Tipsheet

Gen Z: We Lowkey Love Vigilante Murder

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  December 19, 2024 10:05 AM

Let's start with the good news: In consecutive public opinion surveys, the American people overwhelmingly condemn the cold-blooded murder of healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, proving once again that social media trends are not necessarily reflective of real life sentiment.  While many hyper-online people have cheered, justified, or rationalized the slaying, replete with swooning over the accused killer -- phenomena we discussed here -- the vast majority of Americans reject the premeditated act as wrong.  A young man from a privileged East Coast family and with an elite background appears to have had some sort of serious breakdown, isolating himself from people in his life, then plotting the murder of someone he viewed as an avatar of the sort of person who should be punished.  His victim is a married father of two children who grew up in middle America, amid humble beginnings, then worked his way to the top of corporate America.  

Much of the internet would have you believe the victim had it coming, and the beautiful hero in all of this is the rich kid who shot him in the back.  Out in the real world, however, normal people are still strongly opposed to murder.  This recent survey shows the freshly-indicted alleged shooter extremely unpopular, with a (19/61) favorable/unfavorable rating:


Respondents under the age of 45, however, split more evenly (31/41). Similarly, another poll from Emerson College shows a lopsided majority calling the shooting unjustified, with the small minority saying the opposite roughly matching the above data set's favorability rating for the man who authorities say pulled the trigger:


Roughly between one-tenth and one-fifth of every age group calls the murder acceptable, with hefty majorities across the board rightly deeming it unacceptable. The pro-murder contingent holds a fringe position among every age demographic except the youngest Americans, who divide down the middle on the question.  Not coincidentally, Gen Z is also the generation most likely to side with Hamas over Israel.  Hamas started a war by murdering innocent people, blaming their victims -- including civilians, women and children -- as oppressors who deserved it.  Under this twisted morality, if murder victims are deemed to be more powerful, or representative of some "unjust" cause, many younger people are inclined to sympathize or side with actual deadly violence as a response to perceived "violence."  They seem uninterested in, unaware of, or even allergic to any factual information.  And they're bombarded with morally-inverted content and viewpoint affirmation on social media.  There are various explanations floating for how ethically unhinged and unmoored many younger Americans have become:

There is, unquestionably, deep rot taking root here, with widespread societal disaffection -- warranted or unwarranted, and these people are marinated in an online stew of negativity -- leading to a flirtation with or a full embrace of extreme anti-social behavior, sick ideology, and even deep evil.   Noah Rothman thinks that even if these people lack the courage of their depraved, espoused convictions, their eagerness to romanticize and whitewash the killing of innocents is disturbing. And yes, there is no limiting principle to this warped line of thinking: 

Recommended

The Republican Party Has Two New High Profile Members Katie Pavlich
Mulvaney Explains What's Really Going on With Trump's Panama Threat Leah Barkoukis

What the CEO killing should make people realize is there are a segment of people in our society that will absolutely celebrate the death of you and your family if you happen to be part of the wrong class, have the wrong job, or belong to the wrong identity group. These people are focused in academia, the media, and a few other industries dominated by the far-left. There is a dehumanization element to it. A health insurance executive didn’t commit a crime that would justify seeing them as evil, but that’s how they view him because they don’t like the current system. And among the far-left, being part of the system they hate justifies anything you do to him. But it doesn’t end with health insurance CEOs. That logic will expand to millions of other Americans. A politician opposes green new deal legislation? Evil. A landlord evicts someone for not paying rent? Evil.A man steps in and defends others under attack from an actual criminal on a subway? Evil.You’re a cop? Evil. You’re an Israeli? Evil. You served in the military? Evil. There is no limiting principle here. If you’re part of a system they don’t agree with, they will justify violence against you. That’s what the weekly pro-terror marches in NYC are really about. And people better start to recognize it because the mainstreaming of that view is absolutely a threat to a future America that protects individual rights and economic freedom.

Yesterday, it was "the Zionists."  Today, it's a "greedy" corporate executive.  Tomorrow, it could be anyone who fits some demented person's definition of being 'harmful' or bad.  And as long as some subsection of society agrees that the targeted individual fits the bill, they'll celebrate or rationalize the violence.  Algorithm-driven echo chambers will feel this feed this ugly, dangerous view directly onto millions of little screens, many of which are clutched virtually around-the-clock by young Americans.  We have a problem.  One of the ways some people are evincing sympathy (or beyond) for the indicted shooter is by using his reported chronic back pain issues as a significant mitigating factor in his actions and choices.  This excuse turns the stomach of this chronic pain sufferer, writer Mike Cote, who penned an essay about it:

The killer was no downtrodden blue-collar worker who was kicked unceremoniously off his insurance by a greedy profiteer. He was, instead, the Ivy League-educated scion of a highly wealthy family that owned country clubs and had its name on university buildings. He was no hero of the proletariat. He was an entitled rich brat with a violent megalomaniacal fantasy life. He deserves no sympathy, no defense, and certainly no laudatory treatment from anyone with even half a working brain. What is most galling to me are the raft of sympathetic stories about the murderer’s apparent issues with chronic pain. According to media reports, he suffered from a back condition akin to a slipped disc, making him unable to function as a normal 26-year-old would. He complained of chronic back pain, sciatica, and brain fog as a result of his condition. A former roommate said that “His back pain impacted every aspect of his life, his relationships and romantic connections. The constant pain led to depression, which further affected those relationships.” This sob story was repeated by several outlets, with some explicitly arguing that the “the U.S. healthcare system often makes things worse,” tacitly approving of the killer’s actions. The linking of this man’s pain to the murder itself has been a frequent refrain of various press outlets, crafting something of an excuse for the man’s horrendous immoral act.

But this narrative is far too pat and fails to stand up to any real scrutiny. In fact, the killer posted online about a spinal surgery he underwent – paid for by insurance – that relieved the vast majority of his pain. He even advocated for other sufferers to seek the same procedure, which goes directly against the idea that he was somehow shortchanged by his health insurance and turned into a killer by his overwhelming chronic pain. Even if he had not gained the relief provided by the surgery he underwent, chronic pain is no excuse for cold-blooded murder. Trust me, I know...I suffer from chronic pain and have for more than a decade now. I have had daily migraine headaches since the summer of 2013, when I suffered a terrible medical event that changed my life forever...It was brutally hard, full of pain and suffering, and did lead to trouble in personal relationships. I was, at times, a shell of a human. It sucked. But I kept trying. I shifted to different medications, leaned on my wife, family, and friends, and worked around my disability.

Cote concludes:

I ended up finding the callings – writing and history – that evaded me beforehand, and I worked my ass off to get a graduate degree, break into a profession from scratch, and build my writing skills through lots of practice. I got married, bought a house, and, thank God, had a beautiful daughter. And I moved across the country to find a suitable climate where I could heal and be a better version of myself – as husband, father, and writer. You know what I never even considered? Murdering an innocent health insurance executive because I was angry about the hand that life had dealt me. Why not? Well, because I’m not a sociopath who takes his own problems out on the rest of society. Maybe the folks who are excusing this evil murderer’s actions should think about the kind of thing they are incentivizing – and the alternatives to brutal criminality that just happen to be far more beneficial to society and the individual...I don’t usually write personal essays, but this is a deeply personal subject for me. And the presentation of chronic pain as not only debilitating, but a rationale or cause for the targeted, cold-blooded murder of a healthcare executive, has made me very angry.

That profound anger is real and entirely deserved. But as the writer would readily agree, it's not a license to go kill anyone espousing harmful, morally-bankrupt, or arguably evil views. When politicians half-condone or wink at this sort of vigilante bloodshed, admonishing their audiences about how rich people can only push others 'so far,' or describing health insurance industry decisions as 'acts of violence' that explain why someone would resort to murder, they are imperiling civil society -- including themselves:


On that score, I'll leave you with this: