Will the Joker Emerge?

There has been at least one folk song, one look-a-like contest, and one fawning fan account. There is the tripartite catchphrase graffitied on walls across America. There are the gleeful comments and posts, an avalanche of them, thousands and thousands. All of it has amounted to adoration and even lust for the alleged killer, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, who appears to have shot dead Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealth, last week. During the manhunt, someone quipped on one of the social media platforms that New Yorkers hadn’t been this united since September 11th. And, as it became clear in the aftermath of the murder, it wasn’t just New York reveling in the death of a healthcare CEO who had a compensation package worth $10.2 million last year. America—left and right and center—was transfixed. This was the rare mass event to bridge the partisan divide. A murkier stream of reality, a darker sub-stratum, was exposed. All along, a conversation burbled, and now the volume was getting louder. Americans absolutely despised their healthcare system and it didn’t matter who they voted for in the last election. Punished by profiteering and bloodless bureaucracies, they were incensed, and they could only crack wise as a man lay dead.