As Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty in federal court to stalking and killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the reaction to his attack remains unsettling. When it comes to political violence, one relatively consistent pattern is that the political movement that shares the ideology of the perpetrator will attempt to distance itself from the attacker.
Partisan media will emphasize or downplay the act in question, depending on whether the ideological configuration of the victim and assailant fits their preferred narrative. Although this is a clear example of partisan bias, it does reinforce an important norm in American politics: Political violence is unacceptable. From a strategic perspective, aligning with violent extremism is counterproductive.
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Mangione’s attack has challenged this norm, at least partially. His association with the Left cannot be explained solely by the motivation driving his attack, but also by the Left’s embrace of him. Mangione can reasonably be classified as a single-issue extremist. This category refers to attackers motivated by a single issue and focused on a narrow, defined set of enemies. They do not necessarily connect their cause to an encompassing political worldview. In the academic literature, researchers have sometimes classified animal rights and anti-abortion attackers this way. However, many have since grouped these perpetrators into left-wing and right-wing categories, respectively.
While Mangione’s grievance certainly resonates with the political Left, his online footprint doesn’t align with the broader left-wing worldview. His social media accounts and reading lists include figures from the Left, Right, and center. He even sent a letter to entrepreneur and conservative media figure Patrick Bet-David praising him for his book. This partisan ambiguity means that politicians and other prominent figures could have dismissed him as an unaffiliated killer with a personal vendetta against the healthcare industry. Instead, many found the occasion to advance Mangione’s cause, even if they condemned the method.
A fundamental aspect of terrorism is the message. Historically, terrorists would write communiques in the hope that a media outlet would publish their diatribes. The internet and social media ushered in new avenues of disseminating communiques and manifestos, making them accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Others would graffiti a message at the site of a burned-down or otherwise vandalized property to signify the motivating cause of the destruction. Yet one would be hard-pressed to find a terrorist so privileged to have their political message amplified by sitting members of Congress, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). This was not limited to elected officials. Popular online commentators, celebrities, and journalists also either openly supported Mangione or used the opportunity to promote the underlying grievance.
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Fear is another central component of terrorism, serving as a mechanism through which extremists seek to influence the population and government. While Warren later clarified that she condemned the killing, her initial remarks were troubling in this respect as well. She echoed Mangione’s grievance by engaging in out-group demonization, sympathizing with “people across the country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies.” Disturbingly, she also noted that the killing “should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system” and that “people can only be pushed so far.” These were especially egregious statements as she invoked the prospect of future attacks while also shifting some culpability away from the killer.
The response to Mangione’s attack places him on the Left more firmly than his political track record does. In mainstream American politics, violence typically generates sympathy for the victims and stigmatizes the perpetrators. Mangione represents a troubling departure from this norm, one that challenges the traditional understanding of political violence as a losing proposition.
James Bacigalupo is a doctoral candidate in the Criminology and Justice Studies program at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. His research focuses on political extremism and the federal sentencing of terrorist defendants.
