Bill Maher spent part of his HBO show Friday night going after the strange, ugly trend of young people flirting with political violence. His take was blunt. These are not serious revolutionaries. They are people acting out, chasing attention, and turning rage into a bad performance.
Maher’s point landed because it cut through the usual fog. Too many commentators try to dress up these people as misunderstood rebels or political geniuses. Maher went the other way. He mocked them. He made them sound small. And that is exactly the right instinct when violence starts getting treated like a personality trait.
He said, “New Rule, Luigi Mangione, Cole Thomas Allen, Tyler Robinson, and the ghost of Thomas Crooks must form a boy band called New Kids on the Glock. Just to, just to drive home the point, these are not your father’s political assassins. Things have changed.”
That joke was ugly on purpose. Maher was showing how absurd this whole moment has become. He also pointed to a bigger problem: young adults who think violence can solve political anger. According to his remarks, “Up to 40 percent of America’s young adults say violence is okay to achieve a political goal. Wow.” That is the kind of number that should set off alarms everywhere.
Maher also mocked the way some of these figures get turned into weird folk heroes online. He called Luigi Mangione “a f*cking rock star” and joked that he is “the OG hot assassin.” The broader point was simple. Social media, activism, and outrage culture are mixing into something rotten. And some people are turning that mix into a sick little fame game.
He also hit on the dark humor that shows up in some of these cases, saying some of the accused seem to think they are content creators instead of criminals. That part matters. When violence starts getting packaged like a joke, a meme, or a stunt, the culture around it gets even worse.
The bottom line is not complicated. People who chase political violence are not brave. They are pathetic. They are throwing away their future for a few seconds of attention, and they deserve to be treated that way. Not celebrated. Not romanticized. Mocked, exposed, and remembered as failures.