More Catwalk Than Perp Walk as Deification of Luigi Mangione Is Ascending to Absurd Heights
Move over Billy the Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, Butch and Sundance …
Luigi Mangione, alleged killer of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, Brian Thompson, is being deified by fans comparing him to everyone from Robin Hood to Jesus Christ. His arrival in Manhattan, courtesy of the NYPD, is the latest made-for-TV moment in his leap from obscurity.
Mr. Mangione arrived in New York City on Thursday to face charges including first-degree murder, stalking, and illegal use of firearms. After 10 days in a Pennsylvania jail, he waived his right to contest extradition, enabling Empire State authorities to transport him to the scene of the crime.
Although he arrived for a perp walk, Mr. Mangione’s appearance was choreographed as if he were a supermodel on the catwalk. NBC News leaned into his supposed charms, describing him as “clean-cut … wearing beige slacks and a white shirt under a black V-neck.”
CNN recounted the 26-year-old’s “busy Thursday,” noting that it featured a “whirlwind, two-state courthouse tour turned spectacle.” He had a trip “featuring a helicopter ride” and “a throng of escorts, including the mayor of New York City,” all showing up as if welcoming a pope.
“NYPD apparently sat around asking themselves,” the editor of Current Affairs, Nathan Robinson, posted on X, “how can we arrange to transport Mangione in a way that makes him look to his supporters like Christ being taken to the cross?”
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.
Mr. Mangione’s cult of personality is aided and abetted by the Internet, spread by #Luigi. When it was reported that “deny,” “defend” and “depose” were written on shell casings near the site of Thompson’s murder, the slogan began springing up in posts and on products.
“Delay Deny Defend” is a 2010 book criticizing the health insurance industry, a title said to summarize the industry’s tactics for denying claims. Amazon yanked merchandise featuring the trinity of words, but the book became an instant best-seller.
In years past, the faces of those charged with crimes were unknown to the public and so not mooned over like Mr. Mangione’s. There might be drawings from a trial but never cameras in courtrooms; TV and newspaper images were crude. Plus, there was no incentive to play PR for perps.
The accused, back then, were transported in secret using unmarked with tinted windows. Certainly, the NYPD wouldn’t welcome the press to snap glamor shots of those in their custody. The police would also allow those in cuffs to cover their faces with a jacket or shirt as it helped avoid a circus.
The country artist who performed the theme to “The Dukes of Hazzard,” Waylon Jennings, includes a line about this tradition in that song, “Good Ol’ Boys.” While his mother loves him, he sings, “she don’t understand” why “they keep a showin’ my hands and not my face on TV.”
A quiet arrival also avoids inspiring copycats or risking a repeat of the nightclub owner, Jack Ruby, who shot the man who assassinated President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald. But for Mr. Mangione, that cat is out of the bag. Many in the public know his face and his cause, and they like what they see.
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.
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