At this point, there can be little doubt that Luigi Mangione, with a single, well-planned act of violence that allegedly resulted in the death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has kickstarted a socio-cultural phenomenon that has become larger than him. No one, not even he, can tell just how big this snowball can get and how much momentum it will continue gaining.
That said, some clearly want this out-of-control snowball to stop unsettling the status quo. Between the two political sides of the aisle, the GOP is the one most interested in conserving the way things are, including the journey capital takes to maximize its profits at the expense of working-class people’s well-being.
However, it is interesting – but not unexpected when one can detect the propaganda models that contribute to the manufacturing of consent as outlined by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman – how even the liberal media is trying to push back against Mangione supporters with condescending finger-wagging that boils down to “murder is wrong. What is wrong with you?”
But few news stations dabble in as much hypocrisy as Fox News. Just as there are few late-night shows as proficient in unmasking said hypocrisy as The Daily Show. The latter needn’t do much to expose the former, they simply need to showcase the difference between the conservative station’s coverage of Kyle Rittenhouse and Luigi Mangione.
The morality of murder depends on the victim. Apparently.
Before anyone gives any credit to these Fox News commentators’ chastising tirades, it’s worth recalling how the network has celebrated violence in other contexts that suited their GOP agenda. One such instance was their celebration of now 21-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, who is known for killing two protesters and wounding a third, after deliberately traveling to the location of the protests armed with an AR-15-style rifle.
In the clip above, we see Ring-wing media personality Charlie Kirk – a man whose moral compass tells him that, in a hypothetical scenario, he should force his 10-year-old daughter to carry the result of her sexual assault to term rather than abort – welcoming Rittenhouse onto the stage where he gets the reception worthy of a hero’s homecoming. For the GOP allies, when it’s a clear matter of Right versus Left, murder and other crimes are justified as long as they preserve and go according to the Republican agenda.
In a jarring juxtaposition, Rittenhouse’s celebratory event is accompanied by Fox News anchors and commentators’ discussion of the more recent Brian Thompson’s murder, specifically, how “vigilantism is wrong,” and “cheering for the murder of an unarmed man is beyond sick.” In a nutshell, it’s one minute of the righteousness of the human mind functioning at its best.
With such a poignant display of hypocrisy, the comment section was largely of the same mind: “The double standard is insane,” commented one netizen. “They love to pick and choose,” wrote another.
However, there are those whose bias prompts them to make excuses for this airtight example of double standards: “CEO wasn’t breaking the law, you’re comparing apples to oranges,” to which, another user replied, “Of course he wasn’t breaking the law. Have you seen those who write laws? If laws are your moral compass you’re disgusting.”
The Law accepts the social murder of thousands to the purposeful flaws in the healthcare system because it protects the interests of corporations more than the rights of individual human beings – as the so-called Florida “copycat” case so blatantly illustrates. While murder is indeed wrong, this simplified argument is being used as a smokescreen to hide the justified dissatisfaction of millions which is at the root of this case. As Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) remarked: “Violence is never the answer, but people can only be pushed so far.”