Why Luigi Mangione Is Being Treated as a Folk Hero

After a five-day manhunt, Luigi Mangione, a twenty-six-year-old Ivy League graduate, was arrested and charged on Monday with the widely publicized assassination of the UnitedHealthcare C.E.O. Brian Thompson. The case seized public imagination, and there has been a torrent of commentary celebrating Mangione and denigrating Thompson, including fan edits of the alleged shooter to posts sharing personal anecdotes of denied health-insurance claims. “Mangione is going to be seen as a folk hero across the aisle,” the New Yorker staff writer Jia Tolentino tells Tyler Foggatt. What does the lionization of a suspected murderer say about the health of our society? This week’s reading: “ How Daniel Penny Was Found Not Guilty in a Subway Killing That Divided New York ,” by Adam Iscoe “ A Man Was Murdered in Cold Blood and You’re Laughing? ,” by Jia Tolentino “ What Will Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy Accomplish with Doge? ,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells“ The Fall of Assad’s Syria ,” by Rania Abouzeid To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker , visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to themail@newyorker.com . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices