The dirtbag left and the populist right were, for once, in agreement—they didn’t want Luigi Mangione caught. 

Despite a nationwide manhunt, breathlessly promoted by millionaire gabbers in the legacy media, the people of America—the ones who vote, the ones who pay the taxes for the wars, the ones whose family members have been bankrupted by healthcare companies utilizing AI chatbots to find fault with their life-saving health claims—were fed up. 

The dirtbag left, as voiced by the former Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz, was nothing short of disappointed as news broke that Mangione had been captured on Monday in Pennsylvania. Lorenz admitted to Piers Morgan on that evening’s show that she felt “joy” upon learning of the assassination. Morgan, as he is wont to do, was outraged. Joy? How could anyone feel “joy” about the death of another human being? 

The Daily Wire chief Ben Shapiro was similarly incensed. Though he spent the better part of Monday defending and praising Daniel Penny, a former marine who subdued a homeless black man for five minutes on an NYC subway ultimately leading to his death, Shapiro held no such sympathies for Mangione, who had instead targeted the wealthy, white CEO of a company that is known for denying the life-saving claims of its clients. 

To Shapiro, the 26-year-old Ivy Leaguer who brazenly assassinated UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in mid-Manhattan last week was not an antihero lashing out at a corrupted health system, he was some punk kid animating blood-soaked terrors of the new left. There was simply no rhyme or reason to Mangione’s action other than that he was just another America-hating leftist who wanted a successful member of the capitalist power class destroyed.

For Shapiro, and for many other well-heeled pundits across the centrist media axis, this was an open and shut case of far-left boogeyman extremists flaunting their anti-life positions for America to see. In Shapiro’s own words: “The revolutionary left is creeping into the mainstream. Liberals are people who disagree with me on public policy but aren’t in favor of, you know, the murder of their opponents. The left is a different thing.” In Shapiro and Morgan’s minds, the celebration of Thompson’s death (and it was celebrated) could be simply chalked up to leftwing lunatics like Lorenz and the BlueSky resisters who are hellbent on the destruction of all that is morally right and sound in our country. 

But there’s a major problem with this hypothesis: It’s not true. As evidenced by the comment section below Shapiro’s own YouTube video on the topic, even his own, die-hard conservative fans had heard enough from the California lawyer. 

The top comment on his video titled “The EVIL Revolutionary Left Cheers Murder!” read simply: “We got conservatives and liberals hugging each other in the comments section.” Another: “I’m not buying this ‘left vs right’ shit anymore Ben, I want healthcare for my family.” And yet another: “Right winger here, you are wrong Ben, this man denied 35% of claims. The facts do not care about any of our feelings. Respectfully, I think this take was out of touch.”

And the anger didn’t dissipate there. “I’m a Republican. I voted for Trump and I’m unsubscribing from Ben,” read another highly-rated response. Comment after comment disagreed with Shapiro and other right-wing partisans attempting to explain away the real meaning of Luigi, the boy who killed. “Saw my lifelong hardworking father become bankrupt as a result of claims being denied after getting cancer,” wrote one commentator who got more likes than Shapiro’s own video on the subject. “You are out of touch, man.”

And it wasn’t just Shapiro and Morgan who attempted to paint the deplorable public who met the murder with a shrug as heartless, soulless, cowardly vigilantes. CNN and Fox News were vexed by the killing, with both networks struggling to frame the killing in a context that best benefited their advertisers. Though it was difficult for their anchors to grasp the horror, Mangione’s message was being received loud and clear by their viewers. And many, to the shock and awe of the punditry class, liked it.

“None of these news programs are talking about the incredible lack of empathy from the general public about this because of how these insurance companies treat people when they’re at their most vulnerable,” the comedian Bill Burr said in response to the assassination. “After we’ve all given them our money every f—king month and now we finally need you and all you do is deny us…. I gotta be honest with you, I love that f—king CEOs are f—king afraid right now. You should be. By and large, you’re all a bunch of selfish, greedy f—king pieces of sh-t and a lot of you are mass murderers, you just don’t pull the trigger so it looks clean.”

In Mangione, large parts of the American public identified clear markers from their own lives. He reminded them of Travis Bickle, of Alain Delon. Mangione’s smile, seen only in a grainy picture caught on a CCTV camera at the hostel where he stayed in NYC, provoked swoons across the net. Not only had this man attacked an institution many of them despised, he was good looking too. 

“If the guy is fit, you must acquit,” read one viral post on 𝕏. “He’s even hotter with his mask and shirt off,” wrote another. Mangione’s looks were so celebrated that the New York Times instructed its newsroom to “dial back” the use of Mangione’s photo on its stories. Fox News went the other direction, dedicating hours upon hours of air time Mangione’s face as its hosts took turns complaining about Americans who were attracted to the alleged killer. 

The host Jesse Watters dedicated an entire portion of his nightly show Tuesday to a segment his producers titled “Libs Have the Hots for Alleged Killer.” Watters said that women were attracted to “the bad boy factor” Mangione possessed, that they dreamed of being Bonnie to his Clyde. Watters finished by claiming that some women have just a “sick fantasy” for “damaged guys.” 

The women of Fox News didn’t fare much better as they attempted to placate the whims of their advertisers. Dana Perino was “disgusted” that “some people say this is because of the insurance industry.” Obscured from her take was the killer’s own words, which Fox News and CNN have both refused to release as of this writing. In the manifesto, confirmed by the Daily Beast, Mangione makes it clear that his actions were indeed “because of the insurance industry.”

“The US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy,” Mangione wrote. “United is the largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but has our life expectancy? No [sic] 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 allowed them to get away with it.”

Though we’ve come to expect CNN to suppress manifestos such as these, it’s rich for Fox News, whose anchors bemoaned the suppression of the Nashville transgender killer’s manifesto, to do the same when the words attack their cash cows. And the hosts at Fox News weren’t done. In most Orwellian fashion, Emily Compagno called on employers to “check the social media” of employees to see if they cheered on Mangione, to hell with personal privacy and the First and Fourth Amendments.

Wanted posters with the names and faces of healthcare company CEOs were plastered onto street lamps in Manhattan Tuesday. Thompson’s face was included with a big, fat X mark over it. On the internet, Mangione was being made a star. In one viral video glorifying Mangione, clippers edited Charlie XCX’s “Spring Breakers” over videos of Mangione being arrested and his valedictorian speech at Baltimore’s prestigious all-boys Gilman school. A folk singer went viral on TikTok with a Dylan-esque jig called “There ain’t no U in United Health.” T-shirts with his likeness surrounded by hearts were being printed by the thousands. Even a poll created by the hard-right 𝕏 account “End Wokeness” found surprising support for Mangione with nearly 15,000 users voting that the assassination was “justified.”

And the internet was not the only place where Mangione found uncomfortable favor. In the streets of Italy, walls were graffitied with “Deny, Defend, Depose” and “Luigi Mangione Our Hero.” An 𝕏 account that shared the image received more than 15,000 likes. On Highway 99 in Seattle, a roadway sign was hacked to read: “One less CEO. Many more to go.” In Santa Fe, New Mexico, someone posted fliers around town that read “Deny, Defend, Depose.”

Those who knew Mangione couldn’t believe it was him. TMZ shared video of Mangione in college, smashing a beer against his head before chugging it. Classmates referred to him as “the life of the party.” A former roommate described the killing as “incompatible” with Mangione’s personality. A friend of Luigi’s said the news was “unfathomable.” 

Then came the donations. Mangione’s lawyer, Thomas Dickey, said they were pouring in from all parts of this country. The CNN host Kaitlan Collins couldn’t believe what she was hearing. And although Dickey said he was unlikely to accept the donations, Collins and the group panels that followed struggled to comprehend just how many Americans saw this kid as the American Antihero. 

But Bill Burr could see it. And so too could millions of Americans, many of whom ran to social media to cheer on the assassin. “For (CNN) to be like, ‘Why would anyone do this!?!’ They’re denying claims and people are dying. The food supply is poisoned. The motive out there is wild,” Burr concluded. 

Then came Luigi’s tweets. Although 𝕏 owner Elon Musk initially scrubbed Mangione’s alleged 𝕏 account, the page was reinstated just hours later and was recently granted a verification badge. For the past few days, Luigi’s past tweets have been going viral across the platform. He voiced concerns about declining birth rates in Japan, examined the consequences of the decline of Christianity, complained about DEI, shared Peter Thiel speeches, decried wokeism, supported nuclear energy, and poked fun at the atheist Richard Dawkins. From his tweets, he seemed to be a New Right–leaning, libertarian tech bro who followed an exotic mix of accounts ranging from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and AOC to Joe Rogan and Ezra Klein.

The right dug that he spoke their language, and the left saw a handsome mercenary who had done their dirty work. As Shapiro, Watters, Morgan, Collins, Perino, Compagno, and others chewed through their typical material on the TV, the internet was abuzz, marveling at Mangione’s eclectic tweets and manifesto.

First came the revelations about his reading habits. Ted Kaczynski, Dr. Seuss, Aldous Huxley, Orwell, and Malcom Gladwell were just some of the authors Mangione reviewed on his GoodReads account. Mangionie had shared a quote from Seuss’s The Lorax: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, / Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” The books on back pain and psychedelic therapy were there too. A lot of it was source material the online right had already read and digested. Depending on where you fell, ideologically, the motive was in there somewhere. 

For some, it was clear that Mangione went off the grid when he became interested in the use of psychedelics to treat his unyielding back pain. A viral 2023 tweet about granola crunching, yoga millennial moms getting their minds scrambled on ayahuasca retreats in the jungle was retweeted by Musk and many agreed that the same had happened to Mangione. 

“I do apologize for any strife or traumas but it had to be done,” Mangione wrote in his manifesto. “Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming… 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.”

Mangione doesn’t seem like some punk leftist driven mad by hallucinogenic-induced terrors. His thoughts are not elliptical; they are concise and charged. The scion of one of the richest legacies in all of Maryland and a child of a family who were made wealthy via their (ironically) knee-deep interests in the healthcare industry, Mangione had achieved in everything he attempted before chronic back pain changed his life forever. 

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Mangione took off for Hawaii where he earned a spot at a “co-living” space in Hawaii managed by RJ Martin. Mangione’s back pain was so intense that he told Martin it was impossible to have sex or date anyone as a result. 

Martin described Mangione as “an ideal member” of the co-living space. “Our mission statement is that we’re a community of givers and that we leave things better than we found them,” Martin said. “We look for people who are looking to give back. And he fit the bill.” Mangione opted for spinal surgery to treat spondylolisthesis in 2023. And based on an x-ray image of Mangione’s back that appears on his Twitter banner, the alleged killer likely received a lumbar fusion, a metal brace inserted into his lower spinal vertebrae. 

If Magione’s manifesto is taken at face value, even the richest amongst us struggle at the hands of a system that prioritizes capital over people. Despite voicing fair critiques of the American health system, it goes without saying that Mangione is no hero. His brutal murder of Thompson, a middle-classer who rose to the very top of the American corporate totem pole, speaks to the precarious and violent nature of America, 1492 to now. He is not the first, nor the last, to selfishly snuff out the life of another vain pursuit of his own particular revenge. 

But Mangione, who escaped into the American interior before being busted at a McDonald’s in Altoona, is the exact sort of antihero the internet has always craved and cheered on. From Breaking Bad and Joker to V for Vendetta and the Sopranos, America’s fictional tastes reflect a people who revel in cheering on complicated bad guys. It’s an uncomfortable truth we are all struggling, in our own ways, to process this week.

In a post to 𝕏 on Wednesday, Elon Musk responded to Mangione’s manifesto. Musk wrote “nothing would do more to improve the health, lifespan and quality of life for Americans than making GLP inhibitors super low cost to the public,” a statement out of step with the incoming HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s natural vision of a healthy America. Musk’s statement hid a troubling truth. One bullet and a page of scribbled words had spurred President-elect Donald Trump’s new favorite friend to address the crumbling American healthcare system on his worldwide platform. 

On the other side of the political ocean, Sen. Elizabeth Warren weighed in on the situation Wednesday evening stating, “People can only be pushed so far.” Some called for Warren to be thrown off her committee assignments. Others cheered her. Warren wasn’t done. She called the killing “a warning that if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change.” Rep. Alexandria-Ocasia Cortez took a similar line, claiming that “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.”

The fact that Mangione’s actions are being discussed at such lengths across the political spectrum indicates much more than naked vigilantism. It suggests a certain rage bubbling underneath the staid surface of modern America toward institutions beyond the people’s control. It’s an anger that animates itself in all sorts of ways, both political and cultural regardless of political affiliation. After all, this is the country we built—a violent one. And it’s been a violent year. 

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