Why I’m not clapping for Luigi Mangione
Guys like him shoot a CEO one day, and a lot of kids on another—they just hide their personal reasons behind “brutal honesty”

The last days have been full of news about Luigi Mangione, the shooter of health insurance CEO Brian Thompson. So far have we have understood that this is a young man from a very privileged background with some mixed political views to say the least.

What I do not grasp is how some of my dear fellow anarchists are still joining in the clapping for his actions. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for self-defence and not mourning for the CEO, but Mangione was not trying to free anybody. He had no connection to any mutual support, and never cared to share his privileges with the oppressed.

Also, have we started idolising individuals again?

It should go without saying that one CEO is pretty soon replaced by another one, and that the insurance companies will continue to crush people every time they can. These companies can make a show of reducing their refusal rates for a while, but they will continue rejecting patients, and the neoliberalised health care system will go on with business as usual.

But Mangione wasn’t even thinking about the fact that killing one CEO wasn’t going to change either the rules of this shitty game or ease anybody else’s burden.

He has been described as part of a Grey Tribe “typified by libertarian political beliefs, Dawkins-style atheism, vague annoyance that the question of gay rights even comes up, eating paleo, drinking Soylent, calling in rides on Uber, reading lots of blogs…and listening to filk”.

The term tries to capture an increasing number of people who use many terms to define themselves politically. But it also distracts us from the fact that if the assassin was a Black man, he would have probably been shot during his arrest.

I guess what bothers me most is that Mangione is completely aware of his privileges, and like many other white shooters is now enjoying the attention and the hero status he’s getting. Guys like him shoot a CEO one day, and a lot of kids on another. They just have their own personal reasons for it, hidden behind a display of “brutal honesty”.

To take revenge for his back pain and repair his hurt ego, Mangione assassinated a useless person, without any collective context or intention to liberate large groups of oppressed people. Revolutions can’t be created by technoliberal lone wolves, no matter how cute they are.