Can You Say Jury Nullification? I Knew You Could.

For all of the outrage from the "Very Serious People" it does appear that the American public understands the significance of the murder of UnitedHealthcare's CEO, and that the vast majority of Americans understand that the underlying issue is not one of violence, but of the complete dysfunction of healthcare in the United States.

Believing the health insurance industry is at least partly responsible for the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO is not some fringe position. 69 percent of Americans say health insurance claim denials had “a great deal” or  “moderate amount” of responsibility for the killing of CEO Brian Thompson, according to a new poll conducted by NORC at University of Chicago. Nearly as many (67 percent) blamed health insurance company profits.

The poll also captures a nuance that’s sorely lacking in major media coverage, which tends to collapse the issue into two camps: those who condemn the murder vs. those who support it. That kind of two-sizes-fits-all framing leaves no room for the view that both the shooter and the healthcare industry share responsibility for the CEO’s death. NORC’s poll suggests this more nuanced attitude is in fact quite mainstream. The number of respondents who blamed the shooter wasn’t much higher (78 percent) than those who blamed health insurance claim denials (69 percent).

Now compare that with the tsunami of corporate media op-eds and pundits expressing the sparkling insight that murder is wrong. Yeah, we know. Episodes like these really show you how much contempt these elite media organs have for the public, which they apparently see as helpless children in need of a preschool level moral lesson. This is the exact same media paternalism that prevented them from publishing Mangione “manifesto,” thinking the zombie-like masses would have no choice but to obey the writings and carry out similar acts of violence.

The response of the authorities, and of the pundit class, has been, "Let them eat cake."*

It should be noted that such attitudes when juxtaposed with completely justified outrage of the general populace have not generally been particularly harmonious.

^*A bit of a correction here. First, the quote is actually, "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche," let them eat brioche, a French egg bread, and this term was coined by Jean-Jacques Rousseau decades before Marie Antoinette became queen.