What Connects Luigi Mangione and Charlie Kirk
After the murder of United Health's CEO, the left & right united...against vulture capitalism. After Charlie Kirk's murder, the right-wing aims to kill that unity with a World War of all culture wars.
Standing outside New York criminal court on Tuesday in a crowd of supporters of Luigi Mangione, the alleged killer of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, it dawned on me how rapidly the pendulum has swung in less than year.
Regardless of what one thought on Thompson’s murder at the time in December 2024, I was pleasantly surprised to see—really for the first time in over a decade of reporting on-the-ground across America—the political left and right in damn near complete unity in their disgust…
Not on behalf of Thompson, but toward the predatory, for-profit health insurance industry. And if I was surprised, top right-wing propagandists like Ben Shapiro were stunned when his audience of right wingers—who he’s cultivated to be distracted by cultural grievance and hysteria rather than focus on our corrupt government stealing from them economically—turned on him over his condemnation of Mangione’s alleged actions.
Here were just a few comments from Shapiro’s viewers furious at his take after the UHC CEO murder.
“Find another audience to play apologist to the people who help make the lives of hard working Americans difficult."
“I’m not buying this “left vs right” shit anymore Ben, I want healthcare for my family,”
“Right winger here, you are wrong ben, this man denied 35% of claims. One was my dead parents heart surgery we couldn't afford. He opted to die instead of give us the debt.”
“This just in, man with a 50 Million dollar net worth, completely misses the point and is out of touch with the frustration of regular Americans.”
“My dad who was a staunch republican would have maybe agreed with you, Ben, but unfortunately, he died from cancer after being denied a treatment that could have saved his life because it was considered ‘experimental.’”
There were also a lot of comments from typically right-wing Shapiro viewers noting how heartwarming and inspiring it was to see leftists and conservatives coming together against the real enemy—vulture, predatory capitalists.
“My god conservatives , liberal and lefties are hugging it out in the comments..my god this is beautiful.”“I'm crying, everyone. This is so beautiful to see us so united. I love all of you, no matter who you voted, what party you subscribe to. We all are Americans, indivisible. My countrymen....”
That feeling of unity was reflected 10 months later during an interview I did yesterday outside NYC criminal court (WATCH video recap below).
There, Celeste, a supporter of Luigi Mangione, reflected on the left-right unity that seemed contagious after Thompson’s killing.
“The closest I came to experiencing any sort of solidarity as a nation, any sort of class solidarity, was the nations reaction to the shooting of the UHC CEO. You saw people on the right, you saw people on the left, you saw Facebook Lindas, you saw Gen Z kids on Instagram and TikTok all saying the same thing…you know, he had it coming. I think there is no war but class war and at the end of the day as a middle class New Yorker, leftist New Yorker, I have more in common with a blue-collar conservative from the deep south than I do with a billionaire from my own city…I just feel that we need to create the strongest coalition possible. There is no war but class war; I wish that we could go back to that feeling that we had after the first couple weeks after the shooting where people were talking about their own experience with the healthcare system. It just made me feel a sense of community.”
Perhaps it was naive of her, I, and all of us, but in a country where the left and right political tribes can’t agree on the weather—largely due to a partisan media complex that intentionally divides and distracts Americans for profit—I thought the volcano of bipartisan disgust against health insurance predators that erupted after Thompson’s killing could be some type of tipping point in America.
Ten months, and one horrific assassination later, we now seem more divided than ever.
In the wake of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s murder last week, which I condemned while simultaneously reporting the truth about his damaging legacy, the right wing political-media industry has been on a holy crusade against the so-called “radical left”—who they declared was behind Kirk’s murder even before the suspect was killed (and even now, when it is still not completely clear what his full motivation was and/or what, if any, his political ideology was).
From Kirk-inspired databases aiming to get “leftists” fired for, what right-wingers deem is celebrating his murder, to the President, Vice President, Attorney General, and a sea of Republican politicians announcing investigations and/or firing campaigns into so-called “leftists” who they claim have celebrated—or not sufficiently condemned—Kirk’s killing…
The right-wing machine is taking the mass culture war Kirk waged during his career and injecting it with jet fuel. Of course, right wing politicians and media are doing so in order to:
Distract the masses, and their base, from the new economic Gilded Age they’ve inflicted upon us.
Distract the masses, and their base, from Trump’s historic corruption, likely nefarious involvement with child sex predator Jeffrey Epstein, and the historically unpopular law they just passed that robbed the poor while pouring more champagne and cake over the rich.
Enrage and agitate their political base to focus on the “radical left” rather than…their corruption.
MAKE MONEY HONEY!
Of course, facts be damned—including the overwhelming data that shows most political violence has been perpetrated by right-wing extremists (which Trump’s DOJ recently took down a study confirming this from their website).
Bigger picture, Trump, his sycophants in Congress, and right-wing media’s biggest fear are leftists and conservatives having a collective light-bulb moment to realize they’ve been conned by a mass distraction campaign.
Their greatest fear is the left and right coming together—not on all things as there will always be cultural differences—and uniting over the fact that they are being screwed by a corrupt government that has sold the people out to corporate donors, special interests, foreign lobbying machines, and the rest of the usual corporate suspects.
Their greatest fear is, essentially, the time coming where their jig is up and their base realizes the real enemy isn’t transgender swimmers, Black Lives Matter protesters, Antifa, abortion providers, or immigrants…but corrupt politicians like Trump, Vance, Pelosi, Schumer, and the entire cabal of Congressional corporate sellouts.
That is why in the aftermath of the post-Luigi, left-right unity—and now Kirk assassination—the right wing hysteria machine is in overtime to create the World War of all Culture Wars.
It’s up to actual journalists, and sensible Americans on all sides of the political aisle, to call out and expose this dangerous bullshit.
I certainly will keep doing so.
Do you see any other media outlets doing this kind of INDEPENDENT ON-THE-GROUND and INVESTIGATIVE reporting? Let’s keep waking up the masses and do real justice journalism.
