As I See It: Liberals, left hail Mangione's killing of health care CEO
By Vivian Sahner
'The Militant', Vol. 88/No. 49, December 30, 2024
NEW YORK — After staking out the site, an armed attacker waited in the early morning here Dec. 4 until Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, walked by on his way to a work conference. The gunman approached him from behind, firing several shots point-blank and, after clearing a jam, continued to shoot, killing Thompson.
On Dec. 9 Luigi Mangione, 26, was arrested at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, while carrying a loaded 3-D printed gun and silencer, fake ID and supposedly a handwritten document, which the press has taken to calling a "manifesto." He's been charged with 11 counts, including first-degree murder and murder as a crime of terrorism. If found guilty on all counts he faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Between these two events and continuing since, a media circus has reduced Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two and husband, into a symbol of greed, amid a growing fascination and even glorification of Mangione by middle-class liberals and the radical left.
T-shirts saying "Deny, Defend, Depose," which Mangione allegedly etched onto his bullets, and "Free Luigi" are being hustled online. "Wanted" posters of several other prominent health insurance executives have been pasted up around the city here. One of Thompson had a big "X" across his face, indicating he had already been eliminated.
After Elsa Merritt wrote a folk ballad posted on TikTok with lyrics about Mangione, she told the Wall Street Journal she wasn't really in love with him, but "any musician has to have a finger on the pulse of pop culture." Her boyfriend, she said, told her, "I don't blame you. I have a crush on him too. I think everyone does."
"This is not to say that an act of violence is justified, but I think for anyone who is confused," Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told CBS Dec. 12, "they need to understand that people interpret and feel and experience denied claims as an act of violence against them."
James Harr, the founder of a "socialist apparel" brand, has announced plans to sell a deck of cards of "most wanted CEOs," complete with names, faces and images of gun range targets.
Pick up almost any paper or social media outlet and you can find more and more examples to add to the list.
A road forward
Mangione is from a wealthy Maryland family. His grandparents built a real estate empire, including a for-profit nursing home chain of nine facilities, some of which have been cited for mistreating patients.
Mangione, who is fighting extradition to New York, undoubtedly wishes those calling him a "hero" would keep in mind that he is innocent until, and if, he is convicted in court.
And for many workers — thousands of whom have waged hard-fought union battles to get affordable medical insurance for their families — this deluge of sexual fantasy and idolatry toward Mangione is repugnant, a broadside attack on serious efforts to take on the issue.
The horrible health care in the U.S. isn't caused by a handful of greedy bosses. It's part and parcel of the workings of capitalism, a social system that operates by turning everything into commodities that can be sold for a profit. Food, electricity, housing and medical care, things that should be a human right and which we have the know-how to provide to every person on the planet today, become objects of exploitation and oppression.
Murdering individual capitalists can't bring this system down, let alone build a society worth having.
Only through using the unions to fight to defend our wages, safety and health care today, and, over time, gaining the self-confidence and class consciousness to conquer power by workers and farmers mobilized in our tens of millions, will solutions to these issues be found.
