The scene outside the Manhattan courthouse this week looked more like a carnival than the sober administration of justice: supporters clad in green and even Nintendo-style Luigi outfits cheered and waved signs as Luigi Mangione — accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024 — faced another round of hearings. The federal government has signaled it will pursue the harshest penalties available, and Americans watching this circus should be asking why a brutal alleged killing has been transformed into a pop-culture spectacle.

Reporters captured a bizarre mix of earnest political slogans and cosplay: “Free Luigi” banners, people dressed as video-game characters, and chants that tried to reframe a cold-blooded murder as righteous resistance to “for-profit healthcare.” These images are not some fringe meme — they were present on the courthouse steps and in widely circulated video clips that the mainstream press and social platforms amplified.

There’s a legal record here, too: judges have already tossed terrorism charges for lack of evidence, but the murder and weapons counts remain, and the federal prosecutors are moving forward with grave seriousness. That doesn’t stop the online cottage industry of supporters who treat a criminal trial like a rally, dancing and celebrating when certain charges were pared back. The spectacle ought to make every law-and-order patriot uneasy.

That brings us to the ugly role of social media, where grievance politics and performative outrage metastasize into real-world radicalism. People who lived quietly for decades suddenly discover a narrative on Facebook and decide America is “smoke and mirrors,” then show up in inflatable or store-bought costumes to cheer for a man accused of murder — proof positive that the platforms are not merely neutral tools but radicalizing engines. Activists have even coordinated aerial stunts and billboards to turn this case into a cause célèbre.

Let’s be blunt: cheering for an alleged murderer because you hate an industry sets a dangerous precedent. Conservatives should be the first to defend honest protest and free speech, but there’s a difference between lawful dissent and lionizing violence as some kind of corrective. Nothing in a viral clip or a sympathetic social post excuses taking a life or replacing due process with mob mythology.

The media deserves scrutiny here for its role in turning a criminal proceeding into entertainment, and Big Tech deserves blame for letting algorithmic outrage manufacture followers out of casual sympathizers. Platforms that promote sensationalism over sober facts have real-world consequences when they funnel people toward extremist takes and groupthink that would be unthinkable face-to-face.

For the hardworking Americans who respect the rule of law, this spectacle should be a wake-up call: we must push back against the infantilizing, performative politics of social media that rewards chaos and excuses violence. Protect our courts from becoming stages, hold platforms accountable for the trafficking of outrage, and remind our neighbors — including immigrant patriots who love this country — that America is worth defending from both real injustices and the fake outrage that pretends to fix them.