By Jim Geraghty
Tuesday, April 28, 2026
On December 4, 2024, Luigi Mangione shot and killed Brian
Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare.
Without resorting to an internet search, do you know what
Mangione looks like? I suspect you do. You probably know what Mangione looks
like from his merchandise store, or perhaps his prayer candles, or
perhaps the time a fashion company “accidentally” used Mangione’s image to model
a shirt. Or perhaps you caught “Luigi: The Musical.” Or perhaps you heard about the
lookalike contests at the University of Florida or the University of North Texas or in New York City.
Mangione inspired, as Wired magazine described it,
“a new form of fandom.”
There were two copycat attacks in the immediate aftermath
of Mangione’s attack. One was in Raleigh, North Carolina:
On Dec. 6, 2024, Advance Auto
Parts contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about threatening
messages sent through the company’s website demanding it change the “moron who
administrates your app and webpage” and provided a deadline of December 25.
According to court documents, if
the company didn’t do this, the customer wrote: “I live in Raleigh and am an
expert sniper. . . . I vow that I will hunt down your entire executive board
and put bullets in their FAMILIES. . . . There will be no stopping me from
punishing your executives by murdering their families for refusing to improve
the accuracy of your website search function.”
Edward Scott Huffman, 46, was charged with one count of
transmitting a threat in interstate commerce.
Once again: Without resorting to an internet search, do
you know what Huffman looks like? I suspect you do not.
The second copycat threat occurred about a week later, in
Lakeland, Fla.:
On December 13, Briana Boston had
reportedly placed a call to BlueCross BlueShield regarding recent medical
insurance claims she was denied. The entire phone call was recorded, according
to the affidavit.
Near the end of the call,
investigators said Boston could be heard stating, “Delay, deny, depose. You
people are next.” Boston was charged with threats to conduct a mass shooting or
an act of terrorism.
Once more: Without resorting to an internet search, do
you know what Boston looks like? I suspect you do not.
The following month, a young man outraged by
then-Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent’s policy positions traveled to
Capitol Hill with Molotov cocktails and a knife; thankfully, he changed his mind before attempting an attack:
Ryan English, 24, pleaded guilty
to weapons and explosives-related charges after walking to the U.S. Capitol
Building on Jan. 27, 2025, the day of Bessent’s confirmation hearing. He told
police he initially drove down from Massachusetts in a plot to burn down a
D.C.-based think tank, which was not referenced in the documents, but said it
fell through.
English, who was found with a
knife, two 50 ml bottles converted to Molotov cocktails, and a lighter on him
during the arrest, told USCP officers that he walked onto Capitol Hill after
hearing statements by Bessent on the cost of living and minimum wage. He said
he ultimately did not want to hurt anyone and turned himself in after coming to
that realization.
Without resorting to the internet, do you know what Ryan
English looks like? Again, I suspect you do not.
On the night of April 13, 2025, Cody Balmer scaled an
iron security fence in the middle of the night, eluded police, and used beer
bottles filled with gasoline to ignite the occupied Pennsylvania governor’s
mansion, where Josh Shapiro and his family were sleeping. In October, Balmer
pled guilty to attempted murder and a variety of other charges and was sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison. Do you know what
Balmer looks like, without the internet? Probably not.
On September 10, 2025, Tyler Robinson murdered Charlie Kirk. Do you recall what
Tyler Robinson looks like? This is the only other individual on this list whose
appearance and name I suspect many readers might recall. (This is partially
because professional lunatic Candace Owens insists that Robinson didn’t
do it.) I notice that Tyler Robinson also has merchandise.
Then there were the December 2025 arrests relating to the “Operation
Midnight Sun” bombing plot in Los Angeles:
According to an affidavit filed
with the complaint, Audrey Carroll is a member of the Turtle Island Liberation
Front (TILF), a group that, according to its social media page, is dedicated to
“liberation through decolonization and tribal sovereignty” and for the working
class to rise up and fight back against capitalism.
In late November 2025, Carroll
provided to co-conspirators an eight-page handwritten document titled,
“Operation Midnight Sun,” which described a bombing plot. The plan called for
backpacks with bombs to be simultaneously detonated at five or more locations
targeting two U.S. companies at midnight this New Year’s Eve in the greater Los
Angeles metropolitan area.
Can you picture any of the four individuals arrested in
this plot? Can you picture their fifth associate, arrested for planning a terrorist attack in New Orleans and threatening Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers?
My guess is no, unless you live near those locations and saw local news
coverage. My guess is that you don’t know their names, either. (I’m not saying
you should know their names; I’m just pointing out why you probably
don’t.)
Earlier this month, a man went viral on social media for
recording himself burning down his place of employment in objection to what he deemed low wages:
Early in the morning on April 7,
Chamel Abdulkarim filmed himself setting fire to multiple pallets of paper
goods inside of a large distribution center in Ontario. As he lit the fires, he
stated, “If you’re not going to pay us enough to [expletive] live or afford to
live, at least pay us enough not to do this [expletive].”
The fires Abdulkarim set quickly
consumed the building, resulting in its destruction and causing approximately
$500 million in damage.
Abdulkarim posted videos of
himself on social media setting the fires. He further made statements to others
on the telephone and via text messages related to his motive for setting the
building on fire, including the following: “I just cost these [expletive]
billions,” “1% is a [expletive] joke,” and “All you had to do was pay us enough
to live. Pay us more of the value WE bring. Not corporate. Didn’t see the
shareholders picking up a shift.”
Do you know what Chamel Abdulkarim looks like? Unless you
watched his video, probably not.
One last example, from earlier this month:
Authorities allege 20-year-old
Daniel Moreno-Gama threw the incendiary device about 4 a.m. Friday, setting an
exterior gate at [OpenAI CEO Sam] Altman’s home alight before fleeing on foot,
police said. Less than an hour later, Moreno-Gama allegedly went to OpenAI’s
headquarters about 3 miles away and threatened to burn down the building.
Moreno-Gama faces charges
including two counts of attempted murder and attempted arson in California
state court, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins. He tried to kill
both Altman and a security guard at Altman’s residence, she alleged.
Do you know what Daniel Moreno-Gama looks like? I suspect
you do not.
And I also suspect you’re starting to see the pattern
here. Luigi Mangione is extremely well known and has inspired a twisted fan
base; most other perpetrators and would-be perpetrators of left-wing or
anti-corporate violence remain obscure.
Yesterday, Josh
Barro predicted that the shooter at the White House Correspondents’
Association Dinner, Cole Allen, “won’t replicate the lackluster cult of Luigi
Mangione because he’s not good-looking. People fail to appreciate how shallow
the Luigi phenomenon is.”
Yes, murderers get more attention than attempted
murderers. But I can illustrate the same point with Islamist terrorists, too.
Do you know what Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
looks like? My guess is when you hear that name, you picture the cover of Rolling Stone.
What does his older brother look like? What was his older
brother’s name?*
What did the perpetrators of the San Bernardino terrorist attack look
like?
I’ll bet you cannot name, or picture, the Islamist who stabbed Salman Rushdie in 2022. Nor the al-Qaeda operative who killed three U.S. service members and
wounded eight other Americans at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida. Nor
the guy who swore allegiance to ISIS and drove a truck down a
West Side bike path that killed eight people in 2017.
My guess is no face comes to mind, because no pop culture
magazine put those guys on the cover, looking like Jim Morrison.
None of these other aspiring assassins and terrorists
inspired a crowd of devoted “Luigi girls” or the “Cougars for Luigi Mangione.”
It’s easy to conclude that modern American culture has a
soft spot for left-wing terrorists and assassins, and that’s true. Many corners
of our culture indisputably offer a more sympathetic and romanticized
perspective on left-wing violence than right-wing violence; you’re never going
to see Eric Rudolph on the cover of Rolling Stone, and you’re never
going to see a major Oscar contender with right-wing American
revolutionaries as the heroes.
But what the list above illustrates is that modern
American culture has a particular soft spot for young and handsome left-wing
terrorists and assassins. I’m not the most qualified judge of male
attractiveness, but I think Barro is right. If the White House Correspondents’
Dinner attacker wanted to inspire a fan club, he needed a picture of himself with abs to go viral in the aftermath.
When writing in the aftermath of Kirk’s assassination, I wrote in a bitter
aside, “Today’s word of the day is ‘hybristophilia.’”
It is a real phenomenon, and it does explain why some
young women of varying mental stability find themselves intensely attracted to
convicted murderers, serial killers, and terrorists. There is an argument
in evolutionary psychology that women are attracted to men who are bigger,
stronger, more aggressive, and more violent, or at least more capable of
violence. The reasoning is allegedly that a woman sees a violent man and
concludes he will protect her and her offspring, and her offspring will be
strong and capable of defending themselves. (Of course, if a woman picks the
wrong violent man, he can easily become a serious threat to her.)
Well, men don’t get much more violent than murderers,
serial killers, and terrorists!
There are those who are uncomfortable with the topic of
hybristophilia because it makes (at least some) women look like irrational
hormone-driven fools, so smitten with “bad boys” that they’ll overlook more red flags than a Chinese army parade.
Still, let’s not pretend that men are utterly immune to
the phenomenon of judging women based upon their appearance, either.
If New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
looked like Quasimodo, would she be in the discussion as a potential Democratic presidential nominee in 2028? I highly doubt it.
Don’t tell me it’s because of AOC’s bold stances; Representative Delia Ramirez
of Illinois is six years older, also a young Latina, and her voting record in
Congress is barely distinguishable from AOC’s. But you don’t hear even
the faintest murmur of Ramirez running for president.
“Pretty privilege” exists — even for left-wing terrorists
and assassins.
*His older brother’s name was Tamerlan.
ADDENDUM: Over in that other Washington publication, a column about why the
White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner really shouldn’t move to the
White House ballroom, once the ballroom is completed, presumably in 2028. (This
is entirely separate from the questions of whether you think they should build
a new White House ballroom, or what you think of the White House
Correspondents’ Dinner.) The first reason is size; Trump said the ballroom will
have a maximum capacity of 999, and the WHCD regularly has 2,600 attendees.
But the second reason is that you should not have an
event celebrating the First Amendment and the press’s independence from the
government held on government property. “The president can always be a welcome
guest at an event celebrating an independent press, but he should not be the de
facto host.”
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