Tal Fortgang The Dangerous Celebration of Luigi Mangione It’s his admirers’ adulation, not the court’s decision to toss first-degree murder charges, that should concern us most.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/luigi-mangione-murder-terror-charges
Luigi Mangione appeared to get off easy on Tuesday. The judge overseeing his New York State prosecution tossed first-degree murder charges against Mangione, who stands accused of shooting health-care executive Brian Thompson in Manhattan. Outside, scores of adoring onlookers cheered for the apparent murderer.
Enthusiasm for Mangione—not because anyone thinks he is not guilty, but because his fans revel in Thompson’s death—does not seem to have diminished. Meantime, many who rightly want Mangione punished for his heinous crime are perplexed by the judge’s conclusion that Mangione should not be considered a terrorist because he merely wished “to draw attention to what he perceived as the greed of the insurance industry.”
That may seem like splitting hairs. And it’s not clear why the judge should decide the question of Mangione’s motives rather than put the question to a jury. Nonetheless, the law will take care of Mangione. It’s his fans glee, not the court’s decision, that should concern us.
Why the change of charge? In New York, first-degree murder requires proof that the defendant intentionally killed someone else plus an additional factor, such as the victim being a cop or first responder; the homicide occurring in furtherance of other heinous crimes like kidnapping; the killing committed as an act of terrorism; and other possible aggravated circumstances.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg tried to get Mangione charged for terrorism, defined in statute as an attempt to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence the policy of a unit of government by intimidation.” It’s not obvious that Mangione’s crime fits that bill, though it is arguable.
If Mangione had been convicted of first-degree murder, he would receive life imprisonment. He now instead faces a second-degree murder charge. That crime carries the same penalty, except that life imprisonment is now merely a maximum sentence rather than a mandatory one. D.A. Bragg will surely push for that maximum if and when the time comes.
And Mangione isn’t out of hot water yet. He faces a federal murder prosecution, too, and Attorney General Pam Bondi has said that the United States will seek the death penalty. He also stands charged in a Pennsylvania state court with lesser crimes, like criminal possession of a weapon.
It’s possible that one or more of these courts finds Mangione not guilty. He may not rot in prison or be put to death. But the latest decision doesn’t change his overall trajectory.
What is worth worrying about is Mangione’s celebrity status, which seems to be growing unabated. Even as Americans increasingly worry about violence, some radicals still believe that Mangione is worth celebrating because Thompson, to them, was a symbol of evil. These are the same people who believe that Charlie Kirk’s assassination is cause for joy because Kirk stood for a movement they find abhorrent.
These radicals are finding ways to excuse Kirk’s murder, using much the same logic as those who justified Thompson’s death by citing the supposed “violence” of market-based health insurance. If Thompson and Kirk aren’t really people so much as avatars of bad things—capitalism or conservatism—then killing them isn’t quite as unthinkable as it might once have been.
Reporting on this phenomenon in The Free Press, Maya Sulkin quotes a man reveling in the random murder of wife, mother, and Blackstone executive Wesley LePatner: “I don’t know this woman, so I have to view her as a symbol.” He does not have to, of course. He chooses to, by adopting a worldview that replaces the dignity and humanity of every individual with an analysis of systems and power dynamics, then reasons that it is a good thing when representatives of the bad systems suffer.
We might have hoped that the bankruptcy of this worldview would be even more apparent in the wake of a massive act of political violence. Yet Mangione’s fans continue to celebrate every small impediment to his prosecution. Getting such people to see Thompson, LePatner, and Kirk as humans, especially after their murders, is proving harder than it should be.
This cultural development is far more dangerous than legal maneuvering in court. If enough people come to see the world as being populated by symbols rather than people, our laws will eventually reflect that view. If enough people come to believe that violence against representatives of things they dislike is justifiable, they will shape justice accordingly.
It’s the kind of thing that can destroy a civilization.
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