A staggering poll from Emerson College suggests that more young Americans believe that Luigi Mangione’s assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was acceptable than don’t.
According to the survey of 1,000 registered voters, 41% of 18 t0 29-year-olds believe that the murder of Thompson was either somewhat or completely acceptable, with 24% falling into the former and 17% falling into the latter categories. Thirty-three percent of that same cohort believes that the murder was completely unacceptable, and an additional 7% believes it was somewhat unacceptable.
Nineteen percent professed to be “neutral” on the question.
The 18-29 grouping was the only age demographic in which a plurality deemed the assassination acceptable. In every other one, a majority said that it was unacceptable.
On the morning of December 4, Thompson was gunned down in the middle of Manhattan. He left behind 16 and 19-year-old sons.
His death was celebrated by some progressives online, including internet personality Taylor Lorenz, who shared a pair of celebratory graphics, an article about a policy change made by a different health insurance company, as well as the name and headshot of the CEO of that company.
She went on to defend her position in a blog post that saw her denounce the media’s “pearl-clutching,” and argue that “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.”
