I keep seeing people either pretending to pity Brian Thompson, or defend Luigi Mangione as some type of hero of the people. The reality is: they both sucked and their respective death and subsequent captures are a net zero at best for the common man.
Luigi had no reason to believe that murdering Brian Thompson would lead to increase claim approvals. He was never even insured by United Health care. He had all his medical bills paid for, and even if they were denied he was from a wealthy family and could have handled it just fine. He had no relations facing denials of life-saving treatments. He had a promising career with an education from a top university. For all intents and purposes, he was a privileged poser who got radicalized online and killed some random guy out of spite. That behavior, and those motivations, are intolerable, and he belongs in prison for a very long time.
Brian Thompson was a p.o.s. who promoted AI’s that denied claims so he could profit off the illness of the common man. Even if Luigi was not justified personally in committing the murder, B.T. still got what was coming to him.
Let’s stop with the false dichotomy and pretending like either person represents some overarching class struggle. The reality is: the B.T. murder is a case of the rich eating the rich, of the problems of the common man being used for cosplay so a privileged person can carry out their violent fantasies. It has no relevance to us.
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“This guy wasn’t even personally affected, how DARE he want to try and cause change?”
If Luigi wanted to enact change, he could have engaged in advocacy by leveraging his family’s significant wealth and influence (which, he has instead excluded himself from inheriting MILLIONS because of his criminal acts). He could have joined an advocacy group, or gone to law school and taken up practice suing over claims doing pro-bono cases. He’s a smart man, with resources that could have been grown and used to help the people he claimed to commit murder on the behalf of. At the very least, he could have tried to corner Brian Thompson and speak with him to get him to change his policies. He didn’t. Instead, he shot the dude in the back in cold blood, despite having literally no personal stake in the game. Brian got what was coming to him, but Luigi was not justified and he should not be representing the interests of the people. He’s a poser. Nothing more. And he gets what he deserves.
Advocacy has been going on for decades. People have been fighting for change non-violently for decades. Nothing has happened. It’s clear that we are not going to be able to change this country through those methods. I’m not saying we should be going out there and committing violence, but I think it is very naive for us to say that advocacy is going to work when it clearly hasn’t for so long.
You cannot say “advocacy” and “non-violent” methods don’t work and then say “I’m not advocating for violence”. It’s a cop out, and you know it. Pick a lane.
That baby icon next to your name is very fitting, because you have the worldview of a little inexperienced baby.
If you don’t think the entire internet rising up an celebrating that assassination is going to cause some changes, I don’t know what to tell you.
Is it the beginning of the end of the healthcare industry? No. Not directly. And I don’t for one second think the selfish pricks at the top will voluntarily release their grip one bit.
But can there be ANY doubt what the popular choice will be the next time we try to get true universal healthcare in the US? This grassroots celebration of this shitstain’s death is all anyone needs to point to when someone suggests that they can’t put single payer healthcare or other broad sweeping healthcare reform into their political platform because votes.
Anyone who has been arguing for this behind closed doors in Washington just received all the polling data they could possibly need regarding the electorate’s appetite for healtcare reform.
Luigi’s backstory and motives don’t even matter one bit compared to what is now a very clear message being heard in boardrooms everywhere. He took action that will help us all eventually. I’m not going to begrudge him a little undeserved hero worship in the meantime.
