Trump complains about the “illness” of Luigi Mangione’s fans

I agree with the premise here: celebrating vigilante violence is sick. That was the argument in this ReidOut blog in which I denounced Mangione’s hero worship And Daniel Penny, the New Yorker who was recently acquitted of involuntary manslaughter after a subway passenger died when Penny placed him in a chokehold.

However, Trump gave Penny some positive reception when he appeared with Penny at the Army-Navy football game last weekend. So yes, vigilantes are bad. And Trump is not a credible voice on this issue.

Penny isn’t the first vigilante to celebrate Trump, either. In 2021, Trump said that Kyle Rittenhouse was “a nice young man” after meeting him in the weeks after Rittenhouse was acquitted of fatally shooting two men at a 2020 protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Trump has praised the violent insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol to keep him in power and he has repeatedly downplayed a right-wing conspiracy theorist’s brutal attack on Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband.

So it seems that Trump has no objection to vigilantism everyone Fact. I think Trump and MAGA are misjudging the risks of their permissive approach to violence here. That’s why Trump’s complaint about the admittedly disturbing praise for the suspect in the assassination of a wealthy insurance executive rings hollow. A society that encourages vigilantism – that leaves us at the whims of the most violent and impulsive among us – creates all of us less secure, including wealthy elites.

And few have played a greater role in building such a society around us than Donald Trump.