Frankenstein, Not Robin Hood: Luigi Mangione

Ambition, Consequences, and a Perfect Storm

“Beware: for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.” ~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

We thought it was Robin Hood. But really, it was Frankenstein.

Last week, a lone gunman shot and killed Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare – one of the largest health insurers in the country. It was a brazen attack, carried out on a busy city sidewalk outside the New York hotel where Thompson was supposed to speak that morning.

Lest we miss his motive, the shooter had inscribed words like Delay, Deny, and Depose on the bullets he would use to murder Thompson – words that echo the justifications heath insurance companies often use to deny patient claims. Over the weekend we learned that a backpack that he left behind in Central Park contained Monopoly money.

While all health insurance companies deny claims, United is particularly aggressive, and responsible for an outsized amount of insurance denials. Since the murder, social media has been awash with heartbreaking stories of claims denied and lives ruined (or lost) as a result.

Within hours of the shooting, the assassin was elevated to a sort of folk hero status. Some even called him a modern-day Robin Hood – an imperfect but powerful anti-elitist analogy.

Surely, it seemed, we were witnessing someone who was acting on behalf of the impoverished and undervalued. Internet sleuths refused to help locate him; people pledged to turn a blind eye if they saw him in the wild. But it was only a matter of time.

Yesterday, a suspect was arrested while eating breakfast at a McDonalds in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He was found with a gun, a silencer, four fake IDs and a manifesto targeting the health care system – so it seems pretty likely that the person in custody was in fact the shooter.

But he’s not what we thought he would be.

He’s not Robin Hood. He’s Frankenstein’s monster.

Frankenstein isn’t horror. It’s science fiction, with a heavy dose of Greek tragedy. (The full title is Frankenstein; Or, the Modern Prometheus – a nod to the Greek Titan who gave humans the gift of fire, for which he was punished for eternity).

Frankenstein is the story of an ambitious and exceptionally intelligent young man named Victor Frankenstein who discovers how to animate life. Obsessed with using this knowledge, Frankenstein knits a creature together using stolen body parts – each piece carefully chosen for the purpose. In isolation, Frankenstein notes, they are beautiful.

It’s only when those individually beautiful pieces are brought together and animated that Victor can appreciate what he has done.

As soon as the creature comes to life, Frankenstein is horrified at his creation. It is hideous and enormous and terrifyingly strong - but has the mind and innocence of a newborn baby. Outwardly grotesque but craving love and companionship, the creature reaches out to Frankenstein – only to be cruelly neglected, abandoned, shunned by the very person whose blind ambition created him in the first place.

Frankenstein’s monster is not the villain; Victor Frankenstein is.

The moral of Frankenstein is clear, and timeless. The story is about endless ambition and power and recklessness and unintended consequences and regret. It’s a tragedy about the lives ruined when something that could have been beautiful – and had incredible potential – is instead turned into a monster.

On paper, Luigi Mangione, the 26-year old who has been charged with Brian Thompson’s murder, doesn’t look like a monster.

He’s not a project of “woke” public schools or a bad education – he went to an elite, all-boys preparatory school (with a price tag of nearly $40,000 a year). He was the valedictorian of his high school class. He went to an Ivy League college – the University of Pennsylvania – just like Donald Trump and Elon Musk and Mehmet Oz.

He’s not from a broken home – he comes from a prestigious family of landowners and real estate developers and politicians. Family assets include country clubs and nursing homes and a conservative AM talk radio station that broadcasts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin, who wrote The Democrat Party Hates America. The Mangione Family Foundation provides grants to charitable causes; its largest single contribution in 2019, $50,000, was to the Baltimore Archdiocese. His cousin, Nino Mangione, is a Republican Maryland State Delegate.

His family certainly seems to (at least publicly) skew Republican, and individually he’s not what you’d call a liberal either – he’s reposted clips of Peter Thiel railing against “wokeism” and retweeted Tucker Carlson. He follows Joe Rogan and is a fan of anti-woke writer and illustrator Tim Urban. On facebook, he reposted a Wall Street Journal article blaming American “entitlements” for the deficit.

We’re getting clues now about his personal healthcare experiences; he reportedly suffers from chronic back pain due to a slipped vertebrae. At 26 years old, he would have just aged out of his family’s insurance policy and be looking upon decades of pain and insurance battles.

But nothing in his background would lead anyone to think Luigi would be capable of violence, let alone murder. And perhaps that is the most terrifying and unsettling part of this case: he was exceptionally typical. The privileged boy next door became a stone cold killer.

He’s what happens when a Frankenstein’s assemblage of terrible policies come together and create the perfect situation for a modern-day monster to awaken.

Lax gun laws meant he could obtain a ghost gun and a silencer. The cruelty of the American healthcare system and insurance industry gave him a target. And a future of decades of chronic pain and insurance battles gave him a motive.

But just as with Frankenstein’s creation, you can imagine how things would have – easily could have – gone very differently for Luigi.

Common sense gun reforms could have made it harder for him to obtain the weapons he used. Healthcare reform – or even the promise of it – could have made the future appear less bleak. Although broadly popular with the public, Republican politicians have refused to even entertain those reforms. Instead, they’ve pursued their own power, their own ambition, and their own pocketbooks.

The unintended consequence of policymakers’ neglect may be that they gave Luigi the thing that animated him – a fearlessness that only the hopeless fully understand.

In an online review of the Unabomber’s manifesto, Luigi gave voice to his desperation. There, he wrote: “Peaceful protest is outright ignored, economic protest isn’t possible in the current system, so how long until we recognize that violence against those who lead us to such destruction is justified as self defense?” Luigi Mangione, Goodreads

Unfortunately, Luigi answered his own question.

The end result is a life tragically lost, and another life – and family – ruined.

One of the most powerful and often-quoted lines from Frankenstein is delivered when the creature speaks directly to his creator: “Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”

Friend, the creature isn’t fearless because his courage overwhelms his fear.

He is fearless because he has nothing to lose.

~Michele

Let’s get to work.

Actions for the Week of December 10, 2024

Here’s the part where – if you are so inclined – we roll up our sleeves and engage in what I like to call Action Therapy. In each Tuesday post I share a few “small things” – usually a Small Thing to Read, a Small Event to Attend, and a Small Call to Make or Action to Take. You can tuck these actions into your week with ease – and know that you’re doing something today to make tomorrow better.

Small Thing(s) to Read:

This week I’m sharing two great pieces, one by Greg Sargent and one by Steve Schale. Steve’s is interesting because of his background in Florida politics. In a field of think pieces about what Democrats are doing right and doing wrong, this one stands out for me. In part, that’s because he comes right out and says: “Politics isn’t rocket science. It is just fourth-grade math.”

But, as Schale explains, that means field organizers working in red areas are just as responsible for the floor as they are the ceiling. “If the floor in red precincts gets too low, the math to make it up in blue ones often doesn’t exist.”

Hear, hear! (As you know, this tracks with my personal mission and Every State Blue’s goal of funding underfunded state leg nominees running in red districts. Yes you can help!) Read more here: I Watched the Democratic Collapse in Florida. I Fear It’s Happening Nationally.

Second, here’s a great piece by Greg Sargent that ostensibly discusses Elon Musk’s $250 million in campaign donations, but is really about how the three contenders for DNC chair will address the information gap. Read more here: https://newrepublic.com/article/189147/musk-250-million-campaign-finance

Small Call to Make: Extend Telehealth Coverage

Telehealth is wildly popular, and for good reason. It’s convenient, and often the best option for people living in rural areas that – thanks to GOP policies – have become healthcare deserts. When you’re facing a two hour round trip for a 15 minute doctor’s visit, it’s not hard to see how telehealth would be preferred.

But besides being a great option for rural America, it’s also a huge time saver – helpful for those who can’t take time off of work – and doesn’t come with the added costs of gas and parking.

Basically, folks on both sides of the aisle appreciate the benefits telehealth provides.

That’s why it absolutely blows my mind that as it stands, Medicare coverage for telehealth services will expire at the end of the year.

You read that right. You can read more about it in Forbes or Mother Jones – but the long and the short of it is unless Congress acts, Medicare will no longer cover most telehealth beginning in 2025. This impacts all of us whether we’re covered by Medicare or not because private insurers often follow what Medicare does.

So let’s get out our phones for a super quick call to your Congressperson and your Senators.

Find their contact info here:

Representative: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative

Senators: https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm

Simple script: Hi, my name is (your name) and I’m a constituent at (zip code) and I just wanted to call because I’m hearing that Medicare coverage for telehealth is set to expire at the end of the year unless Congress acts. Telehealth is really important to patients like me, and I’m calling to urge the (Senator/Congress(wo)man) to do everything possible to extend coverage. Thanks.

Wasn’t that easy?

Small Event to Attend: (H/T to

Robert B. Hubbell

of

Today's Edition Newsletter

)

In yesterday’s Today’s Edition, Robert Hubbell highlights an event taking place tomorrow night supporting Democratic nominees for Virginia’s special election. He writes:

“In 2023, Democrats took back control of the VA General Assembly by winning a slim one-seat majority in both the VA Senate and House of Delegates. Now there are two Special Elections on January 7th that put both majorities at risk. We know that winning Special Elections is all about reaching voters and driving turnout. We think our postcards, donations and activism can help win these two critical races and keep statehouse control in the Bellwether State.”

You can help! Meet Kannan Srinivasan for VA State Senate and JJ Singh for VA State House on Wednesday, December 11th, 7pm ET/ 4pm PT, on Zoom: RSVP HERE! Rip Sullivan will moderate and give an update on the Virginia landscape for the fall.

Joining the Zoom is free, but if you would like to support one or both campaigns to help win their January 7th Special Elections, you can contribute here.

Bonus action: Subscribe to Today’s Edition – you won’t be disappointed!

Thanks for reading, friend – I’m glad to see you here! If you love what I do and you want to support it, consider becoming a paid subscriber. It means a lot!