Prominent Progressives Struggle To Condemn Murder Without Defending the Murderer

Earlier this month, a gunman shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Days later, police apprehended the shooter, identified as 26-year-old Luigi Mangione.

Contrary to what internet memes would suggest, Mangione’s actions are indefensible. There is no justification for killing another human being unless Thompson somehow posed an immediate threat to Mangione’s life or safety—which is unlikely, since he was shot in the back.

So why, then, is it so difficult for prominent progressives to condemn the murder without also expressing support for the killer’s motive?

In a manifesto, Mangione said health insurance companies are “parasites” who “have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed [sic] them to get away with it.”

“Violence is never the answer,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) told HuffPost, “but people can be pushed only so far.” She deemed Thompson’s killing a “warning to everyone in the health care system…that if you push people hard enough,” they will “start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone.” (“Violence is never the answer. Period,” Warren later clarified. “I should have been much clearer that there is never a justification for murder.”)

“This is not to say that an act of violence is justified,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) told CBS News’ Jaala Brown, “but I think for anyone who is confused or shocked or appalled, they need to understand that people interpret and feel and experience denied claims as an act of violence against them.”

Neither Warren nor Ocasio-Cortez felt the need to condemn a brazen act of violence without adding a load-bearing “but,” pivoting to a qualified defense of premeditated murder as a response to frustration with the health insurance industry.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) also called the killing “outrageous” and “unacceptable” before noting that the “outpouring of anger at the health care industry” signifies that “millions of people understand that health care is a human right and that you cannot have people in the insurance industry rejecting needed health care for people while they make billions of dollars in profit.”

But when it comes to half-hearted condemnations of violence, filmmaker Michael Moore takes the cake.

The Oscar-winning documentarian’s 2007 film Sicko criticized the American health care industry, advocated a single-payer system like in Canada or Europe, and even touted the health care system in Cuba. Mangione’s manifesto seemed to cite Moore for having “illuminated the corruption and greed” of American health insurers.

Moore penned a lengthy Substack post over the weekend, winkingly titled “A Manifesto Against For-Profit Health Insurance Companies,” in which he addressed whether he would condemn Mangione’s act of violence.

“Throughout my adult life, I have repeatedly stated that I’m a pacifist,” Moore writes. But after Thompson’s murder, “there was an immediate OUTPOURING of anger toward the health insurance industry. Some people have stepped forward to condemn this anger. I am not one of them.”

Eliding the question of whether it’s appropriate to murder an apparently random executive as a synecdoche of the entire health insurance industry, Moore merely says the anger felt by Mangione and others is “1000% justified” and “I’m not going to tamp it down or ask people to shut up. I want to pour gasoline on that anger.”

“Yes, I condemn murder, and that’s why I condemn America’s broken, vile, rapacious, bloodthirsty, unethical, immoral health care industry,” Moore writes—notably, the closest he comes to saying, “shooting an unsuspecting person in the back is wrong.”

Instead, he writes, “these insurance corporations and their executives have more blood on their hands than a thousand 9/11 terrorists.”

True, health insurance companies make easy villains. But they’re not the robber barons that progressives often make them out to be. Much has been made of the fact that in 2023, UnitedHealthcare made $16 billion in profit, with Thompson getting $10.2 million in salary and bonuses, but relatively little attention to the fact that UnitedHealthcare’s profit margin that year was just 6.0 percent—down slightly from the year before as a result of higher expenses.

Early reporting suggested Mangione may have been driven to violence after becoming disillusioned with the health insurance industry while receiving care for a severe back injury. He allegedly wrote “delay,” “deny,” and “depose” on shell casings found at the scene—words associated with insurance companies’ claim denials.

“UnitedHealthcare approves and pays about 90% of medical claims upon submission,” the insurer’s parent company said in a statement. “Importantly, of those that require further review, around one-half of one percent are due to medical or clinical reasons.” Thompson, as CEO, likely had no direct impact on individual decisions about care. And besides, “the killer and his parents were not UnitedHealthcare members,” the company added.

It’s perfectly acceptable, even downright reasonable, to oppose the American health care system in some form or fashion. But it’s completely beyond the pale to commit murder for any reason whatsoever. Mangione’s brazen act of violence left Thompson’s wife a widow and orphaned his two children, which only the purest cynic could justify.

Why do so many prominent progressives have trouble conveying that point, without hedging or even outright justifying the murder?

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