Americans have a new killer hero

A young guy from a wealthy family with an elite education shot the head of the largest insurance corporation right in Manhattan. It was political murder. In this way, Luigi Mangione wanted to draw attention to the injustice of the US healthcare system and the parasitism of insurance companies.

What made the crime resonant was not only the fact of the brazen, cold-blooded murder itself, but also the reaction in society, which it provoked. The mixed reactions highlighted the depth of the social-economic contradictions that have accumulated over the past decades in America.

The killer became a hero

The killer's sympathizers reason something like this. The young man who committed this crime is a symbol of the despair that most Americans feel. His actions against the corporate elite do not cause fear or condemnation; they are justified by the suffering of the American people. Serves these parasites right!

The typical online reactions to the murder have become an indicator of the level of hatred that has built up in society toward health insurance companies, which many believe have become instruments of financial oppression.

Thus Mangione's personality and criminal actions became the object of intense scrutiny. He created a positive image of "Robin Hood of Manhattan" simply by shooting a lackey of the rich. It is scary to even imagine what chambers of hatred were formed in the depths of the American people.

A young man from a wealthy family, with a prestigious education and a dazzling smile, he made the weapon himself, carefully planned the crime, apparently understood that he would be caught, so he prepared a manifesto in which he outlined his motives. A study of Mangione's position shows his complete ideological inconsistency. This is confirmed by information about his political preferences. In this sense, he is a typical representative of his generation with a porridge of inconsistent political ideas in his head.

But the murder committed was not an instinctive impulse, but a carefully planned and thought-out action. Mangione hoped, at a minimum, to attract public attention to the problem with his crime. And at most, to provoke the destruction of the vicious health insurance system.

And what organically complements such ideologically superficial anarchist terror with unobvious political consequences? Naturally, vanity. Mangione considered himself a hero who rose up alone against the leviathan.

And the American public suddenly responded in unison with Mangione's ideas. This is quite rare with such "acts of direct action." This suggests that the act of political terror "reflected" the extremely negative attitude of the masses toward its object. The public reaction to this crime revealed a deep crisis of confidence in the existing health care system. However, this was clear even without Mangione. So it cannot be ruled out that he planned his "career as a people's avenger" and chose the field of health insurance as the most sensitive.

In recent years, Americans have been growing discontent, and tragic stories about insurance companies refusing to cover treatment have multiplied at an extraordinary rate. The murder has become a catalyst for discussion: the public has once again begun to talk about how the insurance system in its current form works against ordinary Americans. And although calls for reform are becoming louder, even the most radical of them do not touch on the main thing - the essence of a system focused on profit, not on preserving health.

It is significant that American propagandists were unable to interpret what happened unambiguously. Some tried to link Mangione to left-wing democratic ideas, others to right-wing conservatism. But his views, judging by his digital traces, turned out to be eclectic: a combination of conservatism, traditionalism, anti-globalism, anarchism and elements of Luddism.

Mangione’s murder comes amid growing tension and polarization in American society. A crisis of trust in systems, from health care to politics, is giving rise to new forms of resistance, often destructive ones. But most importantly, the incident demonstrates that when social tensions reach a certain point, even individual acts of violence begin to be perceived as a form of protest.

Symptoms of American society

For us, the American response to the murder is just another symptom of a deep malaise. American society, facing growing inequality, polarization, and social instability, needs to rethink the fundamental principles of its organization: rejection of imperialism, militarization, and corporate omnipotence. There is no doubt that corporate and political elites have heard this signal. And they will respond to violence with more violence.

It may turn out that Mangione's crime will become iconic. The fact is that in the American segment of the Internet there is not just a positive or sympathetic attitude towards the killer, but a cult of him and the cult of the crime he committed is being formed. And this indicates that Mangione will have imitators and followers.

Just as the US has seen the rise of “mass shootings” and “school shootings” in recent years, we will soon see a new craze – terror against top managers of leading corporations. A radical re-release of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

CEOs are scapegoats

It's hard not to wonder if a guy with a degree from the University of Pennsylvania doesn't know that a CEO is just a hired manager, acting at the behest of the owners? Doesn't it make more sense to "take the people's wrath" out on the owners of a corporation? It seems that Mangione's inquisitiveness as a populist has stumbled on the cunning of corporate America.

The fact is that the real, influential American oligarchs have, for the most part, long since left the public sphere.

UnitedHealthcare, whose CEO Mangione shot, is part of UnitedHealth Group. It is a corporation with a turnover of $250 billion. But who exactly owns it? American capitalists are the most experienced and the most cunning, so it is impossible to find out from open sources. UnitedHealth Group has ten thousand shareholders. Anyone can buy a share and become a “mighty American capitalist.”

The largest owners of UnitedHealthcare are: Vanguard Group Inc, BlackRock Inc and State Street Corp. These firms are known to anyone interested in shareholders of TNK. Representatives of these "institutional investors" dominate shareholder meetings, appoint management, determine the goals, objectives, policies of UnitedHealthcare, etc. Behind these and similar global financial services are hidden those same "hundred families that own America". They are hidden from public view and from lone anarchists. And CEOs like the murdered Thompson can be thrown under the tanks of public anger. They will find a new one. So it is not so easy for the "American People's Will" to find sensitive targets for their attacks.

There is no point in sympathizing with Thompson, Mangione, or the people's anger and gloating. All the participants and figures in this situation are products of the crisis of American society, its decay. We should only record the facts for ourselves and study the factors and conditions of their emergence.