The Murky Right-Wing Politics of the Alleged UHC Shooter
A person of interest was taken into police custody on Monday for questioning regarding the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan. If the man in question is in fact the alleged shooter, his digital footprint raises many more questions than answers.
Luigi Mangione, 26, from Baltimore County, Maryland, was apparently apprehended at a Pennsylvania McDonalds on Monday. Mangione went to Gilman, a private all-boys high school in Baltimore, and then studied at University of Pennsylvania, where he acquired a master of science in engineering degree and a bachelor of science in engineering degree in computer science.
Perhaps of greatest note, his cover photo on X contains an image of an X-ray, leading to speculation about the status of his own health.
His X account is rife with mostly right-leaning, slightly nihilistic, tech bro-y takes concerning AI, mental health, altruism, ancient history, and society in general. Mangione follows Ezra Klein, Sam Altman, AOC, Edward Snowden, and Robert F. Kennedy, among others.
In April, he posted that “modern Japanese urban environment is an evolutionary mismatch for the human animal. The solution to falling birthdates isn’t immigration. It’s cultural.” He reshared another video from June of Republican megadonor Peter Thiel talking about people with Asperger’s running start-ups. He reposted a pseudo-motivational quote, “Netflix, door dash, and true crime podcasts have stolen more dreams than failure ever will.” And he reposted several messages railing against “wokeism.”
His Goodreads is also of interest. He reviewed the Unabomber’s book, writing that “when all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive. You may not like his methods, but to see things from his perspective, it’s not terrorism, it’s war and revolution. Fossil fuel companies actively suppress anything that stands in their way and within a generation or two, it will begin costing human lives by greater and greater magnitudes until the earth is just a flaming ball orbiting third from the sun.”
His Goodreads also noted that he read Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry. Perhaps Mangione, who again was 26 years old, was recently off his parents’ health care, injured, and radicalized by his struggle to figure out a convoluted system.
Mangione was also allegedly found with a gun similar to the one used by the CEO shooter and a written manifesto criticizing health care companies. He has yet to be charged.