In Defense of Luigi Mangione's Fangirls
By Ella Johnson
On December 4, 2024, 26 year old Luigi Mangione shot and killed United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson on the front steps of the New York Hilton Midtown in Manhattan. Police believe he immediately ran, took a city bus, then a subway to Pennsylvania. He was arrested five days after the shooting in an Altoona, Pennsylvania McDonald's after a customer recognized him and an employee subsequently called the police. Within the week, Luigi carried 11 charges spread across New York, Pennsylvania, and US federal courts. Among his various charges are three separate counts of murder – two of which include the accusation of terrorism, and several lesser felonies, including illegal possession of firearms and falsification of identification. Luigi Mangione is currently eligible for the death penalty.
This is what — allegedly — happened. No one could have predicted the cascade of controversy following his actions. Allow me to give some context.
December 5, the social media of every chronically online young person exploded. Luigi Manigone was the biggest name in town, the most controversial one, the hottest one. He became the biggest Christmas family dinner political argument of the year. Social media was flooded with thirst traps of his mug shot and old Facebook photos, deluded videos maintaining that Luigi couldn’t have committed the crime because he doesn’t have a unibrow, wild conspiracy theories over the meaning of the specific Pokemon in his Facebook header, shorts of courthouse protests featuring the anti-industry slogan “Delay, Deny, Defend,” and righteously angry rants on the injustice of the American healthcare system. Suddenly, Mangione became a champion of those victimized by the industry, a symbol of modern class warfare, and the face of resistance against elitism. He became Mr. Hot Freedom Fighter for half of the country, and Mr. Disgusting-Murderer-Killed-a-Good-Man-and-Now-Has-Perverted-Fangirls-For-It for the other half.
On the part of Brian Thompson, social media has largely split down political lines along a spectrum of favoring the murder of an evil man, condemning both his murder (because murder is bad, not because he wasn’t an evil man) and the healthcare insurance industry, and denouncing the murder of an innocent man overall. It’s not a surprise to anyone when I write that young people are making memes, jokes, and video edits celebrating Brian Thompson’s murder and painting Mangione as a class war hero. Both conservative and mainstream media, in response, have blanket condemned young progressives who support Mangione’s actions. The New York Post called his supporters “twisted,” The New York Times called Mangione “a danger of a handsome criminal,” Ben Shapiro said fangirls have a new “socialist daddy.” Both positions lack nuance, and my hope is to share some of the frustration I find within the American healthcare system and provide some semblance of an explanation, or possibly a defense of, my fellow chronically online young adults.
My point here is to now dive into the horrors of the American healthcare system, but in writing I find myself hesitating. Quick disclaimer: murder is bad. Of course it is. I don’t necessarily feel as if the moral failings of the victim need to be taken into account when one says “murder is bad.” I find myself at times so wrapped up in the injustice of it all that I forget even those who do terrible things have families who grieve them. Despite what CBS writes of his “low-key” ways, I believe Brian Thompson was a man who profited immensely off the backs of dead Americans he was tasked with healing. Sure, he was part of a system that needs significant reform, and one can’t blame one cog for the faults of the entire machine. But, when one knowingly operates the largest cog in a murder machine, one becomes complicit in the operation of the entire thing. But, I write that with the intention of offering no disrespect to him as a human being with a human life, desires, and family. I do, however, have UHC, and therefore feel little sympathy.
Second disclaimer: I hesitate to equate the murder of Brian Thompson and the incredible dysfunctionality of the generalized American healthcare system beyond using it as an opener to a separate discussion. I will be doing that, though, because Luigi Mangione is charged with terrorism-related crimes. Mangione was never a customer of UHC, but rather targeted Thompson because of his stature within the largest health insurance company in America. The shooting was not a vendetta, personal crusade, or revenge plot, but rather intended to be a statement on the healthcare industry as a whole. His notebooks show a wish to make a point larger than one executive. If Mangione is being charged with terrorism as a result, I feel it is necessary to place the discussion of his crime into the larger context of the healthcare industry, therefore necessitating a relation of the two crimes.
A few years back, I had an allergic reaction bad enough for an ER visit. My dad drove me, because there was no way we were paying for an ambulance if no one was actively going into cardiac arrest. They gave me warm blankets, IV Benadryl, and a bed for an hour. Three thousand dollars. A year after that, I visited a friend in the EU. Hiking down a slope of uneven pavement in her hometown, she tripped and rolled her ankle. She continued walking fine, but decided to visit the hospital out of an abundance of caution. Culture shock. She paid nothing, so why not get a quick X-ray? She was in and out in a few hours with a gauze wrap to show for it.
My stories are practically the norm in America, a country where hospitals overcharge, insurance doesn’t pay, and CEOs cash out to the tune of billions. I’m lucky that I’m not one of the 20 million Americans who owe a total of $220 billion in medical debt today. One in twelve adults in this country is in medical debt. Every year, 68,000 people die from preventable diseases because they can’t afford the healthcare they need to live. If lacking the ability to pay were added to the top causes of death list, it would rank number nine, squished between diabetes and kidney disease. Despite one of the leading arguments for privatized healthcare being lowered governmental cost, the US government still spends twice as much on healthcare than any other developed nation, especially those with universal, single-payer systems. The health insurance industry makes the maze of navigating the doctor’s office complex and convoluted, often leaving even system experts surprised when their bill returns with extreme out-of-network costs.
The healthcare system is screwed up, but that’s only half the reason people are angry. Let’s talk about elitism. In New York, second degree murder charges are typically reserved for those who kill police officers. In a way, it makes sense. The greater the victim’s contribution to the community, the harsher the punishment for their murderer. Luigi Mangione was charged with second degree murder in the New York courts. As if because one is rich, one automatically makes a significant enough contribution to their community to be placed on par with the NYPD. It’s the kind of trickle-down economics nonsense that allows Trump to argue that his new tax cuts will actually benefit the working class. I can’t stand the argument that Thompson was a good man, and that he ran an insurance business that allowed people to afford healthcare, as if he didn’t rake in $10 million in yearly salary while his customers couldn’t afford insulin. His contribution to his community did not break even.
Luigi Mangione is escorted by police officers and other officials into the courthouse — Alan Chin for The New York Times
When Luigi Mangione walked into the courtroom for the first time, he was escorted by more than a dozen police officers carrying heavy-duty weaponry. To contrast, here’s a photo of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, being escorted into court after murdering three people, injuring dozens more, and veritably terrorizing the country for two decades. Evidently, the man who killed one CEO is more valuable, more in need of security than the man who killed three common citizens and held the entire country in a chokehold for years. So, yes, this is a story of intense hypocrisy. Of a legal system that will without a doubt ensure that Luigi Mangione gets the harshest sentence possible while the man who walked onto my high school campus with a gun goes free. Of a legal system that will force me to live with the knowledge that Brian Thompson will be avenged, but 97.2% of rape victims will not. Of a legal system sure to punish a CEO’s murderer, but one of the police officers convicted for George Floyd’s 2020 murder was released last August.
Ted Kraczynski, the Unabomber, is escorted to court by two officials — John Youngbear for AP News
Listen, I’m not going to go out on the street tomorrow wearing a green cartoon Luigi hat, waving my block letter “Free Luigi” sign. When it comes to putting away those who wrong our society’s elite, I trust the legal system. He should go to prison. He — allegedly — committed murder, and he knew exactly what he was getting himself into. Just for once in my life, I want a CEO’s life to be given the same worth as my own, despite the fact that I don’t have $43 million and a legion of corporate lobbyists to my name. His Rolex does not make his life worth more than mine. I want to know in my soul that if I were murdered tomorrow, and my murderer walked across state lines with a weapon and fake ID, they would be given the exact same charges and the same resulting sentence as Luigi Mangione has and will be given. But I don’t trust that.
That’s the short and sweet of it. The healthcare system is unjust, the legal system is unjust, and people are angry. I’m not going to sit here and say that my generation handles what they can’t express with the greatest delicacy, because they don’t. But that’s why we make jokes about his face, call him hot. Explaining that complex, contradictory mess of moral convictions is far too much for dinner conversation. One gets far less incredulous looks from family when claiming to support a man because he’s hot, rather than trying to stumble over the intricate words necessary to explain he’s done what you’ve dreamed of every time you watched someone choose between insulin and rent.
To all those shaking your head in disagreement with my premise: this conclusion is not a call for a better healthcare system. I’m not deluded enough to believe that some indignant undergrad has that kind of power. I’m too disillusioned to legitimately believe that Brian Thompson’s death will lead to any meaningful, long-standing change. This is simply the dissatisfaction I feel gets lost in the noise surrounding the tagline “teenagers fangirl over hot murderer,” like this is the same as when they made the Menendez Brothers sexy. Social media has not handled the issue with much tact, most definitely. My generation makes dark jokes online because what else are we going to do? Cry over the injustice of it all? Personally, I’d rather laugh at fan edits.
Featured Image: Lisa Benson