Violence Entrepreneurs
Audio Recording by George Hahn
Political violence in America has (mostly) been a subject for history class — seen only in black-and-white photos and scratchy newsreel footage. Not since the 1960s and early ’70s have we seen a summer like 2025. Now, as then, we are caught in a crisis of our own making. But it isn’t a crisis of political antagonism or ideological dispute. It’s a crisis of meaning. A crisis of self-worth. The result of our failure to build and sustain an inclusive society of opportunity for all. We are arguing over a brush fire (which party is more to blame) as the forest burns. The nation cries out for leaders, but what we have instead are violence entrepreneurs.
Opportunists
Where others see challenges or threats, entrepreneurs see opportunity. At their best, politicians harness the energy unleashed in moments of crisis to implement new solutions: After the Soviets launched Sputnik, the U.S. invested in science and education to put a man on the moon. At their worst, politicians exploit tragedies to advance their own careers and consolidate power. When Saudi terrorists brought down the twin towers, the Bush administration used it as a pretext for domestic spying, torture, and the invasion of Iraq, a country with no connection to the 9/11 attacks — and, as it turned out, no weapons of mass destruction.
History takes time to sort itself out, but so far, our response to this crisis looks more like Wag the Dog than The Right Stuff. Charlie Kirk’s killer hadn’t even been charged before JD Vance promoted himself from vice president to podcast guest host, taking over Kirk’s show and pledging to crack down on “radical-left lunatics.” Among the first targets, he suggested, should be such nefarious organizations as the Ford Foundation and the Nation magazine. Trump adviser Stephen Miller blamed a “vast domestic terror movement” for Kirk’s death.
Josh Hawley turned the gaslighting into a strobe light: “We’ve had three assassinations, or assassination attempts, of major political figures in the last 18 months. All the targets are one persuasion, and all the shooters are one persuasion.” Persuasion is vague, but short of “human” your guess is as good as mine as to what it encompasses: a centrist Democratic governor (Josh Shapiro), a progressive Democratic state representative (Melissa Hortman), a Christian Nationalist podcaster (Kirk), and President Trump. And why could Hawley only count to three?
No leading Democrat has made any sort of equivalent assignment of blame or call for retribution, but they’ve been equally sclerotic. Condemning “violence” alone is just the sort of milquetoast response we’ve come to expect from the party of Schumer.
Victims
Hawley was right about one thing: The “shooters” have all been of one “persuasion.” Only it’s not political. The commonalities appear to be invisible in plain sight. They are angry men, mostly young and nearly all of them white, suffering from an array of financial, medical, and personal setbacks. They’re largely isolated from their families and physical communities. They’re unemployed or intermittently working; they’re not members of any sports teams, hobbyist clubs, or political organizations. These nominally “political” criminals held only shallow political views, defined by memes and enemies, not policies or ideologies.
Cody Balmer, charged with attempting to murder the governor of Pennsylvania, was recently divorced, about to lose his house to the bank, and fresh off a suicide attempt.
Tyler Robinson, Kirk’s alleged murderer, was described by neighbors as spending all day in his apartment playing loud music and video games. He inscribed his bullet casings with memes and gaming references, artifacts of his nihilist, irony-soaked online life.
David DePape, who nearly killed Nancy Pelosi’s husband in a botched effort to kidnap the former speaker, was estranged from his family, living in a rented garage.
Patrick White, who shot hundreds of rounds at the CDC, killing an Atlanta police officer, blamed the Covid vaccine for his deteriorating mental health.
Thomas Crooks’s motive for shooting Donald Trump remains a mystery, but the entirety of his political engagement was donating $15 to a progressive voter registration group when he was 17, then registering to vote as a Republican the next year.
Vance Boelter, indicted for the murder of Hortman, was an outspoken opponent of abortion, and appeared to be targeting pro-choice politicians, but was otherwise not notably political.
Luigi Mangione, alleged killer of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was a prolific online writer about technology and history, but evidenced little interest in electoral politics or issues — except for his personal vendetta against the health insurance industry.
These men aren’t resorting to violence after losing at the ballot box. Few of them appear to have had much interest in politics at all, beyond their personal grievances. Several don’t appear to have even voted. They certainly aren’t the shock troops of a violent movement or the martyrs of a revolutionary cause. A dozen people picked at random would likely demonstrate more political engagement than these men, up until the moment they pulled the trigger.
They are evidence of a crisis that runs deeper than any political division. Now, dead or imprisoned, they are fodder for the wrong battle. Ironically, that these men weren’t partisan actors means the debate over which side they were on is unresolvable — they were on neither side — and thus can go on forever, generating clicks and clout. Besides political campaigns, the near-term financial beneficiaries are politicians raising money, cable news channels pumping ratings and social media companies seeking ad impressions.
Rehabilitation
Only once we stop pretending this violence is politics by other means, and recognize it as the result of our broken politics, can we envision solutions.
Our accelerating cavalcade of bloodshed rests on three pillars:
First, the massive tech media platforms, which feed us a daily diet of misinformation and tribal distrust. Sex sells. But Big Tech — 40% of the S&P 500 — has found something even better: rage. Eisenhower rightly warned us about the military industrial complex. In the decades after he left office, weapons manufacturers, think tanks, and politicians — the violence entrepreneurs of their era — conspired to make foreign wars and proxy conflicts into billion-dollar businesses. Today, Meta dwarves Lockheed Martin. “Make Memes Not War” is the trillion-dollar strategy.
My argument is not that politics is unrelated to the violence. (Or that there isn’t actual organized political violence, mostly from the far right, as has been well documented.) On the contrary, the ever more violent and inflammatory rhetoric and misinformation and the relentless demonization of every available scapegoat have left their marks all over the lives of the perpetrators. But demagoguery, dog whistles, and tribalism aren’t new. The dangerous novelty of our time is the fusing of capitalism and technology to make rage, and violence, profitable.
We’d go a long way toward dismantling the rage machine if we exposed its makers to liability, as we do with every other corporation. Reforming Section 230, which insulates online platforms from the externalities of the conspiracy theories and Chinese misinformation schemes they peddle, would be a massive first step. Age-gating social media would be a good follow-up.
And online media is an accelerant to our problem. As I often say, (including in my next book), the fire it fuels is disconnected rage. Rarely has a cohort fallen further, faster than young men. Most angry young men find peace. Some grasp a gun instead.
My friend Richard Reeves wrote a book, Of Boys and Men, that’s replete with good ideas: recruit more male teachers, invest in vocational training, destigmatize mental health problems. We should raise the minimum wage and create tax breaks for people paying off student debt and saving for home ownership. Implement national service to get young people off their devices and into their communities. Use tax credits that unleash the private building sector and anti-Nimby laws, to help us build 8 million new homes in 10 years. Enforce retirement ages and term limits so older people make room for the rising generation.
The third leg of this stool is the most obvious, but also the most politicized. This post comes nine days after Kirk was killed. In those nine days, 1,125 other Americans died from gun violence. Fifty were children. Two more people have been shot and killed since you began reading this post.
The U.K., where I’ve been living for the past three years, has much in common with the U.S. The problems are familiar: racial division, arguments over immigration, declining opportunity for young people. Yet one difference stands out. It will take more than a year for the U.K. to see as many gun deaths (per capita) as the U.S. experienced in the nine days since Kirk’s murder. Private handguns are outlawed here, and hunting firearms are tightly controlled.
This isn’t complicated: break Big Tech’s immunity, invest in boys, rein in guns. The hard part isn’t policy — it’s courage. The violence entrepreneurs aren’t selling solutions, they’re selling rage. And business is booming.
Life is so rich,
P.S. Check out our newest podcast: China Decode, co-hosted by Alice Han and James Kynge, with a new episode every Tuesday on the Prof G Pod feed. Listen to the inaugural episode here on Apple or Spotify, or subscribe on YouTube.
54 Comments
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If and when you come for my guns you and your ilk will get bullets first.
This is the best assessment I have read on the major problem of our turbulent times. Unlight most publications, Galloway goes beyond handwringing to make some wise proposals. Like the UK, Canada does not yet have the impact of the powerful gun lobby, but our government’s attempts to buy back guns is meeting strong opposition from those who are using the restrictions on personal freedoms to thwart any attempt to control weapons. Galloway’s suggestions for attacking the problem of youth disengagement which is at the root of much of the problem should be taken seriously and active measures should be implemented urgently. This article should be widely distributed to every concerned citizen, of Canada and the UK and not just the USA.
Portland Anarchists FIREBOMB Rapper Ice Cube’s Tour Bus After Reportedly Mistaking It for ICE Deportation Bus
So another ANTIFA terrorist opened fire at ICE in Dallas and then ended up taking his own life.
The majority of young people that have nothing to live for would rather bad things happen to someone else than good things happen to themselves.
If we want the human race to survive we have to figure out a way to flip those numbers around.
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Me as a child: I bet that in the future robots will be super smart and replace humanity.
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Dear Unethical Kaja:
If young minds are really breaking faster than they can be mended, as one of your random typist claims, it would be good to stop an unethical hypnotherapy so that you can take some energy to finally do good away from the time and energy you’ve devoted to being unethical.
After that, it would be good to come out against hypnotherapy outright, calling for a complete ban.
Banning a profession that you yourself know just doesn’t care about ethics could protect a lot of minds.
I guess you realize I’d dispute the need for more “helpful” services, especially considering that none of the random typists at Psychology Today have shown enough concern for professional ethics to stop an unethical hypnotherapy once the person being hypnotized without his consent has said no.
Any psychologist who’s trying to drum up more business at a site that has covered for such an unethical hypnotherapist kind of looks unethical and dangerous themselves.
I’m hoping that the TP contributors will realize how bad they look and make a successful effort to keep on the unethical Kaja’s ass until the unethical hypnotherapist I’ve said no to gets the message so loudly and clearly that it cannot help but stop.
Wasn’t there a medical ethicist who said “First do no harm” once?
Yes, that was Hippocrates. From what I’ve seen, no one at TP has ever heard of him.
Should be required reading for all members of Congress!
This column is spot on. The incredibly important thing left out is that these problems are left to fester because the billionaires and multi-millionaires who interview and, sometimes, block potential candidates before they ever get on the ballot have other priorities.
Great article, I think you’ve nailed three of the most important drivers of the current situation.
Unfortunately I can’t see any real impetus to address any of them properly.
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The Left has a monopoly on political violence. It’s no longer Right vs. Left, but Good vs Evil.
32,000 new requests for TurningPoint chapters since Charlie’s assassination.
The USA is waking up.
Democrats facing crisis as more than 2M voters leave party in four years
Between the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, Democrats lost about 2.1 million voters across the 30 states that track registration by political party, according to a New York Times analysis of data gathered by the L2 tracking firm.
Over the same period, the Republican Party gained 2.4 million registered voters.
These numbers came out before Kirk was assassinated and the world got to see again just how ugly and nasty the left can be.
Just watching the left implode, get themselves fired, destroy their careers, disgusting everyone with a sense of decency or morality.
Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.
Or, in other words, “How to say Scott Galloway is right without actually saying it.”
ABC – Always Be Cheerful!
Spot on! Great observations and insights.
Would add one more to help boys. Age-gating online video-games, not just social media.
Ah – but our politics are not “broken.” They are working exactly as designed. “Campaign finance reform isn’t the biggest problem facing the country – but it’s the first.” Lawrence Lessig
Seems like (not sure if intended) the rehab plan addresses 3 components many crimes are analyzed against – motive, means, and opportunity.
Motive – let’s not make everyone angrier at each other with algorithms
Means – let’s not make it any easier to turn anger into gunshots
Opportunity – let’s help people have better paths to improving their situation than resorting to political violence (might be stretching here to make the comparison fit)
Not sure why this showed up as a reply. Just was intended as a general observation
Brilliant. This should be required reading for all Americans and Canadians, who are demonstrating symptoms that the U.S. has experienced in the distant and recent past. Thank you. Sharing far & wide.
This piece cuts through the noise, powerfully arguing that political division isnt the root cause but rather a fuel added to a fire of rage profited by tech giants. A necessary, hard-hitting read.
“We’d go a long way toward dismantling the rage machine if we exposed its makers to liability, as we do with every other corporation.”
I’ve got a better idea.
Let’s label them as terrorist organizations and use the military to engage them.
Who is funding ANTIFA and these other rent-a-mobs?
Why is ANTIFA allowed to get violent and engage in domestic terrorism?
Why do mayors/ police comms/chiefs stand down, do not enforce the law, and allow cities to burn?
Why does the media run defense for ANTIFA?
Who is laundering money through ActBlue for pay offs?
Foreign nation states?
Cartels?
Who is on the take?
Follow the money.
There’s a reason why Trump brought back the firing squads.
Treason doesn’t pay very well in the end.
Military is the only way.
The ANTIFA boogeyman is back! Faceless, structureless, like a ghoul in the night.
Your comment recycles unsubstantiated claims and calls for violence, which is exactly the sort of reaction Galloway identifies as both a product and a driver of the rage-driven environment that’s eroding civil discourse.
Most of your claims here (“media runs defense for ANTIFA,” “ActBlue laundering money,” foreign cartels’ involvement) trace back to memes and online rumors that are widely circulated but not grounded in vetted fact.
Galloway’s entire point is that disconnected, angry rhetoric like this isn’t really about policy or problem-solving… it’s a reaction to an environment that rewards blame, division, and scapegoating over understanding or reform.
Be interesting to add knife deaths into the mix for the UK how many deaths per one hundred thousand.
Let me handle this for you…
Gun‐related deaths in the U.S. are much higher per‐capita (~13.7/100,000) than knife/knife‐instrument homicides in the UK (~0.4/100,000).
So that’s about 35X the rate. Next question?
Hey Ricky, do you happen to know the demographic breakdown in the U.S. of that murder and crime rate?
We used to have a third space for men that acted as guardrails to prevent them from cascading into loneliness, isolation, and social and mental depravity. That place was call church. And the meaning men used to have was to serve God. The male role model men used to have was called Jesus Christ.
New Atheist like youself, Sam Harris, Bill Mahr, and Richard Dawkin are finishing the job that Nietzsche started of killing God and look what we have left: a rotting corpse of a society littered with itemized, mentally ill individuals that are addicted to social media and Onlyfans, and a declining population because there is no societal shame or moral judgement whether or not to have a family or not.
We casted aside the glue (church and God) that held our society together and now grasping at straws for a new, secular morality to come up organically to hold us mentally and spiritually together.
China has a atheist answer: it’s called communist authoritarianism.
What’s ours?
We have more than ever young men who do not study, do not work, and do not seek work. How do they survive? When I was young, I heard: Who does not work, does not eat.
Way too much opportunity to make big money by Ad agencies, journalists, news media, bloggers today. Lazy Americans, sit by video screen, flip can lid, slouch on couch, push a button voila, 2 or 3 hours of noise called entertainment. Books too much trouble to read, let the screen person or the AI or the blog ad tell or show you how to live or what is going on in Hollywood. Screen content goes by so fast it is almost impossible to edit for correctness.1% are real people trying to understand what is going on in world. The 3 cartoon tell us people which toilet paper is best for cartoon bears, or little note indicating actor portrayed! Yikes
Some cultures have a principle of “I don’t like that person, therefore I need to understand them more.” This is largely absent in US.
Also missing in the US is an effective forum for debate of key issues, like Prime Ministers Question Time in UK.
How are the Hatfield & McCoys going to improve their relations without this?
Scott, I think that you’re correct about the real issue at hand here. Unfortunately, I think that it’s going to get worse before it gets better. In addition to the factors that you cited which are affecting young males, we’re entering another seismic shift with generative AI. The first jobs that this technology is replacing is entry-level, white collar jobs. They’re the kinds of jobs with menial tasks that newly graduated lawyers, accountants, engineers, etc. need to learn their trade and begin their trajectory toward management. As these jobs disappear, I fear that we’re going to see a generation of disillusioned graduates who see no opportunity to achieve what their parents did. And, frankly, we parents are hardly equipped to help them navigate this change. When I graduated high school and college, I saw long-term careers in almost any pursuit I might choose. Today’s graduates will find it difficult to have that kind of hope and optimism; and the absence of that kind of optimism about the future is what breeds nihilists like you profiled in this post (and like those who are also most likely to commit a school shooting).
Well said. The current low-level jobs being replaced by AI will certainly exacerbate this problem. One theory is that big tech will start hiring again in 3 years because the current reduction is not because AI is indeed doing these jobs to the full extent but more because these businesses need to save costs to invest obscene amount in AI. At some point, it will see the ROI or will have burned the capital (and the consequences will be behind it) and the hiring will start again. 1-3 years.
You and Kara are the real shit! I don’t know who these snowflakes are that can’t handle your humor, but Kara is OK with it then everybody needs to MOVE THE FUCK ON!
We have fascists determined to spread their fuckery by destroying the constitution and they asking for forgiveness later.
The worst part is how the sackless coven of eunuchs that call themselves the LEGISLATIVE branch whacks their pud whilst Rome burns to the ground.
We’re past the point of needing a good old fashioned 1969 style revolution in the mall in Washington DC. I can see you and Kara being the keynote speakers if you will. I’m 62 so I don’t have that many plate appearances left so let’s get it on!
I agree 100%. But first, we need to get our national leaders to damp down the heated remarks, not make up false facts, and look for solutions and not holding on to power. In the past, they would try to hide the politics of everything, now they display it with pride so much un abashed. This has to stop before we can have a chance ay any meaniningful resolve.
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Such reasonable solutions will not be tolerated. No profit in it. Sadly human collateral is second to money.
this has been my post about Kirk: Krick himself spread hate speech. His rhetoric on gay and trans obviously is part of this tragic horrendous killing. Looks like this kid felt threatened humiliated attacked by Kricks words and reacted. Words can incite violence in a lost boy immersed in gun culture and the dark net.
Of course my thoughts and prayers go out to Kirk and family, but they also go out to the arm manufacturers, the gun lobbies, and of course the corrupt cowards that allow this slaughter to continue.
At issue is the loneliness of so many single young men. Most do not have a single friend, all have forgotten how to get a date and have lost all esteem.
Scott said: “We’d go a long way toward dismantling the rage machine if we exposed its makers to liability, as we do with every other corporation”.
Pepe says: I’m quite sure that some years down the road, Big Tech will have to settle a huge lawsuit, like Big Tobacco, because it could be proven that they knew they were doing harm.
Conflicts grow and endure because they provide a living to political opportunists. Welcome to Gaza and Northern Ireland.
“Reforming Section 230, which insulates online platforms from the externalities of the conspiracy theories and Chinese misinformation schemes they peddle, would be a massive first step. Age-gating social media would be a good follow-up.”
Yes, that and the Fairness Doctrine. I grew up in the ’50’s ’60’s ’70’s From Reagan on it’s been a decling society and a nightmare. You are a voice of reason, I listen to you and Kara every chance I get for clarity and peace of mind to know there are reasonable solutions to the fucking mess we are in. Trump is a tool. The people using the tool are too dangerous to describe. HELP
Great post! I also think something is missing in our culture. The family unit and the values it instills seem to have weakened. Kids spend so much more time on devices instead of being outside, playing sports, or engaging in family activities. As a society, whether religious or not, we have also let our sense of morality erode. When we see politicians or people online celebrating someone’s death, or others blaming entire groups, it feels like we have lost something essential. On top of that, many teachers and university professors seem to hold progressive left leaning values, and this has contributed to an erosion of pride in our country.
Great commentary Scott
Too many GUNS!
As PhD in Educational Administration, I feel that the NUMBER ONE PROBLEM in the United States is poor education
1) 3PM-5PM All schools have study halls with ample paid teachers to help with reading and math
2) Honor students are excused
3) No student gets passed on to the next grade until he /she has passed all classes
4) Grading goes back to the way it was (90-100=A etc)
Stack up of F Off
One other thing that I see in your description of the shooter’s is that most if not all have mental health Problems. I think we need to look at is mental illness and mental health care. As a retired Nurse Practitioner is one of the problems that these men have in common. In my experience men are more resistant to admitting their problems have a connection to depression or other mental health Problems. Men have different symptoms where depressed. They tend to express their depression as anger rather than sadness.
These are complex issues that contribute to young men’s social isolation and must be part of any plan to address this crisis.
Outstanding post Scott…So much truth that few seem to want to see or hear at this moment. Thankfully, Carr can’t muzzle you. I hope all is well in the UK. Cheers, Lee
Why you see the Republicans rhetoric as dangerous the facts prove that the liberals retaliate in more hateful rhetoric and violence, shooting anyone they disagree with. Cry me a river.
Very insightful. My favorite part of this piece is “The dangerous novelty of our time is the fusing of capitalism and technology to make rage, and violence, profitable.”
Couldn’t agree more with everything you’ve said. I have a daughter and two sons and although my daughter has faced challenges in her life, my sons have been describing their serious struggles for years. While my older son (30) has overcome many of the issues, my 26 yr old son complains incessantly about how hard men his age have it. He lives in NYC and has a great job but longs for a relationship. He talks about how women won’t pay any attention to guys that aren’t 6ft tall and earning 7 figures. There’s a shallowness to the lives of these 20 somethings. Most are not happy and lack direction . It’s a crisis.
You need to run for president. You are spot on.