Even months displaced from the December 9th murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, it’s still hard to process. The air never quite cleared. But one thing is for certain — Luigi Mangione became and still is a folk hero. Despite the presidential election being far more in line with supporting wealth and privilege, the common man seems to draw the line with health insurance. Perhaps it’s because it affects us all directly. And it may be the wrench in the works toward authoritarianism. The Muskovites have been whispering “Let them eat cake” for some time now, promising a strong (though certainly not merciful) America.
Before I go further, I present here the hard-to-find transcript of Luigi Mangione’s letter.
“To the Feds, I’ll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? 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 them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”
Regardless of his intent, or however sound of mind he may or may not be, the talk of eating the rich and memes of guillotines is spilling from “commies” on the far-Left into mainstream dialogue. The Bright Line Watch February 2025 survey of political scientists, titled “Accelerated transgressions in the second Trump presidency”, determined that
- Democrats are more supportive of aggressive action – including violence – against corporate CEOs in the name of economic justice than are Republicans. They are also more supportive of aggressive action against CEOs than against Republicans.
- Younger Democrats are more willing than older Democrats to endorse violence against CEOs or in the name of economic justice.
- Members of both parties are similarly supportive of aggressive action against members or leaders of the other party; support for property crimes or threats and harassment online is higher than support for physical violence
This tells us that our divisiveness isn’t as political as some would have us think. And now that the uber-uber-rich had front row seats at the inauguration, and the richest man in the world has unprecedented access to all things federal, if the “stuff” didn’t hit the fan, it may still get real. The cake of American politics may slice in a way the oligarchs that fueled MAGA don’t expect.