Responsible Leadership Required

In the days following the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the left side of social media erupted in what ranged from a bizarrely gleeful reaction —or “joy,” to use former Washington Post and New York Times reporter Taylor Lorenz’s preferred terminology—to at least not an especially empathetic one.

One Columbia University professor who billed himself as a “trauma expert” and “anti-violence,” though also a “Commie,” wrote a viral post saying, “Today, we mourn the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, gunned down…. wait, I’m sorry – today we mourn the deaths of the 68,000 Americans who needlessly die each year so that insurance company execs like Brian Thompson can become multimillionaires.” 

A progressive author claimed on another website that “the jacket the CEO-murderer wore is flying off the shelves” and wondered if Democrats had failed to capitalize on the “popular anger” that was out there in the country this election year.

The suspect in the CEO killing, Luigi Mangione, appears at first blush to have somewhat more complicated politics than the cooks of the initial hot takes about the fatal shooting. But among the interesting issues raised by this crime, including the ethics of the American healthcare system and vigilante justice, is whether there is a huge reservoir of untapped anger on the left.

Compared to eight years ago, public response to Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election has been muted. Buildings were boarded up in a few places in Washington, D.C., but there were no large riots or public disturbances. Democrats and even left-wing activists mostly seem resigned to his return to power. Perhaps that will change in January, but even the paroxysms of rage against the hosts of Morning Joe for “normalizing” the once and future president didn’t have the same feeling as the Resistance in its heyday.  Much of the outrage that is on display today comes from the Trump-era grifter networks, like orange man Bibles and other MAGA merch but marketed to different, pink hat-wearing people.

Yet anecdotally, I do regularly encounter both in public and on social media partisan Democrats and anti-Trump voters making “Stop the Steal”-style claims about the 2024 election, typically involving Elon Musk, the Russians or just a generalized lack of will to stop Trump among. None of this is amplified by Democratic politicians or media figures of any significance, but in my admittedly blue-state-biased experience—I’m from Boston and live in the Northern Virginia suburbs of D.C.—as widespread as some of the conspiracy theories about Kremlin-altered vote totals that were actually reflected in the polls during Trump’s first term.

Trump was himself the target of two assassination attempts, though we know less about those would-be assassins’ motivations than Mangione’s apparent manifesto. (Though we know a little bit about the surviving suspect and the Trump-Russia conspiracies appear to have some relevance.)

But the people trafficking in 2024 election conspiracy theories are more fringe and less influential than those celebrating, or at least excessively nuancing, the healthcare CEO’s slaying, who are in turn less influential than those sowing division over Daniel Penny’s acquittal in New York. “We need some black vigilantes,” New York BLM co-founder Hank Newsome said after the verdict. “People want to jump up and choke us and kill us for being loud? How about we do the same when they attempt to oppress us?”

Few leading Democrats are trying to stoke whatever rage exists on the first two fronts. President Joe Biden, perhaps feeling a bit of schadenfreude toward Democrats who unceremoniously dumped him and lost anyway, has been magnanimous in the aftermath of Trump’s win. Vice President Kamala Harris has spoken like a self-help guru to her supporters. Both appear determined to offer Trump the normal White House transition that he famously denied them four years ago.

After Mangione was apprehended in Altoona, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who many Democrats wish was on the 2024 ticket and could be the party’s presidential nominee in 2028, said, “The killer is not a hero. He should not be hailed as one.”

This is responsible leadership, whether that is what the base wants or not. But in the current environment, it can be difficult to determine whether “very online” people are numerically insignificant despite their large internet presence or represent something larger.

Biden won in 2020 in part by ignoring online discourse. Trump won four years later by tapping into low-propensity voters on the internet. Democrats who listened to Joe Rogan were more informed about what was happening in the campaign, and more prepared for Trump’s eventual election, than consumers of older media like the more liberal cable news channels.

Time will tell whether there is a deeper rage and whether it looks to be calmed by Kamala Harris’s joy or Taylor Lorenz’s.