A Dead CEO
To us, the public, there was nothing exceptional about Brian Thompson aside from his annual income. A Midwestern White man, a company man who gave United Healthcare 20 years of his life. A guy who didn’t feel important enough to have a security guard. There are no known reports of him mistreating those closest to him, nor are there positive feats of his saturating tv broadcasts in his posthumous PR.
Brian Thompson appears to have been good to his wife and children. Brian Thompson’s movement up the corporate ladder set him up for his current villain role in the mainstream. Again, nothing shocking about the man’s path: business degree, start in finance, steady promotions, CEO. But perhaps most frustrating of all the truths about Brian Thompson’s public life is that he isn’t some madman who cackled and got off to stories of UHC customers dying on their hospital beds. Hell, he and everyone around him may have believed he was in the process of leaving a positive impact on the world.
What’s scary about this truth is the machine that is America seems poised to chug along with or without truly evil people. At this point in time, our country’s worst institutions and ways of life don’t need monsters to lead the way — just regular people to toe the company line and stay out of the way of what has already been built.
(Here’s a fantastic breakdown from a former VP of Cigna of what UnitedHealth’s motto is.)
A Suspect
Luigi Mangione is enjoying a Robin Hood-esque reception from American commoners, so to speak. From bipartisan social media onlookers to his fellow inmates at SCI Huntingdon in Pennsylvania, Mangione’s alleged murder of the UHC CEO is one of the most resonant things done “for the culture” in the age of social media. His manifesto, unlike similar memos, has only increased the general public’s belief in the symbolic value of his suspected hit job.
While Brian Thompson’s death itself doesn’t change how the US healthcare industry works, the resounding collective vitriol of the American public toward the healthcare industry puts pressure on mainstream media and healthcare executives to be more candid with their customers. The novelty of such a crime story in the United States — a targeted, ideologically-driven killing that is largely being celebrated — is resulting in things like an insurance company answering to everyday people and national news stories detailing corrupt insurance practices and pathways to change.
The Media
ATC has never pretended to be a traditional news outlet. We are upfront about our content being well-researched interpretations of what is going on rather than an attempt at an “unbiased” record of what’s going on. FOX, NBC, CNN, CBS, the New York Times and the like cannot and will not admit their apparently amoral (i.e. billionaire-backed) subjectivity in producing information for the masses. That’s why across this “variety” of large US news networks, there was a united front in the derision of murder suspect Luigi Mangione.
We can’t expect anything genuinely critical from the country’s largest broadcasters of information. That being said, the strong collective refusal of mainstream media’s take on Mangione and his alleged crime is a snapshot of a new world where the average person can be well informed with a more decentralized information network consisting of podcasters, microbloggers, independent news sites, and more.
The People
Where does all the pain go? Into a sensationalist national murder case, duh.
As of February 11, 2025, a crowdfund organized by the December 4th Legal Committee has raised $328,000 for Mangione’s legal defense. The public’s initial fervor around Mangione has proven to be a real investment in his symbolic plight far beyond the shock value of a handsome, successful young man being pinned for a murder in broad daylight.
As of February 18, 2025, all aforementioned US news giants have yet to publish anything on this certainly newsworthy update in arguably the biggest legal proceeding of the year. Then again, who decides what is newsworthy? In the case of Luigi Mangione’s pending murder trial, it does not seem to matter what corporate media executives do — the American people will not let this story go.