Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin and the Radicalization of Young Men

Summary

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City Journal Audio

Episode: Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin and the Radicalization of Young Men

Date: September 18, 2025
Host: Isabella Redjai
Guests: Rob Henderson (Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute), Carolyn Gorman (Mental Health Policy Expert)

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Overview

This episode examines the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University by Tyler Robinson and uses the event to explore the drivers behind the radicalization of young men in America. The conversation delves into online subcultures, the impacts of social media, loneliness, generational shifts in definitions of success, and the societal normalization of violence as a response to perceived injustices.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background: The Assassination and Robinson’s Radicalization

• Tyler Robinson, 22, grew up in a conservative household but became radicalized during college.
• Evidence indicates heavy involvement in online forums (Reddit, Discord) and left-wing subcultures (engraved Antifa slogans on ammunition).
• [00:09–02:09] Isabella Redjai notes the difficulty in pinpointing a single factor but highlights the intersection of online extremism and real-world violence.

Key Quote:

“These things are impossible to predict…a few hundred are capable of something like this.”—Rob Henderson [02:09]

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2. The Power and Pitfalls of Social Media

• Social media's “scale, scope, speed”—information moves rapidly and without verification ([04:57]).
• Confirmation bias and the “can vs. must” heuristic drive belief reinforcement ([07:09]).
• Online outrage and misinformation fuel mob mentalities and polarization.

Notable Quotes:

“We need to think very seriously about how fast information is spreading. The scale, the scope and the speed.”—Carolyn Gorman [04:57]
“Once we learn something, it's hard to unlearn that thing.”—Carolyn Gorman [06:20]

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3. College Campuses and Peer Radicalization

• Discussion of the myth of “radical professors”; peers are more influential than authority figures on campuses ([08:30]).
• Group polarization: Students’ beliefs become more extreme to solidify social bonds.
• Campus events can reveal “hidden” dissenting opinions, creating new communities and resentment ([10:16]).

Key Quote:

“People are social, they want to fit in with their peers…any extremity is bad.”—Carolyn Gorman [09:41]
“When Charlie Kirk shows up...students think, ‘Oh, I'm actually not alone.’”—Rob Henderson [10:16]

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4. The Epidemic of Male Isolation

• Boredom’s death: Young men once had to be social to relieve boredom; now, screens are an easier fix ([12:21]).
• Fear of rejection is amplified by digital life and social media’s ever-present audience.

Notable Quote:

“There's no more boredom in life...the phone is just so much easier. And there's that parasocial thing...the empty calories version of social interaction.”—Rob Henderson [13:13]

• Societal risk aversion: Fear of being recorded or accused stifles genuine interaction ([13:47]).
• Tech-free experiments (Andrew Yang’s phone-free parties) are seen as positive but hard to scale ([15:12]).

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5. Shame, Mental Health, and Radicalization

• Shame and lack of resilience: Youths see normal setbacks as catastrophic due to normalized mental health language that fails to distinguish between big and small problems ([17:38, 19:15]).
• Glorification of perpetrators: The attention given to violent actors can make them aspirational figures for the isolated or disaffected.

Key Quotes:

“Unless we distinguish what a big problem is from a little problem, then little problems seem like big problems. And then people don't actually understand, like, oh, this is normal.”—Carolyn Gorman [19:15]

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6. Violence, Accountability, and the Mental Health Debate

• Not all acts of violence stem from mental illness; some are deliberate, ideological acts. Important to distinguish for accountability ([20:46–23:46]).
• The normalization and celebration of violence (“Luigism”)—violence as a political tool—is on the rise ([36:15–37:28]).

Key Quote:

“We need to be very careful about calling any of these a mental health problem...because we need to hold people accountable. This type of violence is not okay.”—Carolyn Gorman [23:47]

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7. Warning Signs & What Can Be Done

• Screen time awareness: Parents and communities must be more present—cutting back even 10% on screens can make a difference ([24:40, 25:37]).
• Distorted online reality: Very small minorities post most online content, which creates a warped perception of mainstream opinions ([25:37]).

Key Quote:

“2% of Twitter users produce 80% of the tweets…keep that in mind when I look at social media, that this is not everyone’s thoughts.”—Rob Henderson [25:37]

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8. Social Media’s Effects on Cognition and Society

• Rapid emotional cycling: Constant feed updates create abrupt mood shifts, not previously experienced in human history ([27:54, 28:19]).
• Debate over “echo chambers” vs. being bombarded with the most extreme opposing viewpoints ([29:18]).
• Rage bait (content intended to provoke strong emotional responses) is algorithmically rewarded, distorting perceptions of opposing groups ([30:56]).

Key Quote:

“What social media did was present you with the most inflammatory and extreme opinions of the other side…and this warps your view of the other side.”—Rob Henderson [29:18]

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9. Celebrating Violence: Gender and Social Media

• Disproportionate visible celebration from women online may reflect algorithm biases or deeper psychological/social trends ([31:38]).
• Maternal instincts redirected to defending marginalized groups, leading to cheerleading violence against perceived threats ([31:38–34:13]).

Key Quote:

“The algorithm…a woman's TikTok video saying 'I'm glad this person's dead'...people will pause and look at that vs. some guy.”—Rob Henderson [31:38]

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10. “Luigism”: Glorifying Violent Acts Against Institutions

• Public support and celebration for Luigi Mangione (killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO) after terrorism charges dropped ([35:25–36:31]).
• Redefinition of innocence, targeting CEOs as presumed guilty—this shift may provoke more attacks.

Key Quote:

“We've normalized extremity, we've normalized violence. Seeing people cheering about this should really disturb all of us.”—Carolyn Gorman [36:20]
“This is going to send a signal to other would-be assassins and killers...you’re going to be cheered and celebrated and lionized.”—Rob Henderson [37:14]

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11. Precedent and the Profile of Recent Killers

• Young, smart, privileged white men now undertake violent acts to gain status among their peers; they attack those with even higher status ([38:41–40:10]).

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12. Generational Definitions of Success

• NBC poll: Gen Z women, regardless of politics, value financial independence and career; men, especially Trump voters, value having children ([41:40]).
• “Girlboss” metrics (career, independence) now predominate, reflecting shifting societal values and perhaps deeper gender dynamics.

Key Quotes:

“Men and women need each other, and maybe we have not...we lost that kind of wisdom along the way.” —Rob Henderson [43:01] “Success might be associated more with...the professional.”—Carolyn Gorman [43:56]

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[Memorable Closing Moment]

• Personal definitions of success: Carolyn celebrates her recent marriage; Rob hopes his adult children will like him.

“I would like my adult kids to like me.”—Rob Henderson [45:01] “Mom and Dad, you are successful in my book.”—Carolyn Gorman [45:29]

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Important Timestamps

• [00:09] – Introduction and context of the assassination
• [02:09] – Online radicalization and extremism
• [04:57] – The three S's: scale, scope, speed of info
• [07:09] – Confirmation bias (“can” vs. “must” believe)
• [08:30] – How college campuses foster polarization
• [12:21] – The “death of boredom” and rise of digital isolation among young men
• [13:47] – Social risk aversion and surveillance culture
• [19:15] – The danger of pathologizing ordinary setbacks
• [23:46] – Importance of distinguishing mental illness from ideology
• [25:37] – Social media's distorting effects on reality
• [31:38] – Gendered responses to violence on social media
• [35:25] – Luigism and the normalization of ideologically motivated violence
• [41:40] – Generational definitions of success

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Conclusion

This episode provides a rigorous and balanced exploration of the radicalization of young men, the distorting impacts of online life, shifting generational values, and the troubling celebration of violence as a political act. The hosts agree that social media is at the heart of increased polarization and isolation, fuelling echo chambers that can normalize extreme behavior and perspectives.

The normalization and even glorification of violence—whether from the political left or right—represents a dangerous precedent, especially as it becomes easier for disaffected, isolated individuals to find affirmation online. The hosts call for greater parental and communal vigilance, as well as a critical reconsideration of what true success and connection mean in contemporary America.

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome back to the City Journal podcast. My name is Isabella Redjai and today I am joined by two of my esteemed colleagues. Rob Henderson, a senior fellow here at the Manhattan Institute and a leading voice on issues of social class, cultural trends and social divisions. And joining us as well is Carolyn Gorman, our resident expert on mental health policy. Thank you for being here to both of. Before we dive into today's discussion, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future conversations. Now let's get into it. It's been exactly one week since Charlie Kirk was assassinated at Utah Valley University. New details have emerged though, about his alleged killer in the past week. Tyler Robinson, 22 year old, who reportedly was texting his trans roommate that he was disturbed by the hatred and Charlie Kirk's rhetoric led him to murder Charlie Kirk. I know we're gonna get into this today, but a lot of the prosecutors and Utah officials said that Robinson was chronically online and participated in a lot of these dark places on the Internet, very niche subculture discussion forums like Reddit and Discord. And there was even a note that allegedly was found under his keyboard saying, I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I'm going to take it. So really heavy stuff. I'm glad that I have you two here to break this down for me. It didn't seem like Robinson though was always like this. From what I heard, he grew up in a conservative leaning household. Even his father, when he turned him in, brought the family minister to try to persuade Robinson to turn himself in. But yeah, Robinson was a part of a conservative household. He then goes to college. I wanna start with you, Rob. Do you think you could pinpoint one thing that you suspect caused the shift in Robinson's change of thinking or that kind of escalated into this radicalization that we saw?

[B]

Yeah, well, my understanding is that online extremism does play an important role here, but it's always hard to predict in advance. So if you have 100 young guys like Tyler Robinson who are maybe a little bit mentally disturbed and kind of hostile and have this aggression in them, 99 of them won't go as far as actually shooting someone. And so these things are impossible to predict. But if you have a country of 350 million people, some non trivial percentage of them, or rather a trivial percentage of them. Uh, but, but in terms of raw numbers, it could be, you know, a few dozen or a few hundred are capable of something like this. And yeah, it's, you know, this is sort of the version of more left wing radicalization. My understanding is, you know, the, the engravings on the ammunition showed signs of interest in sort of far left politics. I read this interview in the free press with the journalist Andy Ngo and he talked about how, you know, obviously like a lot of people are aware 1 bul. Hey, fascist catch with exclamation points. But then another bullet had the phrase, it was a title of a song called Bella Chow, which apparently is an anthem for antifa in the US and it is rooted in the anti fascist movements in Italy in the early mid 20th century. And a lot of people who aren't sort of deep into the antifa lore or whatever wouldn't understand that. I didn't understand that until I'd seen that article. That, you know, this is something we should be aware of. A lot of people are concerned with right wing extremism, but left wing extremism can be obviously just as deadly.

[C]

So I'm actually. We were talking about this earlier. Coming off a two week digital detox, we tried to be not online, not on social media.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So sort of a crazy time to come back online.

[A]

You missed a lot.

[C]

Yeah. But honestly I, I think this is like so relevant because some of the things that we sort of our takeaways from this, first of all, we failed. Like we could not stay fully offline. Our lives are just so online in ways that we are not even thinking about like right now. And it's sort of important to recognize like, oh, I thought we could do this and actually we couldn't fully do it. But also because taking even substantive dial down or dial back on things, you actually taking a step back, notice sort of like how quickly things are moving, how quickly information is shared even when we don't have the full picture.

[B]

Always.

[C]

I mean this Jimmy Kimmel thing, you know, and again, I'm just coming back off this digital detox, but apparently, you know, he made some comment about the shooter before we knew all the information that ended up being wrong or maybe it wasn't fully wrong. You know, whatever it was, we didn't have the full picture. And we're all sort of unfortunately culpable for like we all are doing this. And so it's. I think we need to think very seriously about how fast information is spreading. The scale, the scope and the speed. That's sort of when I think about policy change, I think about how scale, scope speeds or the three S's and I think maybe it's important to think about information spread this way as well. Like how Many people is this information reaching, how quickly is it reaching them and how much is reaching them? And you know, those are important attributes for making sure that we're not riling people up into like a mob mentality.

[A]

Yeah. I think one could also argue that with social media, being the first to get a scoop is extremely beneficial. So people would rather go back and correct a story than have the facts straight from the beginning. So yeah, things are moving at a rapid pace, but we don't exactly always have the accurate version of reality. So.

[C]

And it's really hard. Rob probably knows this better than I do, knowing the psychological literature very well. But when we hear information it's really hard to sort of than believe. It's like to correct our misunderstandings or to tell ourselves that something is actually false. Once we learn something, it's hard to unlearn that thing. And so if we take in information that ends up being wrong, we sort of have that initial idea in our head and then. And the fact that people are just getting really different information now is I think also sort of problematic. I mean what I see on X, working at a right of center think tank and what some of my more left leaning friends see on X, I mean it's just totally different information and it's not always helpful.

[B]

I think there's this really interesting finding from social psychology, this idea, it's related to confirmation bias which a lot of people are aware of. But it's this idea of implicitly asking ourselves the question of can versus must when we come across a piece of information. And so if you come across a piece of information where the facts are a bit ambiguous but they confirm what you want to believe, you ask yourself, can I believe this? And most of the time you'll find and the answer is yes, because it confirms your views. But if you come across a piece of ambiguous information that is at odds with what you want to believe, you instead ask yourself, must I believe this? And you'll often find well, the answer is no because it's ambiguous. And whenever we encounter information in the world that opposes or is consistent with what we view, we often have that question in our mind or those questions.

[A]

I do think that you guys hit the nail on the head. And obviously this is what the official said too, that social media was a huge cause of what happened to Tyler Robinson and his radicalization. I also would like to hear your guys take on whether going to a college campus and the sort of rhetoric that happens on college campuses might have had any influence or if this is purely someone Seeking out community online. And that's what started all of this.

[B]

I think there's a bit of that in college campuses. So this has been a long standing debate. Does college radicalize the students? Is it the radical left wing professors brainwashing the students? That actually doesn't seem to be the case. People, the students on campus seem to be more influenced by their peers than their professors, which I think it makes sense. If you're a young person, you care more about what your friends think than whatever the authority figures think. And so a lot of the students are already young and generally more left leaning to begin with. On average, not all of them, but many of them are more left leaning when they set foot on campus. And then there's this element of group polarization. I think that happens where when you spend time with other people who share your political views, those views tend to harden in part because it's a method of bonding with your group. Like, oh, you believe that that politician is evil? Well, I do too. And now we agree on something, and now this solidifies our friendship. And then your views tend to crystallize. And I think this happens a lot on college campuses where a lot of students will kind of end up a bit more on the left than when they began. And even though the professors, I think, had very little to do with that.

[C]

We sort of see the opposite thing happening too now. And Charlie Kirk, honestly is maybe some evidence of this. Like, people are social, they want to fit in with their peers. And so this sort of shift. Right. For some young people, like, I think we need to be very aware of like how the Overton window has sort of shifted to extremities and how it is happening kind of on both sides. And you know, we could debate all day long about whether it's worse on the left or the right. I actually think that's more problematic to do. I think we need to be recognizing that any extremity is, is bad.

[B]

Yeah, I think one of the, the concerns people had about Charlie Kirk and him speaking on campus, there's a lot of people would, would, you know, mock him and say, oh, you're, you know, there's this guy, he's just going around debating a bunch of 18 year old college students. This is kind of silly. This is, you know, he's creating clickbait. But he played another role that I think threatened a lot of people's views, which was that he served as an important kind of focal point for students on campus. So a lot of students who aren't left leaning on Campus think they're alone. And then when Charlie Kirk shows up on campus and they go to one of his events and they look around and think, oh, I'm actually not alone. And then they could create these turning point chapters and form communities and friend groups and all of the conservatives would recognize who else was a conservative, or at least not a progressive. And other people watched this and they really didn't like it. And so, you know, they didn't like Kirk's views very much, but they also didn't like the fact that he was creating this common knowledge of, oh, actually, there's a lot of students on campus who disagree with the popular orthodoxy.

[A]

I think that Charlie Kirk, a main focus of a lot of his debates and a lot of his advice, either at video, like in videos, or at conventions, was he was addressing the men of the next generation. And he made a couple points about the reasons why men tend to isolate from society and start to disassociate. It seems like Tyler Robinson was exhibit A of this exact phenomenon. I'm curious from both of you, we're seeing more and more young men walk away from mainstream society. Find community online, enter these echo chambers of ideas on discord, Reddit, even like twitch streams, things like that. What is driving this mass isolation in our society, especially amongst young men? And why are more of them exiting reality to find, you know, virtual reality, if you will?

[B]

I think part of it is just the death of boredom. You know, I was thinking about this for a while that I think I'm kind of like a middling millennial and I'm just old enough to remember boredom was like an ordinary feature of teenage life 15, 20 years ago. And when you're bored as a teenager, it's just you gotta go meet up with your friends and get something going, social group, a gathering, a party, something to stave off that feeling of, you know, dullness and boredom. And now if you're bored, you know, on the one hand, you could try to make friends and get people together. And that takes a little bit of effort. Maybe there's a bit of social rejection. Maybe it's hard to, you know, get people together and you're worried that they won't want to hang out with you, and so you just pull out your phone and it's this short term boredom killer. I just, I think boredom.

[A]

Do you think it's like fear of rejection kind of?

[B]

I think it's a bit of fear of rejection, but I also think there's no more boredom in life. And so you could just look at your phone, and you could hang out with your friends, or you could pull out your phone and the phone is just so much easier. And there's that parasocial thing, like this guy, Tyler Robinson, instead of hanging out with real people, real friends, he could just go on Discord or Reddit or whatever and have the kind of illusion, the empty calories version of social interaction. And. Yeah, and you see way more radical, crazy stuff online than you do. You know, in real life. People tend to post crazier stuff online than they would say in person, too.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I think also the sort of, like, risk calculation has changed for both men and women. But, you know, I've spoken to young men who say they don't want to approach women because they're nervous that they're going to be accused of sort of harassment or. And, you know, the risk of being at a party and there being phones and something that you do can be recorded. You know, we were on this digital detox, but we did take a flight, and so I was watching some episodes of Entourage on this flight, and it was like an early 2000s show. And I'm seeing these guys go to these parties, and no one's on their phones. Everyone's drinking a beer and they're actually interacting, but you don't see a phone anywhere. You know, even when there's, like, a celebrity, you know, the main character's a celebrity, and he, like, goes to this house party, and no one is on their phones and no one's taking pictures of him.

[B]

Secretly recording.

[C]

Secretly recording him. Yeah, you could not imagine that happening these days. And so I have to think that the sort of risk calculation for young people especially has. For young people, but maybe for everyone has just changed. You know, they're so much less willing to just be natural and interact with each other. Because what if someone records something that they do or say or accuses them of something that they're doing or saying? And how do you. How do you walk back from that?

[A]

And someone was just telling me that Andrew Yang, you know, political figure, has been throwing these parties where phones are checked at the door and you only have disposable cameras to document the night so that people can actually interact. And I think that's, you know, that's a great idea, but is that sustainable long term? Who knows?

[C]

But I really like that we are having very serious conversations about whether or not our life. Our lives are better online or not. We need to keep having those conversations. But I think this is bigger than any one individual. We need to be thinking about sort of like how as a society, whether as a society, an American society, this is better or worse for us. And in what ways? Because it's going to take a lot to kind of change these dynamics. And I think you were sort of alluding to this before with sort of this clickbait rage bait stuff. The incentives are there for people to be posting extreme stuff, and algorithm seems.

[A]

To reward it in a lot of ways.

[C]

I mean, look, sex, money, these things have always, you know, driven a lot of behavior and, you know, but it's almost just like so much more heightened online. Again, scale, scope, speed, how fast, how much, to what extent, who are we reaching? We should be thinking about these things because when it happens too fast, that's we're all a mob in some mob. And I think we should maybe recognize.

[B]

That a little bit.

[A]

Yeah, I don't want to exhaust the point, but I feel like since Charlie Kirk's death, I've been seeing a lot of old videos of his pop up. And he actually did speak exactly to what you both touched on, this almost fear of rejection. He was talking particularly about dating and how when young men are rejected or disenchanted from the dating pool, they seem to isolate completely from society out of shame. Do you think there's a role that shame or awkwardness or lack of self esteem, whatever it might be, plays in the radicalization also of young people where they're seeking some sort of thrill or community? We've already touched on this, but it's just. I think there's an aspect of shame as an element, perhaps.

[B]

Yeah, that sounds right. And I think a lot of young guys are unaware that the occasional rejection is part of growing up. It's natural. You learn to deal with it and move forward. And if they're not aware, that can feel catastrophic. It feels like if one person doesn't like you, maybe no one will ever like you kind of thing. And then from there you see, you know, we live in this kind of culture where we glorify fame and social media figures and influencers. And, you know, I can't help but wonder, this is completely speculative. If, you know, this guy Tyler Robinson or maybe other young men out there saw the way that Luigi Mangione was glorified and romanticized in this, you know, people. He killed someone, and a lot of people seem to like him and people were calling him attractive and all this other stuff, complimenting him. And, you know, if you're a guy who's not doing very well in your life, but you, you know, do something like that, then maybe you can, you know, change your self image and get people to start talking about you and caring about you.

[C]

And that's exactly what we're doing right now, unfortunately. Like, it's. You can't not do it. We are talking about all of these tragedies that keep occurring, and it's. Again, it's just part of our culture now. We just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk about all of this stuff. And then it normalizes all of these things. It normalizes. Like violence has just been totally normalized, I think. And I think that's really problem. And then problematic.

[A]

Excuse me.

[C]

And then you touch on something else, like, oh, you know, young men, maybe they face rejection once, and then it's the end of the world. One thing I think about a lot is how we've sort of normalized, you know, mental health and talking about how we feel and everything is a mental health problem now. And, you know, anyone who's ever written, read anything I've written knows I say this all the time. But unless we sort of distinguish what a big problem is from a little problem, then little problems seem like big problems. And then people don't actually understand, like, oh, this is normal. Yeah, you're gonna face some rejection, you're gonna face some hardship, you're gonna face some bullying. And when you don't think that that's normal, then you think it's the end of the world. And that's also problematic.

[A]

Yeah, I think you touched on this, Carolyn. It seems that Tyler Robinson is not an isolated incident. We've seen a spike in violence amongst a lot more young people. There was the Covenant Christian School shooting, Luigi Mangione, and the United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who he murdered allegedly. And the. The Annunciation Catholic School shooting, actually, just like three or four weeks ago. And very close to home, the 345 Park Avenue shooting at the Blackstone and NFL building. Now we're seeing it with the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Is there a common denominator across all of these different examples?

[C]

I have a hard time wanting to say it's a mental health problem for everything, because I think we really need to try very, very hard to sort of distinguish when, I mean, look, anyone who shoots someone has a serious issue, right? But I think we need to distinguish what accountability looks like in different cases. I don't know all of the information about Charlie Kirk's shooter. And so I don't want to say that this was a mental health problem. With the Park Ave. Shooting, there were a Lot of early signs that this individual had very serious mental illness, a psychotic disorder. He had been hospitalized, he was on psychiatric medications. These are the types of signs that for that shooter, we should have recognized and been able to prevent. But that is something that maybe is a little bit different than a political assassination. And we have to be careful about saying it's a mental health problem, because I think then we are almost willing, as you said, can or must I accept this? Can I excuse this? Must I excuse this? Let's not sort of sort things into the wrong place when we can avoid doing that.

[A]

There are certainly different categories. Some of these are mental health related. Others feel like they're political or ideological vigilantes who have an end in mind. Go ahead, Rob.

[B]

Well, it just occurred to me that I see a lot of speculative chatter about Tyler Robinson and politically motivated. Was it mental illness related? And so on. To my knowledge, no one ever attributed mental illness to Luigi Mangione. And I wonder. This is not really related to this discussion, but I wonder if it's because he's good looking and we're like, someone hot can't be mental illness. You know, like, no one's like, oh, Luigi Mangione, was he unhinged? Was he mentally. No, it was just like, oh, he was like a. You know, he was seemingly a relatively smart guy who was politically motivated. He had kind of messy politics. It wasn't necessarily players on the left.

[C]

Or the right, but this is one way one could think about things. Someone who is homeless, schizophrenic, has been living on the streets for a decade. They've failed out of every single system they have, you know, they. Someone like this shooter, even the one who had had psychiatric hospitalizations, Luigi Angioni, they had a motive. They thought about this thing, and they completed the thing.

[B]

Yeah, they made a plan and executed it.

[C]

Thank you. They executed it.

[B]

Yeah. It is this funny thing. We're like, oh, you know, he had a psychotic break from reality, but he was still, you know, he created a plan, he got in his car, he was using turn signals. It's like, okay, well, what's he.

[C]

It was premeditated. It was premeditated.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

And these are the distinguishing. This is at least one way to distinguish these things. And I think we need to be very careful about calling this a mental health problem, calling any of these a mental health problem, until we really know. Because the fact of the matter is, we need to hold people accountable. This type of violence is not okay. And that is full stop, you know, end Right.

[A]

So I want to go back a little bit to the idea of loneliness and isolation kind of being this growing epidemic in America. Back in 2023, the Surgeon General actually declared an epidemic of loneliness and isolation. What sort of warning signs, and you touched on this a little bit, Carolyn. What sort of warning signs can parents, family members, friends, communities be looking for to prevent this sort of violent behavior in the future?

[C]

Well, one thing that we talk a lot about a lot is youth on their phones. This is a societal problem. We are on our phones, adults are on their phones. And so, you know, I'm not a parent. It's really hard for me to want to ever give parents advice. But I would say if you're anything like me, we could probably cut back on our screen time and just be more aware of what is going on around us. Taking some time off from your phone, making sure you're actually paying attention to what your kids are doing and, you know, having dinner with them without being on the phones, little things like that. Even if you're turning the dial down 10% from what you're currently doing, I can't think that there is a negative or a downside to doing that. And just get a little more time with the people that are sort of local, that are right with us in life, you know, local close to us.

[B]

I mean, and being aware of, you know, what you see online is not representative necessarily of the large majority of the population. So if you look at the data on Twitter, for example, something like 2% of Twitter users produce 80% of the tweets. So it's a small volume of people who are chronic posters, and then the rest are lurkers and that kind of thing. There's this old heuristic about. It's called the 1% rule of social media, which is that 1% of the population does most of the posting, most of the content creation, 9% engage with it in some way. They'll comment on it or like it or repost it in some way. And then 90% are just observers, lurkers scrolling through, but not really engaging that much with it. And so, you know, I think I try to keep that in mind when I look at social media, that this is not everyone thoughts two or there's some percentage of bots, but minority is they've accounted for that, the bots. And it is something like, yeah, 2% of the population, 80% of the tweets, and that's roughly the same for all social media platforms, is a lot of people will make their living that way or they just like sharing a lot about themselves online. But most people don't post nearly that frequently. And so that is, you know, that's worth keeping in mind that this is a kind of a distorted image of attention seeking people or people who make their living through content creation. But this is not most people.

[C]

You know, even if you're not posting, this is something I really felt. Taking a break from all of this, coming back online and seeing things, I was like, wow, this is actually way more kind of like distressing than I remember it being after having been away from it. We should be aware of what we are watching even when we don't mean to be watching. Things pop up in our feeds and like how good for us is, is that, you know, again, even if you're not posting, you're probably seeing things that you don't want to. And so turning the dial back, it seems like very simple thing, like we all know social media is bad for us, blah, blah, whatever. But it really is harder than I think we recognize to just get ourselves to turn away from it. And we should be trying really hard to do this.

[A]

Something I would love also for you, Carolyn, to look into for me is what sort of effect is it having on our brains when one second we're laughing and the next second we're sad and then the next second we're angry and the, I mean the emotions within seconds scrolling through an algorithm is just stark. And I don't think there's really ever been a point in human history where our minds are probably shifting that quickly.

[C]

Look, it's not just social media too. It's just we are living in a very fast paced life. Rob and I were talking about this earlier. We're both pretty big readers and in the morning I like actually read for an hour every morning. I set a timer and read and you know, being away from work for two weeks, I sort of read without my timer. And the way that I was even reading was different. I wasn't like trying to get the most out of my hour of reading. It was much more sort of thoughtful and you know, our lives have just fundamentally changed. There's no going back, but we should, I hate to, you know, drive this point home so much, but we just really should be thinking about the ways that individually this is affecting our lives and try to step away from it so that we can see. You know, I really like my life better this way or that way. This thing, maybe I don't want to cut out it. I want to keep my sibling group Chat. But do I need to be on Instagram at all? You know, once a day? Probably not.

[B]

Yeah. I think with social media, it also, I mean, we've talked about how it gives you this distorted picture of society as a whole. But I think there was this long standing debate about the dangers of social media where for a while, especially after the 2016 election, there was a lot of discussion about echo chambers. Oh, people, the algorithm's just feeding you stuff that you already believe. It's confirming and reconfirming your biases, and there's a real danger there. But actually more recent research suggests that the opposite may be the problem, which is not that you're seeing things that you agree with, because that's even before social media. You know, you just kind of self select into people you date, your friend groups and people you spend your. They already agree with you. You've always been kind of in an echo chamber before social media. But what social media did was present you with the most inflammatory and extreme opinions of the other side. And then this warps your view of the other side. You're not seeing, and I'm, you know, the moderate person of the opposing political party. You're seeing the crazy, extreme posters who love posting all the time, you know, finding the worst examples and resharing it. And, you know, I saw this a lot with a reaction to Charlie Kirk's death is a lot of people on the right were saying, oh, look what these left wingers are saying. They all believe and they agree and it's not true. Like, there was a recent poll out of YouGov that even, you know, people who identified as very liberal, like 31% of them said that political bias was justified some of the time, which is a high number. But that also means about 70% disagree with it. They don't believe that you should. And that's not what we're not seeing the 70% who disagree. We're seeing the people who do agree, who post a lot. And this, I think, fuels a lot of the political animosity.

[C]

Totally. It's rage bait. It's rage bait.

[A]

Speaking of which, an aspect of the Charlie Kirk story that has, I think, surprised a lot of Americans is the response online in celebration and glee over his murder, which is tragic. Brian Anderson, editor of City Journal, actually made an interesting point to me the other day. He was saying, I'm noticing that a lot of these people celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk are women. I kind of want to get into that. I know, Rob, it's probably a little bit Speculative. But why do you think that women seem to be the majority of those that are celebrating such a horrible thing?

[B]

Yeah, I've noticed that too. And I, and I don't know, again, is this just social media showing us like, you know, if you, if you take two videos of two people doing the exact same thing, one is a man and one is a woman, the one with the woman will get more like views. People, men and women like looking at women more than they look like looking at men. You know, men are just less interesting to look at. And so I think like this may be just the algorithm saying like, oh, you know, a woman's TikTok video saying, you know, I'm glad this person's dead or whatever. That's like just people will pause and look at that versus some guy, you know, and so assuming, like we'll just, you know, assume that maybe it is true because it does seem that way. I wonder if, you know, there may be two possibilities here. So one possibility is that the reason why you don't see more men doing it, even if they agree with it, is because they, they know that like they may be an actual, it may draw more violence toward themselves in some way that if you're a man and you say something and then other men see it like they may want to come after you, whereas if you're a woman, I think it's just less likely that some crazy person will take this as like a serious threat in some way. Basically what I'm saying is if you're a man and you say I'm glad so and so is dead. People may infer, oh, like you also will carry out this act later because you're a man and because you may be more aggressive and violent if you're a woman and you say, I'm glad this person's dead, I don't think people are going to say, oh, she's going to, she's the next person to pick up a rifle and take someone out. So they feel, you know. And then I think the other possibility here, and this is, this is a little bit more spicy and controversial, is, you know, there's this idea that, you know, college aged women have the impulse to care for vulnerable beings. And historically that's been infants and children. And in the absence of that, that caring and maternal instinct gets redirected to marginalized groups or people who you think deserve care or treatment or sheltering from danger. And so you could imagine that if you're a mother with an infant and then you see this guy who you believe is evil and wants to kill your infant, then you're going to be happy when someone takes him out. And if you're a woman, you think like, oh, you know, all these historically marginalized and mistreated people, like, I need to look out for them and make sure that they're safe and so on. And then you see this person who you believe or have been led to believe is a threat to them, then you're going to be glad when this predator is eliminated.

[C]

Mm.

[A]

Any thoughts?

[C]

You know, earlier this year, there were horrific floods in Texas, and a lot of young girls at summer camp were killed in Texas hill country. And I live in Dallas right now. And it was horrifying. Horrifying. Young girls, like 8 to 12. Really, really disturbing stuff. And I have to say I really did not see a lot of coverage of this comparatively to other types of topics. And I just wonder if maybe to your point, Rob, the population wasn't threatening and was there something there? And we've just moved away from sort of caring about our local communities, problems that are close to us. We're caring a lot about sort of more kind of far removed issues like the Israeli Palestinian conflict. I'm seeing so much more about that than I am about things that are happening in our own backyard. And again, I think the online world has made everything less local. And that is also, I think, really problematic.

[A]

Yeah. Well, we've been mentioning his name quite a bit throughout our conversation. But a story that I want us to talk briefly about is that Luigi Mangione, the alleged killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, his state terrorism charges were dropped yesterday by the New York State Supreme Court. I want to talk about first. I mean, the people outside the court were, like, cheering. They were so happy, free. Luigi, all the things. But what does this reaction say about, first of all, what we recognize as terrorism, intimidation against certain political or ideological figures and groups and. Yeah, I mean, let's just start with that. Any thoughts?

[C]

I'm not a legal expert. We need Ilya Shapiro on here.

[A]

We do. Ilya, we're coming to you.

[C]

But we. I think what this says to me is we've just normalized. We've normalized extremity, we've normalized violence. And seeing people cheering about this is. Should really disturb all of us.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I agree with that, that it's horrendous. I mean, we used to have a strong norm against celebrating the death of an innocent person, but then, you know, people have attempted to redefine what innocent means and if you're a CEO, then you're guilty by default. And therefore, you know, you're. You're an acceptable target. And yeah, I mean, of course, like this is going to send a signal to potentially send a signal to other would be assassins and killers. Like, oh, you're going to be cheered and celebrated and lionized. And you know, potentially, you know, a lot of those severe charges against you will be dropped.

[A]

So today it's still CEOs, tomorrow it's.

[C]

What school principals, like, where do we decide who is guilty or innocent and who. I mean, yeah, I think to your point, there's. We've really normalized that.

[A]

And another one of our colleagues, Jesse Arm, vice president of External affairs here at the Manhattan Institute, actually coined a term after the Park Avenue shooting and he referred to that shooting as well, under the category of Luigism, which is the idea that violence is a legitimate response to the perceived injustices of capitalism or institutions. So that's A lot of people are glorifying the violence because they think that somehow they are achieving, like you had said earlier, Carolyn, like some end, some objective for society. These people have done wrongs against humanity or against our society. And in some ways that justifies murder. It's really sickening. But Rob, you were kind of starting to get into this. I'm curious, just 30 seconds, really quick, what type of precedent this sets for future violence. I mean, we're trying to minimize these things. And I feel like the response that a lot of these situations have brought about or positive for the perpetrators in all of this.

[B]

Yeah, and they shouldn't be positive. Yeah, I find it interesting. And the old journalism rule that three is a pattern. And right now there's only kind of two of these types of guys, at least to my knowledge. We got Luigi Mangione and then Tyler Robinson. And they're both young guys, both smart, or at least on paper they're smart. Luigi Mangione went to Penn and Tyler Robinson got a 34 on his act. He was a smart guy. And I wonder if you know, because as you were describing Luigi Mangione earlier, I thought, okay, well, he killed a United Healthcare CEO and now he's a hero. But if he hadn't done that, he would be viewed as a villain. Right. He's white, he went to an Ivy League school. He is a child of privilege. And you know, in other circumstances people wouldn't be fond of him. But then he kills someone who has higher status than him and suddenly he is appraised for it. And I wonder if Something similar was going on through Tyler Robinson's mind that you have these, like, intelligent young white guys, and they think, well, everywhere I go, people are putting me down or saying, like, I'm privileged and this, that, and the other. But how do you ward off those charges against you is, you know, taking someone out that everyone can agree that is even more hated than me that.

[C]

You think everyone can agree towards.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. You know, in their peer group, in their college campuses. Yeah, exactly.

[C]

Whoever's been normalized to hate this, whatever.

[A]

The flavor of the week is very, very interesting. Well, we're a little bit out of time, but I do want to end on a topic that I think we've weaved throughout our conversation here. It's a little bit lighter, though, but I'm very curious to hear what you have to say about this, Rob. So NBC News decision desk ran a poll with Gen Z asking Trump and Kamala Harris voters in Gen Z what their definition of personal successes. I think he retweeted this or something to that effect. But men who voted for Trump said that having children. About 34% said having children is their definition. But if we take a look at women who voted for Kamala Harris, 51% said that a fulfilling job, career is their idea of success. But the surprising part in all of this was that women who voted for Trump, their top category, with 40% saying what their personal definition of success is was financial independence. I think there's a lot there. But it seems that no matter the political leanings amongst Gen Z women, career, financial independence, sort of the traits of girl boss culture seem to be the definition of success. Why do you think that is? 30 seconds each, if we can.

[B]

Well, I think one possibility here is, and this is like a charitable view, is that, you know, they're looking at the word success, and maybe the young women are thinking, like, is it like, it's not especially hard to have a child if you're. I mean, it's a hard thing, but it's well within the realm of possibility for a young woman. For a young man, it's much harder because you have to convince someone to like you and then convince someone to, like, let you marry them and then have a baby. And it's just there's a lot going on there. And so they might think, like, that's this huge, like, insurmountable obstacle.

[A]

It's out of their control.

[B]

Yeah. And so that would be success because it would just. It's so hard versus, like, getting a job and that kind of thing. Whereas, yeah, Maybe for women it's, you know, having some kids, that's more possible, whereas financial independence and those kinds of things seem more. More remote.

[C]

I think that's interesting.

[A]

Yeah. Men have a lot more agency and in dating, in a way, no matter, you know, if you're a feminist or not, I think a lot of women want to be pursued, so men can kind of decide, okay, I'm ready to get married, I'm ready to have a family. Women have perhaps less control over that and probably more control over a career.

[B]

Do you think? One thing that's interesting there is that their number one priority for our definition of success, it's. I mean, at least historically, it's required the opposite sex.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Right. And so if you're a man and you want kids, you need to have a woman to find. And if you're a woman and you want financial independence and you want to live a comfortable life, you got to find a man who's earning money. And so, you know, another way to look at it is like, men and women need each other and they maybe have not. Yeah, we lost that kind of wisdom along the way.

[A]

There's a division between the sex is what I'm hearing.

[C]

I think that's really interesting, actually. The way that you frame that sort of like how the question was framed might have affected the answers because of just what we associate the word success with. We might just associate the word success with professional success. Whereas maybe if the question asked had been something like, what do you want to have happen in your life? Or, you know, 10 years from now, what would you like in your life that might. The answers to those questions might be a little bit different. They might be, well, I'd like to have a family and have kids at that point. Whereas success might be associated more with, like, the professional.

[B]

Oh, I see.

[C]

The professional.

[B]

There's like. Yeah. The occupational. There's a connotation to success.

[C]

Success. That's more.

[B]

Yeah. Versus. Yeah. Yeah. If you use, like, a word like. Like meaning or fulfillment or something like that, then maybe the answers would have been different. But. But still, I still think those differences were. Were fascinating that. That. That, you know, the differences seemed much more along the lines of. Of gender rather than politics, regardless of who you supported. So.

[A]

Right. So last question. What is your personal definition of success around the table?

[C]

Well, I just got married, and so I'm very, very happy. And yeah, we'd like to have kids. You know, we'll see what the timeline looks like. But yeah, I.

[A]

So excited. Congrats, Caroline. Thank you.

[B]

Yeah. Well, okay. So it's like a personal definition of success. Okay. Well, I mean, I think generally, yeah, it varies. Like, it's, what is it that you want? And then did you get it? And everyone wants different things.

[A]

You know, I think I'll use Chairlyn's question. Where would you like to be intentional?

[B]

Well, I was gonna. So give me the answer. Well. Well, I'll go to your original question, which is, you know, I see, you know, a lot of young people now who have not, like, the best relationship with their parents. And I would like my adult, you know, in my feet in the future, my adult kids to like me.

[C]

I love that. I would like that also. That would be my definition.

[A]

That is a marker of success.

[C]

I love my parents. So, mom and dad, you are successful in my book.

[A]

A shout out to mom and dad. Well, that's all the time we have for today. Thank you, Rob. Thank you, Carolyn, for joining the City Journal podcast, and thank you, listeners, for joining. If you haven't already, please leave us a like and a comment, and please subscribe to our channel so you don't miss out on future conversations. Until next time, thank you for joining the City Journal podcast. We hope you tune in again soon.

[B]

It.