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Most Americans are shocked by the rise in political violence, but Broadway seems amused by it.
A New York City theater is expected to star 28-year-old Luigi Mangione in a comedy that will open in Manhattan in June. “Luigi: The Musical” will play at a theater a few miles from where Mangione is accused of murdering a father of two in a late-night bar.
The choice of location, such as the show’s opening time in the Big Apple, certainly seems to be deliberate. Opening night is June 15, a week after Mangione’s trial was supposed to begin, until a New York judge delayed that trial until the fall.
But the show will go on even if it’s sold out, if its brief run in San Francisco last year was any indication. All five games played in June 2025 — six months after Mangione was accused of murdering United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson — were sold out and well received, according to reports.
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Luigi Mangione leaves court after his arraignment in New York City Criminal Court on Monday, December 23, 2024. Now there’s music about him. (Rashid Umar Abbasi of Fox News Digital)
The show’s creators insisted that “Luigi: The Musical” is a joke and is not intended to downplay the seriousness of Mangione’s alleged crimes – or the crimes of Sean “Diddy” Combs and FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who were also featured in the musical with Mangione at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Center Deten.
Except, in Mangione’s case, that’s exactly what it does. The whole point of the show, according to one of the co-authors, is to expose “huge pillars of institutions in society,” including the health care industry, that are “failing in their credibility.” Throughout the show, Mangione’s character uses this failure to justify his actions, even at one point calling himself a “martyr.”
“Getting a small part of our broken health system down brings me enough joy to share!” the stage version of Luigi reportedly sings, warning that he will kill any other CEO he sees as an obstacle to progress.
Now, unlike the music creators, I don’t think people are stupid. They’re obviously going to watch “Luigi: The Musical” for the same reason its writers were able to produce it in less than two months: because they agree with the main reasons Mangione says drove him to allegedly shoot a man in the back, and they sympathize with him because of it. And whether they will admit it or not, the effect is to make radicalization seem normal – and understandable.
ALMOST 40% OF YOUNG AMERICANS SAY POLITICAL VIOLENCE IS SOMETIMES JUSTIFIED.
Unfortunately, my generation, Gen Z, seems to be leading the effort to contain this kind of extremism. Young people my age are alarmingly open to the use of political violence, with 41% of 18- to 29-year-olds saying in the 2024 election they agree that it is “somewhat” or “completely” acceptable to kill a big boss, as Mangione has been charged with.
Another poll from 2025 similarly found that 40% of young Americans believe that political violence is acceptable under certain circumstances, including when someone is “promoting extremist beliefs.”
Gen Zers support Mangione because they see him as someone who represents the resentment and anger they feel about institutions they believe have failed. They share many of his written grievances, including climate destruction and frustration with capitalism. Mangione is Gen Z’s Robin Hood or, like The New York Post to put it, their Jean Valjean.
By casting Mangione as a fanatic rather than a critic, “Luigi: The Musical” plays on that disempowering story and underscores the growing belief among young adults that the only way to get the kind of change they want is to take matters into their own hands.
Throughout the show, Mangione’s character uses this failure to justify his actions, even at one point calling himself a “martyr.”
Again, this is done on purpose. For years the left has used the cultural institutions they dominate, including the arts, to plant the seeds of revolution in America’s youth by teaching them to see themselves as victims of an irreparably broken system. In this worldview, political violence is not a moral failure, but a form of agency.
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Mangione is a direct product of this leftist fatalism. And so is the audience willing to consume his alleged crimes as art.
Unfortunately, the influence of this idea is not only found on the stage. In New York City in particular, it has infiltrated every inch of the city’s political landscape, culminating in the election of Socialist Mayor and disruptor Zohran Mamdani last year – an election for adults who play an important role.
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In fact, I’d be willing to bet the Venn diagram of young New Yorkers sporting “Hot Girls for Zohran” shirts and those attending “Luigi: The Musical” in June is a circle. After all, Mamdani’s political campaign manager has voiced his support for Mangione, saying he looks forward to “driving Mangione Avenue a few decades from now.”
In other words, “Luigi: The Musical” is just the tip of the iceberg. And that means that stopping the political violence plaguing this country will require more than intolerance for those who sympathize with its abusers, like Mangione. Above all, it will need to address the left-wing ideology that creates these perpetrators in the first place.
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