Why some Americans celebrate Luigi Mangione as healthcare resistance symbol

In America today, a dangerous mindset is spreading: if you feel wronged, you get to make your own rules. That is how we have reached the point where some people hail a man accused of murder as a hero, simply because his violence was fueled by a grievance.

The case of Luigi Mangione, accused of killing United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in the name of a grievance, is a chilling example. It is the kind of headline that grabs attention, but the thinking behind it is not confined to extreme cases.

In my two decades as a psychotherapist in New York City and Washington, D.C., I have seen the same logic at work in quieter, everyday forms. Whether the act is violent or seemingly small, the script is the same: I have been wronged, therefore I am entitled to break the rules. 

Recently, a female patient admitted to shoplifting from a neighborhood store. Her reasoning: “They can afford it, they overcharge anyway, and probably underpay their employees.” I’m not a priest. She wasn’t confessing. She was justifying. She believed she was right.

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This mindset is part of a broader national collapse of resilience. We are raising and rewarding a fragile way of thinking that mistakes discomfort for danger, grievance for identity, and emotional reactivity for truth. New polling shows the divide clearly: 45% of liberals report poor mental health, compared to just 19% of conservatives. 

This is not about politics. It is about how we are being taught to face adversity. One approach builds resilience. The other conditions people to see themselves as perpetual victims, primed to interpret any setback as injustice and any discomfort as harm.

Victimhood has become a currency and grievance is a license to break the law. There was once a time when personal responsibility was the standard. You could be wronged and still be expected to act with integrity. 

Now the more wronged you feel, the more moral license you believe you have to act outside the rules. That is why some people have gone beyond excusing Mangione’s alleged plot to celebrating it.

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In certain corners of social media, Mangione has been elevated to a kind of folk hero, portrayed as a man who “stood up” against powerful enemies. That fantasy reached absurd heights in San Francisco, the liberal bastion where a tongue-in-cheek stage production called “Luigi: The Musical” sold out. Picture it: a man accused of cold-blooded murder turned into a singing, dancing symbol of “resistance,” cheered on by an audience that treats him like a rebel icon. If it were satire, it might be funny. It isn’t.

This mindset did not appear overnight. Therapy culture has been feeding it for years. Too many therapists have stopped challenging their patients and started enabling them. I have seen patients told to quit a new job after just one week because it “triggered” them, and others advised to cut off an entire family without any attempt at reconciliation. No conversation. No problem-solving. Just retreat and self-justification.

When therapy validates grievance instead of dismantling it, the mindset spreads. It shows up in schools, workplaces, politics and the streets. Social media then amplifies it, rewarding outrage, magnifying slights and creating echo chambers where grievance is not just validated, it is weaponized. 

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The more personal and emotional the grievance is, the more followers it draws. And when people see their own frustrations reflected in someone like Mangione, they project their anger onto him and reinterpret his alleged actions as justice.

The danger is obvious. When grievance is elevated over morality, the threshold for acceptable behavior collapses. Harming others becomes a legitimate response to feeling wronged. Public safety erodes. Shared norms vanish. And in the vacuum, each person decides which rules apply to them and which do not.

We cannot keep pretending this is harmless venting. The glorification of Mangione shows just how far grievance culture has gone. If we do not reverse course, we will see more alleged criminals turned into symbols, more mobs fueled by outrage, and more ordinary people convinced their anger is a license to harm.

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The way back is simple: restore resilience and personal responsibility as cultural values. Therapists must stop feeding victim narratives and start teaching coping skills. Schools should teach grit alongside empathy. Politicians must reject grievance-based policymaking. And each of us must resist the temptation to excuse bad behavior simply because we relate to the grievance behind it.

Mangione’s alleged crime may be shocking, but the celebration of it is worse. It shows that the mindset which excuses, and sometimes cheers, lawlessness is already here. Unless we push back, this culture will keep making folk heroes out of criminals, and America’s unraveling will continue one “justified” act at a time.

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