The last thing that billionaires and the executives of major corporations want Americans to talk about is how C-suite greed impacts regular people. When Luigi Mangione goes on trial, there may be no way around having that conversation.
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At some point, Luigi Mangione will appear in a New York courtroom to face a murder charge for allegedly killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. That much seems certain. What is not, however, is whether corporate greed will also be on trial.
Right now, there are a lot of people who want it to be both… and many who would be terrified if that were to happen.
Based on the public’s reaction to the shooting, millions of Americans seem to at least sympathize with Mangione.
In one poll (from a fairly obscure pollster), nearly 1 in 5 of respondents said they had a strongly or somewhat positive opinion of Mangione. That number went up to one-third among those polled who had been denied health care. In addition, Americans under the age of 45 were twice as likely to have a favorable opinion of the alleged shooter than of the victim.
In the coming days, we will see more polls from better-known polling institutes, but there is no reason to believe that these won’t also show that many people sympathize with Mangione… and that even more despise the insurance industry.
And they are not just paying lip service, either. They are doing things to either actively support Mangione or blast UnitedHealthcare.
A Facebook message announcing the murder of its CEO garnered 42,000 reactions in the first 24 hours of its posting, and 37,500 of them were laughing emojis. It no longer seems to be possible to see these numbers now.
An online legal defense fund for Mangione has already raised $90,000, and donors didn’t hold back in their comments. An anonymous giver of $5 said, “Thank you for your service.” Another, who donated $1,000, wrote: “For my mother. A victim of the insurance industry. RIP. To Mr. Mangione: thank you for your sacrifice. May others follow in your footsteps of bravery and justice.”
GoFundMe, the online fundraising leader, shut down a similar campaign because it violated a policy that prohibits raising money for the defense of people accused of violent crimes.
The New York Times on Friday published an editorial from Andrew Witty, the CEO of the UnitedHealth Group, who praised the accomplishments of Thompson in running its subsidiary. After it garnered close to 2,500 comments, most of them critical, the Times shut down the ability of readers to weigh in on the column.
The McDonald’s in Altoona, PA, from where the tip originated that led to Mangione’s arrest, also wasn’t spared. It was hit with one-star reviews until Google intervened.
And these are just a few examples.
Interestingly, there are two common threads: The first is that, when Americans are given an opportunity to weigh in on this case, they express much more anger about the line of business the victim was in than about the targeted killing itself.
Photo credit: © Altoona Police Department/ZUMA Press Wire
The other one is even more interesting, because it seems as though there is a real concerted effort to make sure they don’t get to weigh in.
Go back to the examples listed above: GoFundMe shut down a campaign, The New York Times shut down comments, and Google shut down “reviews” of the fast-food location where Mangione was apprehended.
In a legal sense, these actions may be justified by terms of service, but they also paint the picture of a caste of the rich and powerful that seems to be genuinely concerned that others will follow Mangione’s example.
For example, establishment media outlets (from across the ideological spectrum) seem to have very little tolerance for all of those Mangione supporters, and none at all for him. There is a lot of talk of “vigilante justice,” which are also words that politicians like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) used.
Here is one more eyebrow-raising example, this one from law enforcement and the courts.
Earlier this week, a woman in Florida allegedly ended a phone call to her insurance company that was related to a denied claim with the words, “Delay, deny, depose. You people are next.” Of course, “delay,” “deny,” and “depose” were the words etched into the bullet casings that were found on the scene of the murder.
And, for once, this anger isn’t necessarily about a political divide.
If this were to boil over, it wouldn’t pit left against right, but rather those who have paid the price for corporate greed against those who have benefited from it.
She was not only arrested, but the judge also imposed a $100,000 bond, saying that doing so “is appropriate considering the status of our country at this point.”
Make no mistake, this is a “moment” for the United States.
The people are angry, and the establishment is circling the wagons in the hopes that this will end up being an isolated act of violence and not the start of something bigger.
And, for once, this anger isn’t necessarily about a political divide.
If this were to boil over, it wouldn’t pit left against right, but rather those who have paid the price for corporate greed against those who have benefited from it.
And that’s a kind of reckoning that is extremely rare in the US.
Generally, greed has few consequences in America. In fact, the entire system is based on it.
Just ask all those banks that got bailed out after triggering a global financial crisis in 2008 that wiped out trillions of dollars in wealth.
Things haven’t gotten better since then. The rich keep getting richer much faster, and life is a struggle for those who are the victims of their greed.
History has shown many times that the concentration of immense wealth in the hands of a few is not a sustainable situation. It might take a long time until a tipping point is reached, but when it is, there is often a sudden (if not to say violent) correction.
We may be close to one.
Mangione seems to think so, according to a manifesto that is attributed to him (and that is allegedly being suppressed by major news outlets).
“Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming,” that document states before pointing out that the US has the most expensive health care system in the world without achieving world-class results (apart from top-notch profits for companies like UnitedHealthcare).
“No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed [sic] them to get away with it,” the document states.
“It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play,” Mangione supposedly wrote. “Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”
These are not the kind of words that health insurers, or any other beneficiaries of greed, would like to hear during a trial that will be closely watched by tens of millions of Americans, many of whom may side with the alleged perpetrator and not the victim of an assassination on the streets of New York City.
This will be especially true if the health insurance industry has not made an honest effort by then to focus less on profits and more on Americans desperate for assistance, i.e., the benefits they have paid for.
So far, that does not seem to be the case. Apparently, CEOs are taking additional security measures, but these do not seem to involve changing corporate policies to make people less angry.
It will be interesting to see if fear in boardrooms will change this dynamic.
For example, would greed still be the top corporate goal if CEOs had to participate in periodic active shooter drills as though they were a bunch of elementary school kids?
Seems doubtful.
The next few weeks will reveal whether the rich and powerful can contain this situation before it spirals out of their control, or whether Mangione has triggered a wave of anger that threatens to sweep them up as well.
That righteous indignation could take many (welcome) forms, such as broad support for greater oversight of corporations, harsher punishments for white-collar crimes, or much higher taxes on the rich.
Obviously, further violence is not the answer, and any copycats should be held to account to the fullest extent of the law. But what about accountability for the people who kill Americans for profit or knowingly and methodically make the planet more inhospitable for future generations?
And that’s the entire point. Mangione should face a trial and, based on the evidence currently available, a fair-minded, unemotional jury will probably convict him.
That’s how it’s supposed to be. Actions have consequences. It just appears as though the actions of the rich and powerful never do.
That is what this anger is about. The people are not saying “Free Mangione” and showing up at his prison with torches and pitchforks to break him out. They are simply asking: “Why only him?”
The odds of this anger dying down may currently be in favor of the rich and powerful, because they have clearly realized that this could be one of those watershed moments, and they are working toward the common goal of not upsetting a system in which they are on top.
Conversely, while the victims of greed have the numbers on their side, the power that this gives them has not been channeled… yet.
Right now, they are voicing their discontent online, individually, or in small groups. However, if somebody manages to harness all of that anger and turn it into fuel for an economic justice movement, then we may be looking at a moment that could lead to seismic changes.
Editor’s Note: Following publication, a new section was added at the bottom of this editorial.
