Luigi Mangione and Political Messianism

The martyrdom of Luigi Mangione

When accused assassin Luigi Mangione gunned down United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week, the initial response was surprisingly bipartisan. Even we who abhor violence as a political instrument, nevertheless acknowledged that the wealthy, protected by law and supported by our political establishment, need consequences. After all, the only thing rich people love more than money, is being alive to spend (or hoard) it.

Mangione represents the latest manifestation of a popular phantom haunting American politics: the yearning for a secular Messiah. Americans long for a unique individual who will, like Jesus before the money changers, sweep uncleanliness from our sacred places and restore the hope we all believed America had in 11^th Grade American Civics class. This powerful unitary individual always seems just across the horizon—and, like the horizon, never quite arrives.

Political messianism has a dual nature: it supposedly galvanizes people around moral principles, but it does so through a singular personality. This may mean the speculation, repeated on basic cable and social media, that Mangione’s actions will galvanize American class consciousness. Or it may mean attributing the kingdom and the power, forever, as QAnon purists believe Donald Trump will purge the halls of power.

This yearning is bipartisan, or perhaps nonpartisan. I’ve written before that both parties look to presidential candidates for deliverance, especially when the other party controls the Oval Office. We saw something similar with what Democrats and dissident Republicans expected from the Mueller Report. In each case, those standing outside the political establishment expected a singular personality to purge “sin” and restore the Eternal Kingdom.

Sometimes this means imputing moral clarity to a conveniently absent figurehead. Political junkies either attribute Ronald Reagan with rescuing America from catastrophic moral decline, or ruining everything with cack-handed mismanagement. Either way, they selectively remember Reagan’s Administration. His adherents elide Iran-Contra, and the fact he left office in disgrace; his critics forget he performed necessary triage on outdated FDR-era programs.

Importantly, political messianism, like the religious variety, heavily emphasizes either the past or the future. Many messianic figures, like Jesus, Socrates, the Buddha, and Confucius, left no written record during their lifetimes; their followers recorded their teachings only posthumously. Likewise, messianic movements, from Hasidism to John’s Revelation to Marx’s Grand Synthesis, await a future where sin is somehow expunged, and humanity made pure.

Sin always exists in the present. The past, whether the Hebrew Eden or the Greek Golden Age or Taoist Pangu, is simple, morally clear, and benevolent. Likewise, the Revolution taught in American creation myths lacked doubt or nuance; it was inarguably good. The emergence of sin corresponds with the emergence of complexity. The more subtlety and finesse necessary to explain doctrine, the more tainted it becomes with doubt and sin.

Against this complexity, religions consistently promise a messiah. Besides Jesus of Nazareth, other proclaimed messiahs include Simon bar Kokhba, Moses Maimonides, and Cyrus the Great. Islam promises the future appearance of the Mahdi, whose military purge will precede the final judgement. Modern Judaism promises not an individual messiah, but a messianic age of moral clarity—which, again, disturbingly resembles Marx’s promised Grand Synthesis.

Whenever somebody promises Donald Trump will “drain the swamp,” or promises that Kamala Harris will “save democracy,” that’s messianic language. Similarly, whenever social media pundits gush over Luigi Mangione’s blows against capitalist resource hoarding, or consider him an emblem of class consciousness, they channel their own moral principles through his person. Sin is abstract; Mangione’s actions are concrete. Violence is harsh, but it at least makes sense.

Such reasoning stumbles, however, in the one messiah whose promise outlasted his person: Jesus of Nazareth. Though his message gave hurting peasants hope during an epoch of imperial conquest, his blows against the empire were philosophical, not militant. Violent uprisings against kleptocrats usually end in crackdowns and purges, and functionally strengthen the status quo. Durable rebellions embrace complexity, they don’t replace it with the simplicity of a gun.

Jesus’ messianic message had a class component. He blessed the poor, fed hungry masses, and prayed to forgive our debts, as we forgive our debtors. From a secular reading, Jesus’ teachings underscore messages of class solidarity, especially in Luke’s Gospel. But he acknowledged, at his arrest, that warriors don’t live amid their victory; they die, and others reap the profit. He accepted his death so others could receive the benefit.

Luigi Mangione might yet engender such a messianic legacy, but I doubt it. No individual will save us from the conditions we’ve created collectively for so long.