It is shocking for many that UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s accused killer, Luigi Mangione, has acquired a devoted fanbase.
“The seething anger underneath showed you that Luigi, at least for a certain part of the population, has tremendous support,” former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon said. “When you get to that point, it should be flashing red that we have a problem.”
A problem, perhaps, but certainly not a new one.
As it happens, Mangione is the beneficiary of a very American tradition. Cheering for murderous outlaws is as American a tradition as apple pie. Ironically, for the Steve Bannons who seek to make America great again, popular support for Mangione is a return to form, a reincarnation of a time when Americans regularly romanticized violent killers.
The United States is a complicated, mercurial oddity, as tolerant of acts of…
