RANT #11
RANT #11
no future: the would-be and successful assassins of 2024
A registered Republican who donated to ActBlue. A man whose most coherent political stance was supporting Ukraine. And now, allegedly, a libertarian-leaning tech bro-space type with cogent criticisms and chronic back pain.
Acts of high profile violence, such as the mass shootings that have become almost boring to Americans, feel like they should have some kind of ultra-radicalized politics behind them. That was the case with the Oklahoma City bombing back in the '90s. That was the case with the Kenosha shooting back in 2020. Political motives, especially alt-right motives, are a common narrative, which makes the three high-profile assassination attempts in America, 2024 - one of them successful - incredibly off-putting for the usual think-piece media dumbasses.
These would-be assassins and assassin all have one thing in common: politically speaking, they're just as confused as the country right now.
Thomas Crooks, whatever his immediate motive, clearly wavered in his political self-identification. Ryan Wesley was delusional about his ability to affect the war in Ukraine but had few other real politcal beliefs - the fact that he's the closest we have to a classic political assassin is strange to say the least. Luigi Mangione should have, on paper, been at risk of falling into the alt-right rabbit hole with his interest in crypto and anti-woke leanings - instead he took aim as the UnitedHealthcare CEO and succeeded.
Mangione might be the most instructive example of this flavor of assassins. He was floating through life, with a do-nothing office job, chronic back pain, and a clear interest in classic internet doomerist folk heroes (the Unabomber) and productivity hackers (Paul Lindy). It's a soup many people around his (and my) age swim in - the world is burning, even the securely employed are living on the edge, nothing seems to be getting better whether you look to ulta-individualist self-improvement gurus or anarcho-marxist lite keyboard collectivists. There are a million things to get angry about and very little you do seems to make a difference in how it all shakes out.
If you lean the way I personally do, you join your local Food Not Bombs and carry Narcan like that'll save the world. If you're a libertarian-leaning individualist like Mangione, you might decide that the best thing to do is shoot one person that'll send a message. The message he decided to send, no doubt influenced by his chronic back pain, was the CEO of the worst health insurance provider in the United States when it comes to denying claims.
Copycats are always a concern when it comes to high profile crimes - that's been proven by the respons to the media handling of mass shootings. One thing Mangione DIDN'T like about the Unabomber was his targeting of innocent people, and in the killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO Mangione put that into a concrete action. I don't personally like the idea of copycats, but at least these copycats might tone down the senseless deaths that come from mass shootings.
The public response to the UnitedHealthcare assassination has made one thing very clear: if you feel like you have no future, the best way to make people notice you and rally around your causes is to assassinate a guy nobody's inclined to like in their own private doomerist hellscape. If BCBS goes back on their whole "ok, I guess you can have anesthesia actually" thing, I would be very nervous if I was on their board.
