Effective Assassination

I'm a pacifist, and would like to think that terrorism and assassination aren’t sensible or useful political expressions, that such actions, at least in most circumstances, are more like symptoms of mental illness than effective political strategies.

I'm also an anarchist, and think that the viability of anarchism as a social movement was compromised in a devastating and enduring way by the assassins that acted in its name. Around the turn of the 20th century, anarchists killed the king of Italy, the Prime Minister of Spain, and the President of the United States. In an act that several commentators mentioned in connection with the killing of  United HealthCare executive Brian Thompson, allegedly by Luigi Mangione, the anarchist writer and editor Alexander Berkman shot and stabbed the industrialist Henry Clay Frick, who’d violently repressed a strike by workers at the Homestead steel plant near Pittsburgh.

Berkman and his associate/lover Emma Goldman, who later tried to break him out by tunneling into the prison where Berkman was held, thought that "propaganda by the deed" was an effective political strategy. In this, they agreed with many people in various parts of the political spectrum, although the anarchists would pursue the strategy more systematically than most. The assassination of Frick, thought Goldman and Berkman, would be the start of the Revolution. As Goldman wrote in her autobiography, "It was the psychological moment for an Attentat; the whole country was aroused, everybody was considering Frick the perpetrator of a cold-blooded murder. A blow aimed at Frick would re-echo in the poorest hovel, would call the attention of the whole world to the real cause behind the Homestead struggle. It would also strike terror in the enemy’s ranks and make them realize that the proletariat of America had its avengers."

Berkman shot Frick twice and stabbed him four times. But the man survived and kept collecting old master paintings. And the assassination attempt had the effect of dramatically and immediately shifting public sympathy from the strikers to Frick and his boss Andrew Carnegie. “Propaganda by the deed” seems usually, and thankfully, counter-productive in just this way. Symbolic acts of violence might, for example, convince people that your political movement and its followers are evil and dangerous; they render a terrible portrait of what the world might be like if your side won.

However, the question of whether terror and assassination are effective tactics, and if so, under what circumstances, has continued to boil along ever since. Were the 9/11 attacks effective in gaining support for al Qaeda, for example? It was a mixed bag, and 9/11 was an amazing piece of publicity: by the next September 11, no one in the world hadn’t heard of al Qaeda. On the other hand, much of the world mobilized to destroy it, and layers of its leadership have been deleted. The organization has splintered and swamped by a variety of successors.

We can see, on the other hand, that the government of Israel believes that assassination can be an effective military tactic, and it has pursued a systematic assassination program with regard to Hamas and Hezbollah leaders. That is different than the one-off, potentially suicidal act of a Mangione or Berkman. I'm sure Thompson's successor, like many top corporate executives, is currently beefing up his security. But he faces possible one-off acts of demented violence, not an assassination program emerging from a government with lots of military and intelligence assets.

The point I’m winding toward is this: the attack on Thompson is having the sort of effects that Emma Goldman wished or fantasized that the attack on Frick would have. As soon it happened, the public discourse about the health insurance industry in the US changed completely. The assassination instantly focused to country's attention on the plight of people struggling through illness or injury with insufficient resources.

Things like this started appearing everywhere. No one wanted to hear Wendell Potter's warnings about the health insurance industry before the killing, then it floated to the top of The New York Times. Every consideration of the topic went roughly like this: No, I am not condoning murder. But "the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has revealed a simmering anger with the American healthcare system."

This is momentarily surprising or even hopeful: we’re having the public debate that we should’ve had for years! Something will be done, finally. But one feature of this is that, right now, though Luigi Mangione is jailed, he’s implicitly portrayed as, if not an inspiration for all of us, at least an extremely effective advocate for his critical take on the health insurance industry. "Delay deny depose" has entered the vernacular. It remains to be seen, but some real reform may follow.

But to take hope from a killing, to allow it to transform the public discourse and acknowledge that it has: that’s very likely to encourage more killing, and Mangione, unlike Berkman, is widely celebrated as some sort of hero.

As a pacifist, I'm as worried about Mangione's runaway success in instituting change by a spectacular act of violence as I am about who's bankrupted by health insurance executives. I'm also puzzled why this particular act of terror isn't getting the usual reception of simple and total repudiation. Instead, it makes everyone think.

Thinking is good, overall, and health insurance definitely needs some pondering. But maybe this this the wrong occasion to start introducing Luigi Mangione memorial health insurance reform bills in Congress. Let's come back to the question in a year or so.

—Follow Crispin Sartwell on X: @CrispinSartwell