Why Mangione Plead 'Not Guilty'

Luigi Mangione pled 'not guilty' in a New York court of law this morning. It's a bold move, seeing as how it's pretty clear he did it. And while the axiom holds true of "innocent until proven guilty," the prosecution has this case pretty well sewn up. Luigi is almost certainly toast.

Now, anything I have to say about Mangione's reasoning behind his plea is pure speculation. But I think it's pretty clear that the last thing he wants to do is plead insanity. He wants to show the world that his reasoning was stone-cold sober. I think he will plead innocent by reason of self-defense, not only for himself, but for all American people. The tactic probably won't work. But I think Mangione would rather go down as a martyr. And if he's eventually executed, he would rather his death be a watershed for positive change.

If that was his intention, his timing could not possibly be worse. The biggest corporate shill of all time is about to be sworn in as president, and that renders any possibility of medical care reform pretty much absolute zero for at least the next four years. We already know that Mangione planned his attack months, if not years, in advance. He may well have been counting on a Biden or Harris victory, at which point the shooting of a health insurance CEO might well have become a flashpoint for change. Unfortunately, we had the exact opposite outcome. But Mangione did the shooting anyway, which means, I suppose, that he either thought it wouldn't matter who was president, or that it would greatly influence who is president next. Or maybe his back pain simply screamed for vengeance.

Who knows? The only thing that's clear to me at this point is that, if he's going down, he wants to take as many healthcare CEO's down with him as he can. Given current sentiment, he might actually succeed at this; not in terms of those CEO's actually getting demoted or fired, but in terms of the entire insurance-based healthcare industry eventually going down.

Thing is, in order for that to happen, Americans need to have a memory that lasts longer than a few years.

They've consistently been proven to lack that trait.

Eric

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