An act against injustice, or symbolic of America's moral breakdown?

Jan 01, 2025

Funny thing about Luigi Mangione.

After years of harping on toxicity, shaming men and stiff-arming chivalry, ultra-feminists and their allies have fixated on Mangione because he represents a sort of masculinity they are finally allowed to celebrate. He killed (allegedly) Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, in cold blood on the streets of Manhattan and they were all for it. The act was coded as politically and socially acceptable — an anti-hero who carried out a sentence of justice through altruistic assassination. Mangione is their white knight, fighting on their behalf, and taking up arms to defend their cause. In an age where masculinity is deemed “toxic,” vigilantism is fetishized.

Celebrations of the murder broke out on social media almost as soon as the killing was reported. The jubilation grew in fervor as each newly released surveillance video confirmed the original impression that the killer, still at large, was young and handsome.

Once an arrest was made, the lionization of the 26-year-old suspect reached a fever pitch. “Luigi” was the “hot assassin.” Merchandise featured his image and phrases from a handwritten manifesto — “delay,” “deny” and “depose.” The Nordstrums sweater he wore at his arraignment sold out in minutes. A crowdsourced defense fund quickly swelled with donations. Wanted posters appeared in Manhattan with pictures of other corporate CEOs. Private citizens who had helped with the manhunt were vilified as snitches, and police officers involved in arresting Mangione received threats.

Let’s not forget that he (allegedly) shot and killed a man, ambushed him from behind, then ran away like a toady coward only to be cornered days later in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s. Kismet. I'm convinced that many Americans have a patriarchal fetish. They’re obsessed with The Handmaid's Tale, but always romanticize extremist psychopaths — a la Che Guevera and the Boston Marathon Bomber — filling that man-shaped hole with back-door masculinity, meeting needs while saving face.

Hybristophilia is a thing.

A Moral Breakdown

Sure, there are many flaws in America’s healthcare system. For-profit care involves complex regulations and millions of pages of and “cans” and “cannots." This confounds even the most learned cost analysts and actuaries, who are engulfed in a sea of bureaucracy around diagnoses, the proper level of care, and the cost of specific treatments.

That doesn’t matter to the vigilantes. This particular murder was justified, they say, because it was a “legitimate” moral redress against an uncaring and dispassionate system that maximizes profit over public care. Thompson represented the unfairness of the system, a multimillionaire profiting at the expense of those in a lower tax bracket, and Mangione’s extreme act would bring proper light to the injustice.

I see it differently. The assassination of Brian Thompson may call for a “conversation” about health care—but it screams for a reckoning with Americans’ moral breakdown.

Cynicism in academia

It’s no surprise that age is inversely correlated with support for political assassination, since the younger the voter, the more recent his/her exposure to the American education system. Reaction epitomizes the prevailing traits of contemporary academia: narcissism, a juvenile view of economics, the inability to think in terms of principle and precedent, and ignorance about the civilizational triumph that is due process. These people most often show up on social media.

On Instagram, Professor Julia Alekseyeva at the University of Pennsylvania announced that Mangione was the “icon we all need and deserve.” Alekseyeva is the paradigmatic contemporary English professor, an academic who studies anything but literature. She focuses on film, comics, television, and digital media, emphasizing “anti-fascism.”

Tressie McMillan Cottom, who teaches at the University of North Carolina School of Information and Library Science, sneered that the Thompson killing would spur an increase in security for the “very wealthy who fear the consequences that come with their wealth.” Showing an affinity with nineteenth-century anarchists, Cottom believes that assassination is a “consequence” of wealth. Trying to protect yourself against assassination is more proof of your class-based turpitude.

Yolanda Wilson, a St. Louis University professor of “bioethics,” race, and gender, announced on social media that she was “not sad” about Thompson being shot dead in the street. Wilson felt no pity because Thompson’s company was “evil.” If you run a company that is “evil,” you can’t complain if you have a target on your back. According to Wilson, the “chickens come home to roost.”

With such educators, it’s no surprise that a large public segment shows stunted moral development. They are the dumbest of smart people.

Other critics

But academics are not the only cynics.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) gave the most sweeping exculpation. “People can only be pushed so far,” she said. “But if you push people hard enough they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, lose faith in the ability of the people who are providing the health care to make change, and start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone.”

“Ultimately?” The threat of further vigilantism is not in the future, it is now.

“Everything before the word ‘but’ is horseshit.” — Jon Snow, Game of Thrones

The New York Times inadvertently stepped over the line. The Times published a story about how insurance industry employees were responding to the murder, but readers responded with scathing vitriol, blaming the Times as an accomplice to the shooting —not to the homicide of Thompson, but to the alleged homicide of health insurance policyholders.

Then there’s Taylor Lorenz, the social media “expert” formerly of the Washington Post, the New York Times and The Daily Beast. Lorenz, who favors government restriction on free speech and still insists on masking in all public spaces, appeared on the Piers Morgan show proclaiming “I felt, along with so many other Americans, joy, unfortunately.”

One person who does not share vigilante justice is Congressman John Fetterman (D-PA), who was blunt in his assessment of Mangione’s action: “He’s the asshole that’s going to die in prison,” he told NBC News. “Congratulations if you want to celebrate that. That’s what social media is about this ... I don’t know why that’s news. Remember, he has two children that are going to grow up without their father… It’s vile."

Justice or Anarchy?

Healthcare enrollees have not been denied justice. They may feel entitled to all the care they want, but being denied a claim according to preexisting standards and procedures, however infuriating, is not a miscarriage of justice. Appeals procedures are available to insurance customers, however cumbersome.

But Thompson broke no law in his management of UnitedHealthcare. Even if UnitedHealthcare violated the regulatory superstructure governing insurance, Mangione had no authority to “hold him accountable” for a moral injustice.

Thompson’s crime was being wealthy. Interestingly, it is not legacy wealth. Thompson’s father was a grain elevator operator. Unlike Mangione, he was not an Ivy League blue blood whose family graced him with a private school education. And Mangione was not a policyholder with UnitedHealthcare.

His crime was being wealthy. Interestingly, it is not legacy wealth. Thompson’s father was a grain elevator operator. Unlike Mangione, he was not an Ivy League blue blood whose family graced him with a private school education.

Writes Heather MacDonald …

“Causality, ethics, and laws of supply and demand: all lie beyond the ken of these readers. Their most shocking ignorance concerns the civilizational breakthrough that is due process. The cornerstone of Western constitutionalism is the idea that the government cannot deprive someone of life, liberty, or property without transparent procedures designed to ferret out truth. Citizens must have notice of a law before they can be punished for violating it. They must have the opportunity to contest their guilt through cross-examination, with the assistance of counsel, and through the presentation of exculpatory evidence. If they are found guilty, they have the right to appeal. And, as part of the social compact, citizens cede to the government the right to use coercive force. These procedures, developed over centuries of Anglo-American jurisprudence, represent the West’s greatest triumph over irrationality.”

Luigi Mangione will be given due process. Brian Thompson wasn’t.

Attributing the frustrations of American health care to the profit motive is incredibly simplistic. There will always be tension between maximal coverage and costs, including (especially) in a public system. The industry’s current structure is the product of decades of regulation that overrode traditional market incentives and made employers, government, and insurance companies the buyers of care, not Luigi Mangione.

As for Americans’ oft-mentioned lower life expectancy compared with other modern countries, consider this: (according to the CDC)

Currently, 42 percent of Americans are obese. A whopping 74 percent are overweight
Nearly half of Americans (46.3 percent) don’t meet the minimum physical activity guidelines (CDC)
Only 22.7 percent of Americans meet the suggested minimum guidelines for aerobic activity
More than 17 percent of Americans are addicted to drugs. Over 10 percent have an alcohol addiction
The average American consumes 3,600 calories every day. That diet is high in saturated and trans fat, sugar, artificial sweeteners and other harmful additives
Brain rewiring with our addiction to cell phones

These factors put us in a class by ourselves. That cannot be reconciled by a gun.

###

Note: I know this is a controversial issue, and that people are passionate and very personal about their healthcare. I am most interested in your take and welcome comments.