Why are Americans celebrating this vigilante murderer as a freedom fighter?
By: Rachel Marsden
Luigi Mangione, the killer of UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson, has been stirring up waves of online – but not at himself
A US health insurance CEO’s murder has transcended political ideology in
uniting average Americans of all stripes against the kind of corruption that
would warrant some freedom bombs if it were in a foreign nation of strategic
interest to the US.
It’s no wonder Washington is hell-bent on banning TikTok. Shortly after a masked
man was caught on camera gunning down UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson in
midtown Manhattan on December 4, sparking a manhunt, users flooded the social
media app with comments like, “Sorry, I can’t help. I didn’t see anything
because my insurance co-pay was too high for me to afford eyeglasses.” Or “This
story is getting more coverage than UnitedHealthCare ever provided.”
They were mostly amused by the suspect’s successful evasion of authorities for
several days, and the “deny, defend, depose” inscriptions on the shell casings
found at the scene – similar to the “delay, deny, defend” phrase synonymous with
the strategy used by health insurance companies to avoid paying out claims to
those who have been paying for their coverage.
People popped up asking where they could donate to the suspect’s legal fees
online, and started posting their own health insurance rejection letters.
As someone who was once surprised to find an $800 bill for a simple blood
test in my mailbox while living in the US, all because my doctor didn’t check
whether my health insurance actually covered the lab in question before
referring me there, it’s long been clear that the American healthcare system is
a giant racket that’s ripping people off.
And those of us who have had the unpleasant experience of paying hundreds of
dollars every month in ever-increasing premiums for private insurance, only to
end up in administrative hell dealing with an insurer’s attempt to dodge the
service you’re paying for, have long understood the problem.
Know who really wasn’t amused by this violent manifestation of it? The
Democratic Party governor of the state of Pennsylvania, where the 26-year-old
suspect, Luigi Mangione, was turned in to police – at a McDonald’s in Altoona,
whose online reviews are now rife with reports of “rats” (in the snitch sense).
“Some attention in this case, especially online, has been deeply disturbing, as
some have looked to celebrate instead of condemning this killer,” said Governor
John Shapiro. That’s quite a different tune from September, when Shapiro was
celebrating killings himself by autographing ammunition alongside Ukrainian
President Vladimir Zelensky at an army ammunition plant in the state.
“We must all do our part in the fight for freedom – from the workers in
Scranton who make Pennsylvania the arsenal of democracy to the brave Ukrainian
soldiers protecting their country,” Shapiro said at the time.
But what about protecting Americans from predatory profiteers? He and his pals
have done such a bang-up job that a not-insignificant number of Americans are
now cheering a symbolic act of murder like it was the political assassination of
an authoritarian regime.
And maybe that’s exactly the best way to view it, if they’re really struggling
to wrap their minds around it. Washington is quick to portray foreign leaders
who happen to be in the way of its ambitions as oppressive and victimizing their
own people. Yet, when it comes to the health system and its executives at home,
making tens of millions of dollars in annual compensation as a reward for
increasing profits in part by limiting claim payouts to sick people and raising
costs, they’re selectively blind to the exploitation.
There’s a reason why online “wanted” style graphics, which almost immediately
started to circulate online with the headshots and accompanying salaries of
private health insurance CEOs (and a large red “X” over Thompson’s) resembles an
FBI most-wanted terrorist list.
The military industrial complex requires external enemies and an entire national
security machinery to actively scare up taxpayer cash for domestic profits. But
the medical industrial complex just requires turning a blind eye to the system
already in place. Both are equally dysfunctional, but there’s a sense that wars
can at least be stopped. Ceasefires and peace treaties can be enacted. The
violence grabs headlines. People’s quiet suffering doesn’t. But where does the
average person paying more and more for less and less care even turn in their
plight? A single violent act has galvanized them online, Arab Spring style, and
elevated the typically silent struggles of millions of Americans to front page
headlines.
A manifesto, attributed to Mangione, smacks of guerrilla warfare. “Frankly,
these parasites simply had it coming… The US has the #1 most expensive
healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy.
United is the largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple,
Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but has our life expectancy? No, the
reality is these have simply gotten too powerful, and they cannot continue to
abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed
them to get away with it,” it says.
“I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument,”
Mangione wrote, allegedly opting to cede the floor to Mr. Bullet instead.
The trial should be interesting. Seems like an opportunity to compel disclosure
of the industry’s methods and tactics. A Manhattan jury just acquitted an army
veteran of criminally negligent homicide for a chokehold on an aggressive subway
rider. It’s hard to imagine that a Manhattan jury’s life experiences won’t
somehow impact a verdict in this case.
In the meantime, violence is not supposed to be how civilized people resolve
problems in America. Such methods are reserved for the US establishment against
its targets, not for ingrates living in the Best Nation On Earth™
COPYRIGHT 2024 RACHEL MARSDEN.