“Deny, Defend, Depose.” These are the words that took the internet by storm as soon as UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot on Dec. 4, 2024. At the time, it felt like such a massive cultural phenomenon that I still remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard about it. On Dec. 9, the alleged shooter, Luigi Mangione, was caught, and that seemed to cause an even bigger uproar. But the facts are that the internet’s response to this situation was not only immature and counterintuitive, but it makes it harder for much-needed changes to occur in the American healthcare system.
The most recent update on the trial is that Mangione pleaded not guilty to state charges but has yet to enter a plea for federal charges. Many media outlets, including CNN, NewsNation and Northeastern Global News have theorized that jury nullification, where there is overwhelming evidence of guilt, but the jury still refuses to convict the suspect, could be a real possibility in Mangione’s case. With the recent updates on Mangione’s pleas and trial, he is coming into cultural relevance once again. The longer he remains in the public eye, the more concerned I am for nationwide critical thinking skills.
While I have issues with how the UnitedHealthcare shooting has been handled by many, there’s no denying that there are positive benefits coming from the situationas well. According to an article by CNN, Mangione’s arrest has led to many people protesting greedy health insurance companies. I’ve also seen some people rethinking their stance on the death penalty, though that’s a more tangential effect. These are both important issues that need to be addressed in the United States, and the fact that the shooting brought them more awareness is undeniably a silver lining.
Unfortunately, the responses can’t all be so benificial. While the shooting has caused meaningful protest, it’s also gone too far in the other direction, to the point of hero worship and making light of a serious situation.
Mere hours after Mangione’s initial arrest, I started to get reccommended skits and jokes about him on my social media feeds. Joking about an alleged murder and making light of an industry that is still harming millions reads as incredibly tone-deaf and insensitive, which many people who think they’re helping in the fight against corrupt healthcare companies don’t seem to realize. If the same people who claim to be fighting against the corruption in the health insurance industry start posting jokes and laughing about it the next day, it makes it difficult to take the pleas seriously and delegitimizes real efforts.
When the arrest first happened, many people blindly praised Mangione, and many others staunchly denied that his actions had logic behind him. Both are dangerous extremes. Among the most concerning to me were the dozens of people positively comparing Mangione to Light Yagami, the villainous protagonist of the Death Note franchise. This black and white view of justice is naive and harmful.
It is difficult to accept that two conflicting things can be true at once. The American healthcare system is broken and exploitative, but that fact being true doesn’t mean murder is excusable. Nuanced discussions are almost impossible to come by in mainstream internet spaces, however, and so, people refuse to recognize that the UnitedHealthcare shooter did anything wrong. The fact that we don’t exist in a space where it’s possible for two ideals to coexist without people radicalizing themselves in one direction or the other is incredibly concerning.
My problem with this situation does not lie with the people who believe Mangione’s alleged crime was a necessary evil, or even those who think his actions were justified or explainable. The problem is in those who claim he’s a hero or that others should be taking similar actions.
The truth of the world is that it should never be up to a single person to decide what is right and wrong. This time, it ended in a way that many deem favorable, but if everyone had the same mindset as the UnitedHealthcare shooter, the world would be an incredibly dangerous place.
