🏥 Ivy League Assassin Takes Aim at Healthcare
America's Newest Folk Hero Proves Customer Service Should've Answered His Calls
The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease." - Voltaire.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Jean Dill On Show. Today we're talking about America's newest folk hero, Luigi Mangione. Now folks, I don't know if you've been following this story, but we've got an Ivy League valedictorian who decided to become the Robin Hood of the healthcare system. And America – I love this country – America has lost its mind over this guy.
You've got people setting up GoFundMes for his legal defense. Think about that. Think about where we are as a country. You've got soccer moms in Minnesota opening up their Etsy shops selling "Free Luigi" t-shirts. This is what happens when you make health insurance more expensive than a Mar-a-Lago membership.
And his lawyer – I love this – his lawyer comes out and says, "Well, the Supreme Court says billionaires can donate unlimited money to politicians, so maybe these people are just exercising their free speech." That's beautiful. That's poetry. We've gone from "money is speech" to "paying for someone's murder defense is speech." This is what I've been trying to tell you about America.
But here's what nobody wants to talk about – this kid graduated from Gilman School. If you don't know what Gilman is, it's basically a finishing school for future hedge fund managers and defense contractors. His grandfather was a real estate tycoon. This isn't some working-class hero – this is a guy who probably had a summer house in the Hamptons, who probably went to lacrosse camp, who probably had a boat named after his mother.
And now he's getting fan mail in prison. He's getting marriage proposals. This country is so sick – and I love it. I truly do. You've got people writing fan fiction about a guy who allegedly shot a healthcare CEO. What's the fan fiction even about? "Chapter One: Luigi logs into his health insurance portal and sees his deductible..."
The merchandise – my God, the merchandise. You've got people selling Luigi prayer candles on Instagram. Prayer candles! Like he's Saint Luigi of the High Deductibles. The Patron Saint of Out-of-Network Coverage. And people are buying them! They're selling out! This is the economy now – it's just true crime merch and diabetes medication.
And you know what's really wild? He was caught at McDonald's. The most American ending possible. Here's a guy who went to Penn, studied computer science, probably knows how to build a rocket ship, and he gets caught because he wanted a McFlurry. The ice cream machine probably wasn't even working – that's the real tragedy here.
But what really gets me is his resume. TrueCar data engineer, app developer, game designer. This guy wasn't living in a cabin writing manifestos about the industrial revolution. He was probably on LinkedIn posting about "synergy" and "disruption" six months ago. He was probably doing coding challenges on LeetCode while planning all this.
The manifesto they found – by the way, everyone has a manifesto now. You can't just be angry anymore. You need a manifesto. In the old days, you'd just scream at the TV when your claim got denied. Now you need a philosophical treatise about the military-industrial-healthcare complex.
This is what happens when you make people pay $800 for insulin. This is what happens when you tell someone their life-saving surgery isn't "medically necessary." You get prep school valedictorians trading their Patagonia vests for ghost guns. You get true crime fandoms forming around a guy whose LinkedIn profile probably still says "Open to work."
And the social media response - my God. You've got TikTok girlies making thirst trap edits of his mugshot. "He's giving dark academia!" No, he's giving FIRST-DEGREE MURDER. But that's New York dating now. The bar is so low that "Ivy League grad who might've shot a CEO" is considered a catch. In Manhattan, that's what we call "husband material."
You've got Twitter - sorry, "X" - I hate that I have to call it that now - you've got people on there doing data analysis of his manifesto like it's their PhD thesis. "Um actually, his critique of the healthcare industrial complex shows remarkable insight into..." Shut up. Just shut up. You work at a WeWork doing social media for a kombucha startup.
And of course, the New York Post headlines - "HEALTH SCARE: Prep School Grad Goes Postal." Beautiful. Only in New York do we turn alleged murderers into pun-worthy celebrities. The New York Times is probably working on a 10,000-word profile right now: "The Complex Inner Life of Luigi Mangione: How a Baltimore Prep School Produced Both a Valedictorian and a Viral Villain."
You've got 22-year-old girls in Bushwick making Luigi fan art and selling it on Etsy. "It's giving Warhol," they say. No, it's giving FEDERAL PRISON. But this is what happens when you combine student loan debt, true crime podcasts, and a healthcare system that charges you $500 for a Band-Aid.
Listen, I get it. The healthcare system in this country is broken. But we've got people treating this guy like he's Florence Nightingale with a ghost gun. He's got more supporters than most presidential candidates. There are literally people making Luigi Mangione body pillows. BODY PILLOWS! This is what happens when you let people work from home for too long.
And folks, I wish him well. I really do. But mostly I wish well to all the Instagram influencers who are going to have to find a new true crime case to base their entire personality around when this one goes cold.