The response to UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s street side slaying has starkly divided the citizens of America, as the true consequences of our spiraling country bubble to the surface.
There are plenty of people defending Thompson and slamming his alleged killer, Luigi Mangione, for his actions, but they’re quickly being exposed as the minority. A far larger swathe of the nation is in full support of Mangione, his choice of target, and his undeniably attractive face, and they’re not shying away from it. There’s a full fanbase forming for the 26-year-old, and things are rapidly escalating.
People were already cheering on the CEO slayer long before we had a face to put to the killer, but now that they know what he (allegedly) looks like, people are even more on-board. Mangione is straight-up sexy, there’s no denying it, and pair that with what many see as heroic vigilantism against the heartless healthcare executives, and we’ve got a modern Batman on our hands.
The revelry laid at Mangione’s feet is only ramping up, now that fresh details are emerging, and it’s officially taken a turn for the weird. People have moved beyond stirring political cartoons of the American people embracing the shooter as a hero, and have done a hard Uno reverse into… religious iconography?
Its a weird decision from people celebrating the death of a person, regardless of their socio-economic status, but its also a hilarious mirror of the genuinely revolting iconography surrounding U.S. president-elect Donald Trump. He’s been compared to Jesus a truly unsettling number of times, and the cringeworthy art detailing him as and around the Son of God spreads around social media pretty much anytime he’s criticized.
As such, its weird and strangely humorous to see the same images used to celebrate a man who kills billionaires with weighty messages about their heartless disposal of human lives. Its a strange, mind-bending dichotomy, and it might just explain the American divide to a T.
I mean… come on. There is no way that exact same image wasn’t used after Trump was found guilty of 34 felonies. That is absolutely a recycled far-right meme, and its strange full-circle moment is honestly iconic.
Then we have the stunning, award-worthy comparison of Mangione’s arrest image against Baroque art depicting the betrayal of Jesus Christ. Like Judas, that damn McDonald’s customer (it was wrongly reported at first that this was an employee) McSnitched to the government and, as a result, a man lauded by some as a hero was captured. It’s a wild thing to compare a supposed killer to the Savior of Man, but that connection — facetious as it may be — really sheds a light on the current mental state of the average American.
We’ve been living in unprecedented times for awhile now, and then just when things were looking up — COVID is mostly in the past, the economy was starting to get less depressing, and socially we’re making progress — Donald Trump won the 2024 election. That, paired with all the agonizing insanity of our modern government, which promotes money and influence over goodwill and actual qualifications, seems to have pushed many of us over the edge.
As a result, we’re lauding an alleged killer as a hero. After all, he didn’t target people at random, like so many school shooters do, nor did he go after someone because of their race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. He went after Thompson because he, as Mangione allegedly saw it, was a villain. A man who put profit above human lives, and allowed people to suffer for the benefit of shareholders and his own wallet.
That’s some Jesus-adjacent behavior, minus the whole killing part. To many, Mangione was protecting the weak with those pre-labeled bullets, and they’re happy to turn the language — and the imagery — of the oppressors into a rallying cry for the downtrodden.