Prominent Progressives Struggle To Condemn Murder Without Defending the Murderer
Earlier this month, a gunman shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Days later, police apprehended the shooter, identified as 26-year-old Luigi Mangione.
Contrary to what internet memes would suggest, Mangione’s actions are indefensible. There is no justification for killing another human being unless Thompson somehow posed an immediate threat to Mangione’s life or safety—which is unlikely, since he was shot in the back.
So why, then, is it so difficult for prominent progressives to condemn the murder without also expressing support for the killer’s motive?
In a manifesto, Mangione said health insurance companies are “parasites” who “have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed [sic] them to get away with it.”
“Violence is never the answer,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) told HuffPost, “but people can be pushed only so far.” She deemed Thompson’s killing a “warning to everyone in the health care system…that if you push people hard enough,” they will “start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone.” (“Violence is never the answer. Period,” Warren later clarified. “I should have been much clearer that there is never a justification for murder.”)
“This is not to say that an act of violence is justified,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) told CBS News’ Jaala Brown, “but I think for anyone who is confused or shocked or appalled, they need to understand that people interpret and feel and experience denied claims as an act of violence against them.”
Neither Warren nor Ocasio-Cortez felt the need to condemn a brazen act of violence without adding a load-bearing “but,” pivoting to a qualified defense of premeditated murder as a response to frustration with the health insurance industry.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) also called the killing “outrageous” and “unacceptable” before noting that the “outpouring of anger at the health care industry” signifies that “millions of people understand that health care is a human right and that you cannot have people in the insurance industry rejecting needed health care for people while they make billions of dollars in profit.”
But when it comes to half-hearted condemnations of violence, filmmaker Michael Moore takes the cake.
The Oscar-winning documentarian’s
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