A deranged man named Luigi Mangione (can you get any more Italian?) shot United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the internet is thrilled, with the sentiment ranging from "good" to "let's kill them all." That was the consensus on Reddit in right (r/Conservative) and left-leaning (r/Politics) circles, as well as the comments at Defector, which lean very liberal. It seems that people believe Mangione did something heroic in murdering a man by shooting him in the back with a 3D-printed pistol and then making a quick get-away by E-Bike. After evading capture for a couple days, Mangione was apprehended in a McDonalds with the gun and a manifesto on his person, more or less ending speculation that he was some sort of criminal genius. The myth of him as a working class hero was also dispelled; turns out that Mangione was part of a wealthy Baltimore family that possessed a multi-million dollar real estate empire, and he attended the University of Pennsylvania. Still, the hero worship has not ended--Mangione was revealed to be very handsome--and I don't really see any signs of public sentiment souring on the killer.
I'm not claiming to have any special sympathy for Thompson, or the CEOs of predatory businesses like healthcare companies. I don't think that's a job you can do with a clean conscience, not when so many people are denied life-saving care that they've paid for. Still, is vigilante justice what we need? Do we really want more people like Mangione executing people in the street for perceived crimes? Thompson may have been a piece of shit, but was he doing anything illegal? When people support Mangione, they're advocating for anarchy and mob justice. I don't know if you're familiar with the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, but it didn't turn out great for the common people.
The sad irony of people supporting Mangione is that America just elected Donald Trump to the Presidency, with Republicans winning both chambers of Congress. During his first term, Trump's efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act failed in the Senate by one vote, and the Senator who cast that decisive vote is now deceased. Americans are obviously very angry about their health coverage in this country, but they seem unable to connect the dots and figure out the source of the problem. Trump's new government efficiency czars (twin billionaire sociopaths Musk and Ramaswamy) are planning to advocate cuts to Medicare, although that might be dead on arrival. Biden's Inflation Reduction Act capped drug prices, and a Harris administration was planning on shoring up the ACA, decreasing drug prices, and tackling medical debt. None of that stuff was a sexy as deporting illegal immigrants or doing random fascist stuff, though, and now Americans will have to prepare for an incoming administration that will almost certainly work toward making their healthcare worse.
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