organization—not martyrdom.
Luigi Mangione: A New American Hero?
Again, Mangione is innocent until proven guilty. But if he did commit the crime, he joins a long list of American killers elevated to folk-hero status.
Americans often fail to recognize the violence embedded in their culture. When the victim is poor, brown, queer, or foreign, their death is easily rationalized. But Luigi Mangione and Brian Thompson break that pattern—they are both members of the elite.
What makes this case unique is precisely that: this was not the oppressed attacking the powerful. This was privileged-on-privileged violence.
And Luigi doesn’t fit the stereotype of a killer. He is young, white, handsome, educated, wealthy, and reportedly well-liked. While it’s true that many revolutionaries come from privileged backgrounds, they rarely carry out lone-wolf acts of violence.
His popularity may signal the emergence of a new kind of American hero: not a martyr, not a soldier, but an intelligent, articulate insider who allegedly struck at the heart of a corrupt system—and looked good doing it.
Everyone should be concerned
No matter your politics, Mangione’s popularity is alarming. It doesn’t merely reflect public opinion about a singular event. Instead, it reveals a deep fracture in the collective psyche of the nation, across ideological lines.
If you’re a conservative, this assassination signals something far more destabilizing than criminality: a collapse of faith in liberal democracy itself. The story that has kept American capitalism morally afloat—the promise that hard work leads to security and upward mobility—has lost its grip. When disenfranchised Americans, particularly the younger generation, begin to see vigilante violence as a legitimate outlet for political frustration, it means the American Dream is no longer a dream. It’s a ghost. It’s a nightmare. And when legitimacy erodes, copycats follow.
If you’re a CEO, you’ve already felt the chill. The walls are being reinforced—not just symbolically but financially. In the wake of the killing:
- Johnson & Johnson quadrupled CEO security spending to $103,000
- Eli Lilly introduced executive protection for the first time: $73,630 for CEO David Ricks
- Meta increased security for Mark Zuckerberg by 40%, to $14 million
- Amazon spent nearly $1 million protecting CEO Andy Jassy
These aren’t temporary adjustments. They are the beginning of a new era in corporate leadership: one marked by bunker mentality and the normalization of executive-level fear. It is an acknowledgment, however quiet, that discontent is no longer abstract—it has entered the physical world.
And the Left?
If you’re a progressive, you should also be worried, because the act has been widely romanticized. Political violence does not create change—it disfigures it. The historical instances where violence played a role in liberation were the product of disciplined, mass-organized struggle—not isolated, symbolic executions.
The assassination of a CEO might feel like a punchline or a cathartic fantasy for those exhausted by injustice, but it gives ammunition to the state and discourages those who might otherwise be mobilized through peaceful means. It accelerates polarization, delegitimizes dissent, and turns political energy inward. Instead of building alliances, it triggers purges. Instead of inspiring hope, it breeds paranoia.
The point is not whether Luigi Mangione was right or wrong. The point is that his popularity, and the nature of that popularity, reveals the extent to which we’ve all stopped believing in dialogue, in reform, or in each other.
And that’s the real danger.
Lulu, the God of Anomie
All images in this post are from this thread on LPSG. Thank you!
Though we’re talking about the U.S., the signs of social anomie are global. Depression, suicide, addiction, disrespect for human life—these are not national quirks. They are symptoms of Western collapse.
Justifying one act of political violence means opening the door to all of them. And while Luigi’s motivations may seem noble to some, we live in a post-truth world where “noble” is in the eye of the beholder.
Mangione’s popularity isn’t just dangerous—it’s a signal. Dismissing it as superficial thirst is even more dangerous, because it obscures the deeper rot. People believe Luigi did it—and they think he was right.
The tragic encounter between two privileged men is triggering consequences we can’t yet predict. Support for Mangione continues to grow in direct proportion to the state’s severity. When he was charged with terrorism, support surged. When the prosecution sought the death penalty, it grew again. If he’s executed, I fear what may follow.
Wishing for Luigi Mangione’s innocence
A few days after Mangione’s arrest, Elon Musk became the first person to surpass $400 billion in net worth. Immediately, a meme began circulating online.
I shared it on Instagram, check it above. To me, the image was nothing short of brilliant. In a single frame, it condensed the absurdity and desperation of our current moment. The meme borrowed from the visual language of pop culture—specifically comic book mythology—to comment on a real-life crisis that traditional political speech has failed to capture. In place of reasoned debate or legislative critique, here was an image that managed to be funny, tragic, and damning all at once.
This was not just a meme. It was a form of protest dressed as parody, mocking the performative theatrics of power while ironically turning Luigi into a caped vigilante—a grotesque exaggeration that, like all good satire, spoke to something terrifyingly real. It pointed to a country so broken that it might actually look skyward for salvation—not to a politician, but to a killer.
Some took it literally, interpreting it as an endorsement or a threat. But that only underscored the image’s power: it bypassed the rational defenses of left and right and hit straight at our cultural soft spot—the fantasy of redemptive violence.
We’re not in Gotham City yet. But we’re getting close.
Stay tuned.
Hasta la próxima pinga, amig@s!
