Today's Roundup: The CEO assassination

This gentleman is spot-fucking-on. The assassination of United Healthcare's CEO by a highly intelligent Ivy League graduate dealing with chronic pain is a watershed moment in our history and an example of the Republican deregulation machine attacking itself. 🎯🎯🎯👇 pic.twitter.com/BhOx5bzHCC

— Bill Madden (@maddenifico) December 11, 2024

The assassination of a US health insurance executive and the subsequent arrest of the shooter shouldn't really be such an existential story. 

But in the United States, we see such anger and fear and despair over health insurance company cruelty, and such a propensity to use violence to solve problems.

There is a warning here for Canada too, if our Conservative provincial governments keep trying to privatize more and more medicare services, NOBODY in Canada wants a US-style health care system. NOBODY

Getting back to the story, it is also an astounding cautionary tale: the rich people who always thought of themselves as the good guys -- well-off, upper class, safe neighbourhoods, private schools, classy restaurants, nice cars, good doctors, cleaning ladies to do the scut work, etc -- have now discovered that millions of ordinary people maybe actually hate them. Or at least are not particularly outraged when somebody shoots one of them down in the street. 

And this upper class group includes many of the mainstream media journalists, who themselves are rich enough to be insulated from fear of health care denial, and who are now shocked, SHOCKED, by the cheering.

Just saying’ if a US health insurance company can deny coverage, you don’t, in fact, have insurance. You have a lottery ticket.

— Stephen Best (@BestStephenD) December 5, 2024

Employees at United Healthcare lied repeatedly in an attempt to cut me off from treatment and medication I needed to stay alive. Just saying.

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— Benjamin Dreyer (@bcdreyer.social) December 11, 2024 at 9:11 PM

Here's a round-up of good commentary on this story:

First, journalist Ken Klipperstein has been covering the hell out of this story on his substack with many pieces about the shooting, the manhunt, the arrest and the manifesto.

Next, a Wired magazine article summarized the extraordinary coverage of this story:

Angela Watercutter / Wired

The Internet’s Obsession With Luigi Mangione Signals a Major Shift

On Monday, police arrested Luigi Mangione, a 26-year-old app developer, in connection with the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Online reaction to his apprehension reveals a new form of fandom.

...Following the shooting death of Brian Thompson, a fandom emerged around his suspected killer that seemed unifying in a way few others have been. He became an avatar that anyone who’d ever struggled with a hospital bill could understand.

Many of the most engaged posts on X mentioning Thompson or UnitedHealthcare following the shooting “expressed explicit or implicit support for the killing or denigrated the victim,” the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) wrote

People reacted to the death of Thompson like it signaled the start of a class war.

In the US, people have strong opinions about health insurance companies, and when it came out that the alleged shooter had written “deny,” “depose,” “defend” on some ammo casings, they rallied round. When it turned out Mangione had been spotted at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, someone on Bluesky called it SnitchDonald’s; others briefly review-bombed the location. (Google later pulled many negative reviews.) He became an avatar that anyone who’d ever struggled with a hospital bill could understand....

As Ryan Broderick put it in his Garbage Day newsletter on Monday, “It’s possible that this is the most aligned America—well, aside from the folks in its highest tax brackets—has been about a news story since the invention of the internet.”

Want further proof? Look no further than the comments on Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro’s YouTube channel. On a video titled “The EVIL Revolutionary Left Cheers Murder!” the responses were swift and unequivocal: “FACT: Both left AND right are cheering! We don't care about your feelings”; “I’m not buying this ‘left vs right’ shit anymore Ben, I want health care for my family”; “Just because ‘the left’ likes something doesn’t mean you have to instinctively hate it. Wake up and read the room bro.” Not exactly the kind of banter typically found in the comments section of a manosphere video.

Public opinion on Mangione’s and Thompson’s fate will likely continue to shift for weeks. So much more information will come to the fore. Like any other main character, Mangione’s entire life will be analyzed, but what gets said about him may seem small compared to what the response to his actions says about everyone else.

Popehat has a good analysis of the "this isn't us!" reaction:

Ken White / The Popehat Report

Some Other America, One I Do Not Know

...America is a country where we’re not squeamish about killing people. Americans have always made killers into folk heroes, from the outlaws of the American West to the bank robbers of the Great Depression. Sometimes it’s about recognizing them as icons of independence and self-determination. But just as often it’s about killing who needs to be killed — killing people we don’t recognize as human. The Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley sold a million records celebrating the murderousness of a war criminal; only 11% of Americans approved of holding him accountable for his crimes. Half a century later more than 40% approved of pardoning more modern war criminals. Our heroes have included Jesse James and John Dillinger, but also Kyle Rittenhouse and Daniel Penny. Americans don’t only celebrate killers; they hate and revile anyone who objects

...America isn’t the worst place ever. Humans treat each other inhumanely all the time and always have. But Americans like to see themselves as somehow above condoning violence and we’re absolutely not. Violence against people we’ve decided to hate doesn’t break norms. It is the norm.

The killing of Brian Thompson was the act of an apparent madman whose confused ideology defies social media ambitions to make him some kind of hero. In my view much of the celebration of the killing is self-indulgence. I doubt it accomplishes anything. But treating it as an aberration is self-delusion. It’s as American as cherry pie.

Why is it important to say so? Because the delusion “we’re better than this” stops us from trying to do better. Pretending that cheering Brian Thompson’s death is un-American is giving ourselves permission to ignore the many ways it’s not.

I would like to live in an America where it’s un-American and unprecedented to celebrate the killing of someone from a reviled group. But that’s some other America, not mine. It sounds like a nice place to visit.

And here's a warning for the future:

The Only Robert Evans / Shatterzone

Alleged CEO Shooter Luigi Mangione Was Radicalized by Pain

A journey through his online footprint and influences

....In the wake of this shooting every media organization commenting on it has had to grapple with the waves of public enthusiasm for Luigi’s actions. Right-wing media figures condemning the left for celebrating this assassination have been criticized by their own readers and listeners. Insurance companies have pulled down lists of their executives from the Internet.

This is because they too understand the shooter culture of the United States. Like anyone else, they know that any mass shooting that meets with massive media coverage and interest will spawn copycats. The assassination Luigi is believed to have carried out was new and exciting; it demanded the public’s attention in a way most mass shootings don’t.

At almost the exact same time the United Healthcare CEO was assassinated, a gunman walked into a religious school near Oroville California and shot two young children before killing himself. This shooting drew almost no national attention. It was entirely drowned out by the execution of an insurance industry CEO. The armed and disaffected young men who are most drawn to this sort of thing will not miss this fact.

I believe Luigi Mangione was radicalized by pain. The shooters who follow him will all have their own reasons for what they do, their own journeys to that violent end. But ultimately, they’ll do what they’ll do because Luigi proved it’s what gets attention.

For now.

Bummer. 😳👇

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— Bill Madden (@maddenifico.bsky.social) December 11, 2024 at 8:54 PM