In Focus delivers deeper coverage of the political, cultural, and ideological issues shaping America. Published daily by senior writers and experts, these in-depth pieces go beyond the headlines to give readers the full picture. You can find our full list of In Focus pieces here.

It was a typical early December morning in New York City when UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson started his day with a cup of coffee and a granola bar ahead of a day of meetings. That’s when an assailant walked up behind him and shot him three times, killing the husband and father of two boys on a closed-circuit camera for the world to see. 

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Five days passed before the shooter, Luigi Mangione, was arrested at a restaurant in Pennsylvania. Because of the video, it is an open and shut case, given the overwhelming evidence against the 26-year-old Penn graduate. And usually in these kinds of cases, shock and condemnation would normally follow such a cowardly, senseless murder of an innocent man simply walking to work. 

CHARLIE KIRK AND THIS WATERSHED MOMENT FOR AMERICAN RENEWAL

But that didn’t happen. Instead, Mangione was (and still very much is) hailed as a vigilante hero who stood up to the health insurance industry. He was also somehow hailed as a sex symbol.

Again, this is a monster who had just taken another man’s life in cold blood. “I felt, along with so many other Americans, joy, unfortunately,’ shared former New York Times and Washington Post ‘reporter’ Taylor Lorenz during an interview with Piers Morgan after she learned of Thompson’s death. “Joy!? Serious? Joy at a man’s execution?” an exasperated Morgan shot back.“Maybe not joy, but certainly not empathy,” Lorenz replied with a chuckle. 

“How can this make you joyful? This guy is a husband, he’s a father, and he’s been gunned down in the middle of Manhattan. Why does that make you joyful?” Morgan followed. 

“So are the tens of thousands of Americans that he murdered!” Lorenz retorted. 

This is obviously a profoundly sick perspective from a truly sick person. And it didn’t stop there. Enter Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who also implied that the murder was somehow justified. 

“The visceral response from people across the country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system,” Warren told The Huffington Post at the time. 

“Violence is never the answer, BUT … people can only be pushed so far.”

Yup. A former presidential candidate said that. 

It was no better over in late-night comedy. 

“So many women and so many men are going nuts over how good-looking this killer is!” Jimmy Kimmel said on ABC. “There’s a huge wave of horny washing over us right now!”

“It’s bananas!” he later exclaimed. “But I have to say it does feel kinda good. We’re moving away from nonstop election coverage, and back to drooling over a cold-blooded murderer’s eyebrows and abs.”

A few weeks later, Kimmel invited “comedian” Bill Burr on to hail Mangione. 

“[Cable news] is not going to bring up the insurance companies that are just gonna keep everybody’s [healthcare] premiums and still give themselves a bonus,” Burr said to applause from the Los Angeles studio audience

“Yes! Free Luigi!” he continued in reference to Mangione. “I love how they acted surprised [after Thompson’s murder], ‘How could that happen?’ He wrote on the bullets why it happened!”  

Mangione reportedly wrote “deny,” “defend,” and “depose” on the three bullets he used. 

Mangione’s GoFundMe has raised more than $1 million in donations. 

Fast forward to September 10, 2025. Conservative activist Charlie Kirk is gunned down during a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University. His wife, 3-year-old daughter, and 1-year-old son were at the venue when it happened. Kirk had built his movement from scratch at just the age of 18. 

Since then, he has presided over the largest, most powerful conservative youth movement in this country’s history. Charlie embraced debating those he disagreed with. No one reached across the aisle more than he did in an effort to resolve differences through a civil exchange of ideas. 

And he was executed for it. 

The suspect in custody is 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, who reportedly had become increasingly political in recent years and professed a hatred for Kirk. Robinson allegedly was in a relationship with roommate Lance Twiggs, who reportedly was in the process of transitioning from male to female. 

Like Thompson’s murder, one would expect the country to come together to castigate this heinous act. But anything but that has happened. Enter the New York Times, which actually published an op-ed from the hateful Hasan Piker, who was scheduled to debate Kirk on September 25.  

“Violence almost never originates in a vacuum, and the killing of a high-profile political content creator — regardless of why it happened — speaks to a breakdown in our social order,” Piker wrote. 

Reasonable enough, but here’s the problem: It’s all phony. 

Piker is one of the very reasons why there’s a breakdown in our social order. After all, this is the same guy who said, “America deserved 9/11” while calling for blood in the streets. 

“Kill them! Kill those motherf*kers! Murder those motherf*kers in the streets! Let the streets soak in their red capitalist bloods!” he declared on his podcast earlier this year in a rant against landlords in California.  

Piker has also called Orthodox Jews “inbred pigs” and has said he takes no issue with Hezbollah, the terrorist organization that murdered more than 1200 people, including 41 Americans, in Israel on October 7, 2023. 

So who better to comment on toxic culture and reflect on the legacy of Charlie Kirk, who was the exact opposite of the pro-violence, antisemitic Piker? 

It gets even worse over at The Nation: 

Headline: “Charlie Kirk’s Legacy Deserves No Mourning; The white Christian nationalist provocateur wasn’t a promoter of civil discourse. He preached hate, bigotry, and division.”

The writer is Elizabeth Spiers, who was an editor for the New York Observer and has been published in the New York Times. 

“[Kirk] was an unrepentant racist, transphobe, homophobe, and misogynist who often wrapped his bigotry in Bible verses because there was no other way to pretend that it was morally correct. He had children, as do many vile people,” she wrote just three days after Kirk was shot in the neck and killed. 

“It’s a choice to write an obituary that begins, ‘Joseph Goebbels was a gifted marketer and loving father to six children,” she later added in a vile reference to Hitler’s propaganda minister. 

“When we decline to speak ill of the dead, it’s because we have compassion for the living. In this respect, I am sorry for Kirk’s children. I don’t know if Kirk was a good father, but if he was, that does little to mitigate the damage he did to other people’s children,” she continued. 

“Kirk was fine with murder as long as the right people were dying,” she concluded without any shred of evidence to support her claim. 

If you think this is one of the most disgusting things you’ve ever read, you’re not alone. 

And ABC News reporter Matt Gutman completely debased himself with a bizarre report where he praised the shooter for “touching” messages to his trans boyfriend. 

“It was very touching in a way that many of us didn’t expect,” Gutman said of Robinson’s messages. 

“It was intimate portrait into this relationship between the suspect’s roommate and the suspect himself, with him repeatedly calling his roommate, who is transitioning, calling him ‘my love.’ And ‘I want to protect you, my love,’ the emotional journalist continued 

“He was, you know, speaking so lovingly about his partner. So a very interesting, riveting press conference,” 

Gutman should be fired. Full stop. This was an absolutely nauseating way to talk about a murderer.  

Even musicians decided to get in on the act. Here’s Bob Vylan, who will never be confused with Bob Dylan.

“I want to dedicate this next one to an absolute piece of s**t of a human being,” Vylan said during a concert in Amsterdam. “The pronouns was/were. Cause if you chat s**t, you will get banged. Rest in peace, Charlie Kirk, you piece of s**t!”

The crowd in the Netherlands actually cheered this. 

And as if it couldn’t get any more disturbing, a new poll from YouGov finds that 34% of those who are “very liberal” or “liberal” believe that political violence can be justified to achieve goals, and to celebrate the death of a public figure is perfectly fine. When asking those identifying as “very conservative” or “conservative,” just 11% feel the same way. 

When breaking the results down by age, just 51% of those between the ages of 18-29 believe violence is never justified. That’s barely a majority. 

It gets even more delusional, according to a study just released by Rutgers University, where 70% of liberals say killing President Donald Trump is partially justified or completely justified. 

Seven. In. Ten. 

The Rutgers study points to the social media platform BlueSky. 

“BlueSky plays a significant and predictive role in amplifying radical issues,” the study concludes. It was primarily on BlueSky where scores of videos were put on the platform by members celebrating Charlie’s murder. 

A father of two was murdered in Manhattan last December. And some either joked about it or tried to justify the killer’s motive. 

A father of two was murdered in Utah last week. And according to polls and studies, far too many people say it was justified because they disagreed with him. 

The country has headed to a very dark place. 

POLITICAL VIOLENCE ON THE RISE IN THE US: A TIMELINE OF KEY INCIDENTS

Will social media and gaming dehumanize so many more younger adults that we’re embarking into a terrifying cycle of violence and hatred with no remorse?

Can we ever recover?