This week, Pennsylvania police arrested a person of interest, Luigi Mangione, in connection with the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The arrest came after police received a tip from a McDonald’s employee who recognized the man from circulating photos. Instead of a majority of the public applauding the end of a multi-day manhunt where an alleged murderer was on the loose, the McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania — where he was arrested — has been flooded with negative reviews with people vaguely complaining about “rats.”
The sequence of events encapsulates a broader trend that has emerged since the death of the health insurance CEO: people expressing a lack of sympathy for Thompson, and instead hailing the alleged killer as a folk hero. It’s a notable contrast from how the American public reacted just a few months ago after Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally near Butler, Pennsylvania. Despite some people likening the once and future president to malevolent dictators, after the attempt many people publicly expressed — seemingly sincerely — their “thoughts and prayers” to the Trump family, saying that they’d never condone the death of human life, no matter how much they didn’t like them, disagreed with them, or loathed what they represented.
