On Dr King, Luigi Mangione and the TikTok Ban
Revisiting Dr King’s fight against not only racism, but also capitalism and militarism, might explain the moment we're in.
Last month, I wrote about why so many people online had a euphoric reaction to the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Bryan Thompson. Since then, the police have arrested Luigi Mangione as the main suspect, and putting a face and name to the alleged culprit seems to have only uncovered more anger toward insurance companies and their CEOs. People have fundraised for Luigi’s defense. There is a “Saint-Luigi” meme going around, and there was a R/LuigiMangione thread mostly praising him until it was shut down for breaking Reddit’s terms and conditions. A recent poll showed that 41% of young people found the UnitedHealthcare CEO killing acceptable. Reddit shutting the thread down is a manifestation of institutions struggling to control this moment. Those who are older, believe in the goodness of our institutions and disagree with violence and popular justice as a means to solving societal issues are, of course, appalled. The New York Times even asked its staff to stop publishing his photo in articles about him. Sure, his good looks may be the subject of many people’s affection, but that is not what is fueling people raging against the machine to the point of supporting murder. People feel like health insurance companies are a significant barrier to access to life-saving healthcare, that they put profits first, and that accountability from the powers-that-be is lacking. It feels unjust.
When Rev Dr. Martin Luther King said, “Of all forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman because it often results in physical death,” he was lamenting the use of federal funds (public insurance) to support the medical establishment’s conspiracy to maintain racial segregation in healthcare, against the civil rights act. Today, the same can be said about the injustice of insurance companies like UnitedHealthcare committing Medicare fraud while also constantly raising barriers to people getting adequate care. At the same time, the government fails to advance efforts toward universal healthcare coverage. And healthcare is not the only industry where corporate schemes run amok. In his farewell address to the American people, President Biden rang the alarm on America becoming an oligarchy, with “extreme wealth, power and influence that threatens our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.” But it’s been 15 years since the Citizens United SCOTUS decision prohibited the government from restricting how much corporations can contribute to political campaigns. To understand the moment we’re in, one of increased social chaos, popular justice, and disdain for institutions among young people, we must revisit Dr. King’s fights, not only against racism but also capitalism and militarism.
President Biden’s warning about oligarchy took a particular aim at Tech companies. Tech CEOs have donated millions of dollars to now-President Trump’s inauguration committee. Many influence the information ecosystem significantly, arguably distorting the public’s perception of reality. For example, Meta recently announced that they will end their third-party fact-checking program. Elon Musk, who spent millions to help Trump get elected and has been spending ample time in Mar-a-Lago, has arguably ruined Twitter for the public square of verifiable information that it once was, to say nothing of Jeff Bezos’ influence on the Washington Post’s editorial decisions. Many will attend the presidential inauguration, including TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew. As I am writing this, TikTok has started to restore service in the U.S., and Trump has said he will issue an executive order delaying the TikTok ban, signed into law by President Biden with overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate and opposed by just a quarter of House Democrats. Before the ban, my social media feeds were filled with memes and tears from influencers and regular users lamenting the impending loss.
Influencing, a fast-rising industry, is how many young users made ends meet, and the government planned to foreclose TikTok Influencers’ source of manna over fuzzy concerns of foreign influence from China. What’s clear, however, is that the urge to make the ban happen was fueled by bipartisan concerns about TikTok being the leading platform through which young people were exposed to pro-Palestine, anti-Israeli war information, making it difficult for them to manufacture consent for the war they would support for over a year. Both senators Mitt Romney (R) and Chris Murphy (D) admitted it. Recent reports also show that Meta spent a great deal lobbying Congress around this decision, TikTok being their biggest competitor in the U.S. Essentially, the TikTok ban would serve Meta’s capitalist interests and help control the narrative in favor of Israel’s war in Gaza and U.S. militarism while closing many young people’s economic opportunities.
Of course, TikTok was not the only source of information against the war on Gaza. College students across the country held teach-ins in campus encampments, naming not only government actors’ role in the war but also defense contractors, who are key pillars of the military-industrial complex. These students were met with violent repression by their institutions and with the help of local and federal police forces, some under pressure from the government, much like the 1960s nationwide college campus demonstrations against the Vietnam War, which Dr King also stood against, targeting the government, the draft, and Dow Chemical, the fortune 500 manufacturer of toxic chemicals Napalm and Agent Orange used by the U.S. military in Vietnam. Fervent government support for not only the war but also bold militarism continued and peaked at the DNC convention, where Democrats declined to allow any Palestinian American to speak despite many pleas, and Vice-President Harris pledged to ensure that America would have the most lethal military in the world, in her speech accepting the nomination.
Missing from VP Harris’ convention speech and the party’s platform, a significant departure from the 2020 platform, was a commitment to establishing universal healthcare coverage, despite healthcare being a leading issue for voters. This shift from focusing on healthcare in 2020 (sure, there was a pandemic) to being the party of war would cost Democrats the White House. Indeed, the top three issues for Biden 2020 voters who did not vote for VP Harris were “ending Israel’s violence in Gaza,” “The Economy,” and “Medicare and Social Security.” 60% did not vote at all, and only 7.6% voted for Trump. In the background of Democrats prioritizing Israel’s unpopular war in Gaza, homelessness rose dramatically, and large numbers of people who are poor and typically insured by Medicaid lost their healthcare coverage due to Medicaid unwinding, disproportionately affecting young people. And yet, when they had an opportunity to pitch to the American People a plan for a more prosperous and equal America, they leaned into the status quo, especially on healthcare, which can be seen as accepting issues like essential medication coverage denial and insurance companies prioritizing profit over people’s needs as par for the course. Signing into law a social media ban that would leave many young people economically destitute shows how little they value the opinions of and care about the needs of young people. So, the oligarchy alarm coming from democrats can only ring hollow.
Sure, the Biden administration made some gains by capping the price of insulin for seniors and allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of drugs. But these, of course, do not apply to young people. However late it might be, some mainstream Democrats, like Senator Chris Murphy, seem to be opening their eyes to the needs of everyday young people by embracing economic populism. But we are in a moment that is so hostile to even championing anti-racism, arguably the least thorny of Reverend Martin Luther King’s “giant triplets” issues. So they will need to toughen up to take on the other two, unchecked capitalism and militarism, and it may mean losing the support of Big Money. If they don’t, they may as well stop speaking of Dr King and his dream.