The profile and background of Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week, is coming into sharper and sharper focus. For one, after days of speculation, we can now more confidently say the motive was health care–related, beyond the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose” written on the bullet shell casings found at the scene. Mangione had a two-page statement on his person when he was arrested, which complained that “the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy,” and that companies like UnitedHealthcare “have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit.”
A number of irresponsible voices have jumped on details like this to declare that he is a “leftist” and even “clearly a fan of” Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Mangione had gripes with the US health care system and private insurers, the Left criticize both of those things; ergo, he must be of the Left — this seems to be the extent of the sophistication going in this analysis.
But a scouring of Mangione’s digital footprint shows the reality is very different, and much more interesting. Far from a stereotype of a Zoomer leftist radicalized to violence by BreadTube and Sanders that obsesses the conservative imagination, Mangione appears to have been, like many Americans, someone with a hodgepodge of views and political beliefs that don’t neatly map onto any one category on the political spectrum.
All too many atomized Americans have taken up arms and carried out shocking acts of violence over the past decades, usually without anything more than the desire to harm and kill for their own sake. Mangione…
Auteur: Branko Marcetic
