Why Luigi Mangione Is The Real World Arthur Fleck... Only Better

Will Luigi Mangione's actions matter?

It all started with three words: “Deny, Defend, Depose” carved into the shell casings found beside former UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson’s body. It was a call to revolt against a corrupt system that almost everyone in our country has been negatively affected by: the American healthcare system.

Shortly after the murder was announced and the manhunt was underway, an image of the suspect pulling his mask down, presumably to flirt with a Starbucks barista, surfaced online. He was boyishly handsome, and women around the world swooned for a man who was accused of murder.

Because it wasn’t just a murder. It was the symbolic retribution people have wanted to witness for decades. To be poor, or even middle class in America is the metaphorical equivalent of being born above a meat grinder. We regularly die early from avoidable, sometimes unnatural causes. We ingest a poisoned food supply filled with chemicals illegal in many comparably developed countries, these toxins inevitably lead to disease, which then puts us at the mercy of the provably predatory for profit health health insurance industry that exists in the United States. If the food doesn’t kill us, there’s a chance someone else will. Those in the middle class and below are shot and killed on the streets of this supposedly great country on a constant basis without respite.

But the wealthiest among us who benefit most from the chaos that exists beneath their feet rarely ever catch a glimpse of the Hell they’ve unleashed.

We’re all aware of this. We know untold millions have been indirectly murdered over the years by the indifference of corporate bureaucracies that are empowered by politicians who serve wealthy interests over the needs of their own constituents. We have been collectively conditioned to feud over cultural trivialities than unite under mutually shared burden.

As the internet has grown in popularity at the dawn of the millennium, Americans have watched their country pivot from a place of surface level freedoms to a country with a government that needlessly interjects itself into everything except for the benefit of the population that it is supposed to serve.

When the Twin Towers came down in New York City, we didn’t just watch two of America’s most iconic buildings being demolished, we watched our way of life cease to exist. Initially this brought us together. This unity lasted roughly a year. What Americans came to realize was that their ability to protest government policy was severely curtailed by new legislation passed in the name of the “War on Terror.”

This didn’t lead to a decrease in critical political discourse, but a reshaping of it. The internet slowly became the new battleground for those with conflicting opinions to clash. As these online disputes increased in regularity, people suffering from cognitive dissonance retreated into gated communities of thought. Both the Left and Right ideologically isolated themselves and a new political-affiliation based online media market was born in their wake capitalized on the ideological divide. Examples of this are far right commentators like Ben Shapiro or the leftist equivalent, Hasan Piker.

Everything was for debate and ridicule: politics surrounding race, gender, sexual orientation, immigration, religion, and reproductive rights became hotly contested issues. But one thing Americans could agree on, especially if they were middle or working class: the healthcare system in the United States fucking sucked.

In the film “Joker,” Arthur Fleck, portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix, was a mentally ill loser, born in extreme urban poverty to a neglectful mother, who finally snapped when watching three privileged young men harass a woman a subway, after turning their attention to Arthur, he pulled a gun and killed both men, created a chain reaction that turns into a revolutionary movement.

While the city burned, Arthur appeared on the “Murray Franklin Show” after a clip of him bombing at a comedy club went viral. Murray ridiculed Arthur, Arthur snapped and began to explain to him that he killed the rich guys on the train and chastised Murray for the bubble he enjoys Gotham (a fictionalized New York City) from. After a brief exchange, Arthur pulls out a gun and shoots Murray directly in the head on live television for the entire world to witness.

The sequel shows how Arthur maintained his fame leading to his trial, only to be exposed as a weak, mentally ill victim in a society unable or unwilling to care for him. He wasn’t truly a hero, just a sad fool who was sensationalized by a media machine hungry for tragedy.

In the case of Luigi Mangione, nothing could be further from the truth. He was a rich kid who graduated valedictorian of his high school and then matriculated into the Ivy League. He was good looking, rich and successful. Luigi Mangione is the American ideal of excellence. Despite this, Luigi was so disgusted by the American healthcare system’s abuses that he allegedly gunned down the CEO of America’s largest, most profitable health insurance company.

Brian Thompson was a controversial figure, even for the healthcare industry. Under his tenure as CEO, he introduced an A.I. system with a reported 90% error rate to determine the validity of someone’s health insurance status. A claim could be denied in less than two seconds. This practice helped balloon UnitedHealthcare’s denial rate to a staggering thirty percent, which is currently the highest in the industry.

As a result of the murder, similar to in the film “Joker,” where protesters took to the streets in clown masks as a sign of solidarity with the shooter, the words “Deny, Defend, Depose” are popping up all over American cities and much of the world as a sign of solidarity supporting the alleged actions of Luigi Mangione.

This has startled the corporate elite and the political class. After Luigi Mangione was arrested in Pennsylvania on suspicion of murder, Pennsylvania Governor, Josh Shapiro, called Mangione a “coward,” and reiterated a common sentiment often uttered in elite American political circles: “In America, we do not kill people in cold blood to resolve policy differences or express a viewpoint.” This should be true. However, Gov. Shapiro seemed to be suffering from amnesia during his speech as he was photographed autographing bombs that were likely to be dropped on Russian soldiers and civilians alike.

It’s hard to say whether or not Mangione is guilty, or if his actions will change the American healthcare system, but it did prove one thing: when you profit off of disease, and deny an increasingly penniless population’s pleas for care, sometimes “you get what you fucking deserve.”

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