This post contains some graphic footage.
We covered the Left’s appalling reaction to the targeted hit on Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, who was shot and killed outside the New York Hilton Midtown on Wednesday morning around 6:45 AM. The killer fired multiple shots at Thompson with a suppressed firearm. The shell casings recovered were inscribed with the words “deny,” “depose,” and “defend” on them. Thompson’s wife said her late husband was the subject of death threats. The Justice Department also investigated Mr. Thompson for insider trading. His death was shocking, though liberals were popping champagne.
JUST IN: (Viewer Discretion Advised)
— Jack Lombardi II (@JackLombardi) December 4, 2024
Shocking and horrifying: Security footage has captured the brutal murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson earlier this morning in New York City.
Random violence or professional hitjob?
Thoughts and prayers go out to his family during… pic.twitter.com/r6tqlOCCXD
Only the Left would celebrate a killing like this—as if it will lead to a decrease in the cost of health care or give credence to their causes for single-payer and other cockamamie failed socialist ideas on reforming the system. It’s also a group that’s too plugged into the social media sphere, which is precisely why Kamala Harris lost. The vice president’s staff was too cloistered in the bubble and too online to reach voters effectively. So, circling back to these horrid reactions, we have former Washington Post columnist Taylor Lorenz, whose headline is, I kid you not, “Why ‘we’ want insurance executives dead.”
Taylor has updated the headline: pic.twitter.com/x610Lygsss
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) December 5, 2024
Who the hell is we? American health care has its issues. As with anything, there are unscrupulous practices and characters. That doesn’t mean they should die. We don’t know anything about the killer, but the words engraved on his rounds seem to point to a political aim, no? We’ll see. But you can see why Lorenz left the publication. The best is the sub-headline here:
No, that does not mean people should murder them. But if you've watched a loved one suffer and die from insurance denial, it's normal to wish the people responsible would suffer the same fate.
Recommended
So, she supports killing, not murder. Are we returning to the treatises from 17th-century European history that argued for regicide? Because this logic is eerily similar, albeit it’s now applied to corporate officers. It’s funny—don’t look, but corporations are now liberal America’s most prominent cultural and financial allies.
Naturally, the mainstream media began pearl clutching in outrage. After I posted a quote tweet about insurance companies no longer paying for certain anesthesia with the phrase, "And people wonder why we want these executives dead," legacy media outlets including Fox News pounced and wrote a slew of articles about my "calls for violence."
Let me be super clear: my post uses a collective "we" and is explaining the public sentiment. It is not me personally saying "I want these executives dead and so we should kill them." I am explaining that thousands of Americans (myself included) are fed up with our barbaric healthcare system and the people at the top who rake in millions while inflicting pain, suffering, and death on millions of innocent people.
If you have watched a loved one die because an insurance conglomerate has denied their life saving treatment as a cost cutting measure, yes, it's natural to wish that the people who run such conglomerates would suffer the same fate.
As fellow journalist Ken Klippenstein posted, "No shit murder is bad. The [commentary and jokes] about the United CEO aren’t really about him; they’re about the rapacious healthcare system he personified and which Americans feel deep pain and humiliation about."
[…]
People have very justified hatred toward insurance company CEOs because these executives are responsible for an unfathomable amount of death and suffering. I think it’s good to call out this broken system and the people in power who enable it. Again, not so they can be murdered, but so that we can change the system and start holding people in power accountable for their actions.
[…]
Have some people’s jokes gone too far? Yes. Are some people being craven and cruel? Yes. Are some people irresponsibly calling for more violence? Yes. But to report on the online commentary surrounding Thompson's death without examining the systemic cruelty of our healthcare system is to willfully strip context from these online outpourings.
[…]
And again, that does not mean I condone what many people have posted. I think it's deeply concerning that Americans feel like violence is the only way to get justice in our broken system. I wish the collective anger people are feeling could be channeled into more productive means of resistance that lead to lasting, systemic change.
What a mess. This trip is the Willy Wonka acid trip on the chocolate river. You can absolutely make the case that the healthcare system is flawed without tying in the CEO’s death, folks. It’s irrelevant to the issue Lorenz and others have been making for years about how certain aspects of American healthcare are a total circus. When you’re explaining, you’re losing. The basic test for making your argument is simple: don’t become someone most voters want to punch in the face.
And sorry, but yes, you can report on the murder of Mr. Thompson without getting into a policy quibble, which, again, points to the fundamental atrophy that has engulfed the Left concerning reaching voters. You don’t know how people think anymore. When most see a murder, they want stories about the crime not to be used as a jump-off point for a more extensive policy debate while dancing on the grave of someone whose only crime in the Left’s eyes was being a CEO.
Also, what the hell does this even mean? Where has there been such unity about the death of some healthcare insurance CEO? Again, left-wing circles have become too online and don’t know what’s real or not.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member