As soon as the shocking footage of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson being assassinated on the streets of New York City was released, the left began to cast the killer as a folk hero. Even before the shooter's identity was revealed, progressives celebrated the act, inventing a fictional backstory and glorifying the murder as a form of noble revenge.
Now that Luigi Mangione has been arrested, late-night comedians are obsessed with him, and progressive fanatics are even tattooing his image on their bodies. The justification for this disturbing act is the allegation of “obscene profits” brought in by corrupt medical companies. But while drug companies are making record profits, these same progressives have attacked anyone who questions COVID-19 vaccines.
Progressives may have welcomed his questionable target selection, but Mangione hardly fits the image of a working-class revolutionary.
The truth is much darker. The left has a strong appetite for political violence, glorifying those who harm those it considers enemies.
Thompson's murder was bizarre from the beginning. The video shows the calm, methodical killer shooting Mr Thompson in the back, making it clear that this was no random street crime.
Authorities began an investigation, which ended after a customer at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, recognized Mangione. Police took him into custody without incident.
The fallout is equally strange. Altoona police received death threats for arresting Mangione, and McDonald's locations were flooded with negative reviews online. Meanwhile, false claims circulated online, including a fabricated article claiming that UnitedHealthcare denied coverage for Mangione's critical back surgery. Progressives seized on these narratives and desperately twisted the assassination to suit their own political purposes.
Although Mangione had an extensive online presence, he rarely aligned himself with mainstream political movements. Far from being a desperate victim driven to violence, the alleged assassin came from a wealthy family, attended an elite private school, and earned an Ivy League diploma.
Mangione had a deep hatred for the medical industry, but he also seems to have had a general disdain for much of the modern world. Progressives may have applauded his questionable target selection, but no matter how much the left would like to believe otherwise, Mangione fell prey to the image of a working-class revolutionary spurred to action by dire circumstances. is hardly applicable.
Conservatives must realize that you don't have to be a violent Marxist revolutionary to know that America's health care system is broken. Americans pay exorbitant amounts for health care. Companies in the industry are often predatory and are always looking for ways to cut costs and deny coverage.
The system itself is a bureaucratic nightmare, seemingly designed to frustrate patients into abandoning their claims. Rising costs can destroy the financial future of someone facing a medical emergency.
Government intervention in the industry and the added burden of illegal immigration as individuals take advantage of the system without contributing are the main causes of this crisis. But these factors alone cannot fully explain the dire state of American health care.
People are angry for a reason. If conservatives ignored their grievances by labeling those who point out problems as Marxists, they would be making a grave mistake.
The problem is not that there is a lack of legitimate reasons to be angry about the current state of the medical industry. The problem is that progressives are using these grievances as a flimsy pretext for political violence.
The left has no problem with medical corporations gaining unfair profits if it serves the left's objectives. During the pandemic, pharmaceutical companies promoted vaccines that failed to prevent infection and transmission and harmed some patients. These companies made record profits and were exempt from legal liability for any damage their products caused.
Progressives did not object to these practices. Rather, they demonized anyone who questioned them. They sought to make vaccines mandatory, destroy the careers of doctors who speak out, censor medical facts, and smear critics as science deniers.
When journalist Christopher Rufo exposed footage of hospital officials bragging about profits from pediatric transition surgery, a procedure that leaves patients dependent for life, progressives ignored it. They did not attack medical institutions. Instead, they continued to promote child mutilation and attack those who opposed gender jihad.
If conservatives resort to violence against doctors who profit from these surgeries or drug company CEOs who make money from defective vaccines, the left will be quick to label them deranged terrorists. I'll put it on.
While real problems exist within the medical industry, the left has no principled stand against medical providers and drug companies profiting from a dire situation. Progressives have nothing against corporations making record profits or receiving legal protection after doing harm, as long as it serves their purposes.
For many on the left, morality boils down to hating who the media tells you to hate, without bothering to apply consistent standards.
When a crazed assassin fired on Donald Trump, celebrities told progressives to cheer, and they cheered. When the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was assassinated, celebrities once again signaled to progressives to cheer, and they did.
It's really that simple.
