The reaction to the murder of health insurance executive Brian Thompson is the latest example of the strength of visceral anti-elite sentiment across this country.
A motive for the killing of Thompson, 50, has not yet been determined, but the gunman's actions have sparked a backlash against the health insurance industry as a whole.
Social media users have sometimes openly criticized the murder, which occurred on a Manhattan street early Wednesday morning as UnitedHealthcare's CEO prepared to speak at an investor conference. I let out a smile. A still-unidentified assailant came from behind and shot him.
“Today we send our thoughts and sympathies to everyone who lost a loved one after their claim was denied by #UnitedHealthcare,” one post on social media said, while another asked: , posted a mock logo of the company featuring a crosshair. Do you think you could be sued if you made this as a shirt? ”
On the internet, even those who stop short of endorsing this deadly act are often struck by the callousness of health insurance companies who hold them responsible for thousands of deaths. mentioned.
Their argument is that it's not all about sympathy for Thompson's fate, but that those who have fallen victim to the insurance industry's greedy schemes are also entitled to sympathy.
Rightly or wrongly, this view places the health insurance industry alongside all the characters who have been the targets of populist ire over the past dozen years.
This includes companies that became large during the financial crisis and the Great Recession. Public health professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic. And members of the perceived “political establishment” on both sides of the aisle are blamed for deepening the atmosphere of state dysfunction.
From a political perspective, President-elect Trump is the most obvious beneficiary of these populist sentiments, having won two out of three elections despite being frequently and loudly derided by much of the media. He has won the election.
Still, much the same sentiment has been expressed on the left, twice elevating Sen. Bernie Sanders (Iconic, Vermont), once considered a fringe figure, to the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. The team's younger progressives, particularly Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, are tapping into the same mood.
But it is Trump, far more than anyone else, who is fanning the flames of right-wing populists.
Not only does he use unusually inflammatory language to attack his opponents in speeches, he also argues more broadly that the game is rigged against ordinary Americans.
One of President Trump's most memorable metaphors, his professed desire to “drain the swamp” in Washington, D.C., helps capture the sense of a corrupt status quo that serves its own interests at the expense of those outside its purview. are.
Critics argue that Trump himself is as much a creature of the quagmire as anyone else, for reasons such as trying to overturn the 2020 election.
Still, Mr. Trump has extended his criticism to include foreign affairs, often portraying the United States as being exploited by other countries and multilateral institutions.
For example, earlier this year, the president-elect came under fire when right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that President Trump had told him to cut off U.S. aid to Ukraine.
But the spokesperson said Trump's real concern was that “the United States is paying significantly more for the costs of the conflict, and he believes European countries should pay much more, but this is not a tax burden.” It's unfair to the people.”
In any case, one of the key lessons of President Trump's victory in November was that Democrats' claims that the president-elect was dangerous did not work. Part of the reason is that many Americans actively want someone to threaten the status quo.
For example, a voter analysis conducted for The Associated Press and Fox News asked respondents how much change they would like to see in the way the country is run.
Vice President Harris led those who wanted “no change” to Trump by a nearly two-to-one margin. The problem for her was that only 2% of voters held that view.
More than one in four voters wanted “complete and utter chaos.” Trump led this group by more than 40 points, 71% to 27%.
The reasons for this widespread sentiment predate President Trump's rise to politics by years.
First, supposed expert wisdom turned out to be catastrophically wrong on at least two of the most monumental events of the past quarter century.
The “slam dunk” incident in which the CIA assumed that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was proven wrong, but it meant that the U.S. led a bloody and costly invasion that destroyed the entire country. This was after thousands of American soldiers were injured. Or killed.
Years later, with the U.S. financial system in crisis, figures like 2008 Republican candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) declared that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong.”
The biggest meltdown since the Great Depression soon occurred.
While the pandemic was not such a clear-cut case, at least millions of Americans believed that the importance of mask mandates had been overstated and that school closures lasted too long and had serious negative effects. Masu.
Somewhere between the Great Recession and the pandemic, social media exploded, transforming the information landscape and significantly eroding the authority of legacy media.
While the flaws in traditional media were real, the fragmentation of the media landscape also opened the door to a proliferation of conspiracy theorists and other malign actors.
In politics, there has also been a proliferation of “news” aimed at reinforcing existing partisan biases and often fanning the flames of anger.
Clearly, there are many things that should be outraged to many Americans, including years of stagnant wages for workers, staggering levels of wealth inequality, and the gutting of large swathes of American manufacturing. There were many.
Angry debates often pile up in flames over ever-divisive topics such as race, gender, sexual identity, religion, and the widespread erosion of social and communal bonds that have shaped the fabric of American life. No wonder I'm so nervous.
This tension will continue to emerge, much like the reaction to Thompson's murder this week.
The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.
