The Left’s Grotesque Response to Murdered Health Care CEO Brian Thompson

The murder of Brian Thompson, the late CEO of UnitedHealthcare, has been met in certain quarters with two disgraceful responses — one explicitly grotesque, the other implicitly so. The explicitly grotesque response has been to openly cheer Thompson’s death on the grounds that he deserved to die. This reaction has come largely from figures on social media who believe themselves to be proto revolutionaries. The implicitly grotesque response has been to declare that one is against assassination, but that one comprehends it — and perhaps even sympathizes with it — nevertheless. This reaction has been much more broadly on display than the other, having appeared in established outlets such as CNN, CBS, and the New York Times, as well as in the Twitter feeds of academics at Columbia and elsewhere. Within the mainstream press, only the Washington Post has found the decency to condemn the killing without reservation. “There is no justification,” the paper’s editorial board submitted this weekend, “for taking a life in this manner.”

So obvious ought that presumption to be that one should feel dirty for developing the thought any further. To ask “why” a human being was murdered in cold blood is to imply that there exists a sufficient reason for the act. There does not, and I have no interest in negotiating with those who disagree. What I will do, however, is attempt to convey to those figures exactly why their reactions are so iniquitous and so misplaced — and, indeed, why condemnation of it is the prerequisite to a functioning civil society. The Post concludes its excellent rejoinder by observing, “This violent attack on one man is really an attack on society itself.” That is correct.

About the Author

Charles C. W. Cooke

Charles C. W. Cooke is a senior editor at National Review and the host of The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast.

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The murder of Brian Thompson, the late CEO of UnitedHealthcare, has been met in certain quarters with two disgraceful responses — one explicitly grotesque, the other implicitly so. The explicitly grotesque response has been to openly cheer Thompson’s death on the grounds that he deserved to die. This reaction has come largely from figures on social media who believe themselves to be proto revolutionaries. The implicitly grotesque response has been to declare that one is against assassination, but that one comprehends it — and perhaps even sympathizes with it — nevertheless. This reaction has been much more broadly on display than the other, having appeared in established outlets such as CNN, CBS, and the New York Times, as well as in the Twitter feeds of academics at Columbia and elsewhere. Within the mainstream press, only the Washington Post has found the decency to condemn the killing without reservation. “There is no justification,” the paper’s editorial board submitted this weekend, “for taking a life in this manner.”

So obvious ought that presumption to be that one should feel dirty for developing the thought any further. To ask “why” a human being was murdered in cold blood is to imply that there exists a sufficient reason for the act. There does not, and I have no interest in negotiating with those who disagree. What I will do, however, is attempt to convey to those figures exactly why their reactions are so iniquitous and so misplaced — and, indeed, why condemnation of it is the prerequisite to a functioning civil society. The Post concludes its excellent rejoinder by observing, “This violent attack on one man is really an attack on society itself.” That is correct.