Every now and then, an event highlights a divide in America so profoundly that it shakes our conception of the kind of nation we are.
When O. J. Simpson was acquitted of double murder in 1995, the stark racial divide in the country was brought out in bas relief. Joyful blacks celebrated the murderer’s acquittal, while perplexed whites watched in disbelief. It was a moment that demonstrated just how different the races were in their outlook on America and the justice system.
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I believe we’re seeing a similar moment with the deification and celebration of Luigi Mangione.
NYPD apparently sat around asking themselves “how can we arrange to transport Mangione in a way that makes him look to his supporters like Christ being taken to the cross” pic.twitter.com/psP9W7PDlx
— Nathan J Robinson (@NathanJRobinson) December 19, 2024
This Luigi Mangione perp walk is such a spectacle straight out of a comic book.
The entourage of unnecessary personnel and Mayor Eric Adams. Are they escorting him to Arkham Asylum? pic.twitter.com/Jbg5khDOk7
— BG, X-Men ‘97 (@TheBGates) December 19, 2024
They escorting Luigi Mangione like he Superman 💀 pic.twitter.com/p20IX6CDK8
— mememylife14 (@mememylife14) December 20, 2024
There’s always been a dark fascination in America with killers. Billy the Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, and Jesse James are legends whose criminal acts are gussied up to appear as deeds of derring-do. Their anti-social, even psychopathic tendencies are buried.
Billy “the Kid” Bonney murdered at least 10 people before he turned 21. Jesse James rode with the notorious killer “Bloody” Bill Anderson during the Civil War. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow blazed a bloody trail across Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico for two years, robbing banks and murdering innocents before being killed in a law enforcement ambush.
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These were despicable human beings, cold-blooded killers all. So why did American newspapers turn them into “Robin Hoods,” or, like another cold-blooded killer, John Dillinger, a symbol of revolt against the system?
To sell newspapers, capture eyeballs, or get clicks, of course. But Mangione has also attained the rarified status of a folk hero/religious icon.
That may be a first in American history.
The religious iconography is fitting for a man cast as a martyr by those on a jihad against America’s health care system. On X, a reporter for WMAR-2 News at Baltimore, Elizabeth Worthington, shared a picture she spotted showing Mr. Mangione’s face Photoshopped onto Christ’s body.
Ms. Worthington snapped the blasphemous iconography, complete with sacred heart, at Vito’s, a pizza shop at Townson, Maryland, Mr. Mangione’s home state. On X, this canonization is in full swing and growing, as if killing a health care CEO counts as the two miracles required for Catholic sainthood.
“Petition St. Luigi,” one person posted on X, “when you get an unexpected medical bill.” Another image showed Mr. Mangione’s face superimposed onto the Bat Signal, which the citizens of Gotham City shone into the night sky to summon their antihero.
The 2010 book “Delay Deny Defend,” words Mangione wrote on the bullet casings he used to kill Brian Thompson, has become an instant bestseller. T-shirts, coffee mugs, and other memorabilia are selling out in stores and sidewalk stands in New York.
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Dean Karayanis, columnist for the New York Sun, writes: “John Brown. Billy the Kid. Bonnie and Clyde. Butch and Sundance. Every few generations, America’s rage against the system coughs up a folk hero. Mr. Mangione may soon join that rogue’s gallery — claimed as a secular saint who fired the shot heard ‘round the Internet.”
Understanding the celebrity of Luigi Mangione is easy. But the deification of a cold-blooded, back-shooting killer is not.
