Person of the year: Luigi Mangione

I admire Luigi Mangione, a John Brown-esqe type figure. Though Brown did have designs on leading a nationwide rebellion from the munitions factory at Harper’s Ferry (which quickly petered out), both he and Mangione made up their minds to die on their feet than live on their knees.

Mangione is not dead but will likely live out his life behind bars. The state of New York has rescinded the death penalty so a John Brown type execution is beyond the pale. In life, Mangione has already shown a remarkable ability to see through to the end the fullness of his convictions. Armed with an ivy league education, computer aided designs, a hoodie, and a slick silencer, he calmly did what he felt needed to be done. We need more citizens like him.

Here is the full copy of his manifesto, found on his person when arrested on December 9 in Altoona, PA:

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 largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but has our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [parasites] 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.

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.

The retort that he would have been better off had he channeled his frustrations into legitimate avenues of peaceful political protest is just laughable. The manifesto is clear that “raising awareness” is no longer sufficient.

This is a stunning rebuke of all the so-called talking head political pundits and social media influencers who work tirelessly to get the word out. The word is already out.

People like me do not have the guts to do what Mangione did; we channel our frustrations by writing useless blogposts and believe we are somehow adding to the struggle—again, as if it was merely a problem of awareness. Writing about injustice has the pernicious side effect of making the writer in question believe he/she/we are getting somewhere simply by acquiring likes and generating debate. What is the end game here? Mere awareness, and little else.

You can even go beyond writing. In fact, you can release a documentary detailing with great audio-visual subtlety Mangione’s frustrations. The manifesto’s allusion to Michael Moore’s 2007 documentary, Sicko, both pays homage to Moore and recognizes the futility of so-called “activism.” Sicko made it onto 441 screens and grossed 24 million USD, a relative commercial success for a documentary. Those quick to assert that Mangione’s actions will change nothing are missing the point; writing about corporate injustice and making movies about it will also solve nothing. Indeed, Mangione is correct: seventeen years later, nothing has changed and the problems remain.

Perhaps the culmination of Moore’s film is the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. That is some silver-lining. But it will be difficult to watch Moore in the coming days fall all over himself denouncing the fruits of his own investigation. I suppose he might stand in solidarity with Mangione, but I’m not holding my breath.

In the time since Moore’s film, Obamacare has done nothing to stop the bleeding. Perhaps coverage can no longer be denied due to pre-existing conditions but once coverage is in place, said coverage can most certainly be “denied” and “delayed” indefinitely. Obamacare does nothing to overturn the insurer’s right to “defend” itself against claims. At least Mangione changed “delay” to “depose.”

In short, Obamacare forces people to pay but does not force companies to pay out. In the aftermath of both Sicko and Obamacare, and under the stewardship of Thompson, UnitedHealthcare’s profits have soared from 60 million in 2020 to 90 billion in the 12 months prior to September 2024. That’s billion with a b. UnitedHealthcare has since commandeered AI against its policy holders, not by using machine learning to identify fraudulent claims but to maximize profit. Complex algorithms isolate which cases of denied claims are statistically likely to be appealed and statistically unlikely to be successful on appeal.

It’s possible also that Mangione might cave, forced to take a plea deal of some kind in exchange for publicly showcasing remorse. So far, he is beautiful in his assured sense of defiance but that might evaporate quickly. Such a spectacle, should it materialize, would be truly revolting to watch.

Mangione claims he is not qualified to lay out the argument in detail; even if he were, what good would it do? It has already been done to death. Such sentiment applies to virtually all aspects of public life today. Lay out as clearly as you like how long the injustices have been ongoing for how ever many decades or centuries back. Footnote a thousand sources if you must. Nothing changes until you pick up a gun and even then, success is not guaranteed. I would love to see a string of copycat crimes in the wake of Mangione’s example, methodically planned and skillfully executed. Perhaps this is unlikely; but in the meantime, films, books, and blogposts are certainly not going to get us anywhere we need to be.

Gratuitous acts of pontification and analysis are no longer necessary. Nor are acts of heroic self-immolation. In this sense, Mangione does Aaron Bushnell one better, particularly if you follow Malcolm X’s adage that if you have to give your life (behind bars or otherwise), better to make it even Steven.

You need to think long and hard if devoting your life to scholarship and debate is even worthwhile anymore. The combined efforts of Jeffrey Sachs, Noam Chomsky, Richard Wolff, Jordan Peterson, Vijay Prashad, and even more recently, Judge Napolitano and Tucker Carlson have done fuckall to correct global injustice. Far better to sacrifice a life by extinguishing another clear and distinct class enemy.