In some ways, Luigi Mangione, the man arrested for the Dec. 4 murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in midtown Manhattan, is your run-of-the-mill shooter: a twentysomething with an affection for video games and a vendetta; a man who friends say had withdrawn from their social circles and may have been struggling with his mental health; an admirer of other notorious killers—a book review Mangione left on the site GoodReads offered some praise for the Unabomber, whose actions, he said, killed innocent people but were also “more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary” than a lunatic.
In other ways, though, he’s well outside of the norm. 26-year-old Mangione comes from a wealthy and well-connected Baltimore family. He was valedictorian at his private high school, and an Ivy League grad with two degrees from Penn. And judging by the internet’s response to his chiseled abs, he at least doesn’t look like your typical sexually frustrated incel. (Friends have claimed, however, that a back problem had limited Mangione’s ability to date and enjoy intimate relationships.)
Mangione’s politics are unclear, and what we do know makes his beliefs seem pretty incoherent. If he did indeed commit the crime of which he is accused, many observers (admirers and critics alike) have seemed to assume he’s a leftist—albeit one who has engendered sympathy and even support from the MAGA-verse. His Twitter history, however, suggests he may have some reactionary right-wing views—or simply been terminally online; the kind of Gen-Z man who might admire Elon Musk, retweet grievances about the “woke mind virus” and complain about atheism but still vote for Bernie Sanders. Police say they found a hand-written manifesto on him at the time of his arrest, raging at “parasites” who “had it coming” and complaining about predatory profit-driven health insurance companies.
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Even before he was identified, Mangione was becoming something of a folk hero to the many, many Americans fed up with our broken health care system. And then there were those who did more than empathize.
After the NYPD last week shared an image of their suspect’s unmasked face, caught in a knowing, cheeky grin on security footage at a hostel the individual had stayed at prior to Thompson’s murder, the memes began. The shooter, it seemed, was pretty hot, a laudatory consensus that snowballed after Mangione was arrested and publicly identified. His Twitter profile included a widely-shared thirst trap photo of him shirtless on a hike. In it, Mangione has six-pack abs, gloriously thick eyebrows and a million-dollar smile. “Free Luigi” trended on social media.
Commentators fantasized about being his cell mate (a scenario often involving sex) and/or busting him out of the slammer (a scenario also often involving sex). The actress Jameela Jamil noted that “a star is born.” Disgraced former Republican congressman Matt Gaetz tweeted that his female friends had been asking if Mangione was single.
In most other circumstances, lusting after an accused killer would be met with condemnation. In this case, however, it was the popular (and populist) position.
Crimes that capture broad public attention often tell us more about ourselves and our culture than their perpetrators. In a nation where where 100 million have some kind of medical debt, one in every 100 owes more than $10,000, there are a whole lot of people who might have been angry enough with an insurance company to want to kill its millionaire CEO. Which makes this moment ripe for real political discussion. Not because what the killer here did was right or justified (it wasn’t) or because he’s a buff bro, but because so many Americans can relate to his rage—and, perhaps, lust for it.
No politician in their right mind is going to campaign on “actually, maybe this killer had a point.” But any lawmaker or corporate strategist with half a brain should be recognizing—and reckoning with—this moment in the American psyche. Whatever the killer’s views more broadly, and however unjustified his actions, his awful deed has clearly tapped into widely-felt, white-hot fury over a perfectly solvable injustice. That fury should be turned (non-violently!) on insurance companies, who do profit from mass suffering. And it should be turned on bipartisam leaders, whether in boardrooms or on Capitol Hill, who allow the status quo to continue.
