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April 9, 2025 13 mins
This is a teaser preview of one of our Fireside Chat episodes, made exclusively for our supporters on Patreon. You can listen to the full 65-minute episode without ads and support our work at https://www.patreon.com/posts/e102-fireside-124623473
The date this episode aired, March 19, Luigi Mangione was scheduled to have his first court hearing on federal death penalty charges, accused of assassinating healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
So we sat down for a Fireside Chat about the case, about the US healthcare system, about Mangione and his past, about media and public reactions to the killing, and about historical parallels and differences with past assassinations.
Our podcast is brought to you by our Patreon supporters. Our supporters fund our work, and in return get exclusive early access to podcast episodes, ad-free episodes, bonus episodes, free and discounted merchandise and other content. Join us or find out more at patreon.com/workingclasshistory

Acknowledgements
    • Thanks to our patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. Special thanks to Jazz Hands, Jamison D. Saltsman, Fernando López Ojeda, and Old Norm.
    • Edited by Jesse French
    • Our theme tune is Montaigne’s version of the classic labour movement anthem, ‘Bread and Roses’, performed by Montaigne and Nick Harriott, and mixed by Wave Racer. Download the song here, with all proceeds going to Medical Aid for Palestinians. More from Montaigne: website, Instagram, YouTube.


Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/working-class-history--5711490/support.
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, and welcome back to the Working Class History Podcast.
As you may know, we don't get any sort of
funding from any wealthy benefactors, corporations, governments, or political pies.
Our work is funded by you, our listeners and readers
on Patreon. In return, our supports on Patreon get access
to exclusive content and benefits like ad free episodes, bonus

(00:24):
podcast episodes, and a couple of exclusive discussion podcast series,
fireside chats and radical reads. So here is a little
preview of our latest episode for our patrons. You can
join us, help support our work and listen to the
whole thing today at patreon dot com slash working Class
History link in the show notes.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
As we come Margin Martin in the Beauty of the Day,
A million dark in kitchens, one thousand mil. Last grade
I've ridden by the beauty is Sun Sun Disclosed and
the paple hereusing breaden Roses, red and Roses.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Hello to all of our fantastic patron supporters. Our fireside
chat for you this month is something a little bit different.
Matt and I got on a call to have a
chat about my experiences organizing at work in the public
sector a few months ago, but earlier the day that
we spoke, New York and federal authorities in the US
arranged a ridiculous purp walk for Luigi Mangna, who'd been

(01:31):
arrested in connection with the assassination of a healthcare CEO,
and basically that was all we wanted to talk about,
so we accidentally ended up with a bunch of tape
about Luigi. A few months on, Manjohnie is now facing
federal death penalty charges and his first federal court appearance
is scheduled for today, the nineteenth of March. So we
thought we would get a fire going and have an

(01:53):
updated discussion on developments in the case, which had taken
place since we first spoke. So this chat consists of
two set discussions, the first from our chat in December
last year and the second from a couple of weeks ago.
Hope you enjoyed the episode and what do you think
about the case? Let us know in the comments. I mean,

(02:14):
I think the one thing that's kind of blown me
away about this is because obviously Manjohn like looking at
the stuff he wrote online and things like that, and
the stuff he posted on social media app it's got
a lot of like a lot of his views a
kind of typical manosphere sort of right wingish manosphere type views.
But in other stuff he's written, you can see that

(02:36):
he's is critical of US corporations burning the planet and
things like that. So it's a I think, quite typical
of a lot of people in the US with kind
of I don't know if you'd call them radical centrists
or kind of like extremist centrists or something, where they
hold like a real mixture of or just some sort

(02:56):
of general populism where they've got a mixture of and
left ideas but support violence.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's what I find funny about
more than because I think, like, really, you know, there's
basically like, apart from the tiny minority of people like us,
whether they're left wing or right wing, who like give
so much of a shit about politics, I think most people,
you know, hold some weird combination of but you know,

(03:24):
left and right wing ideas, and you know, we'll hold
them together. But the funny thing is is that like
whatever the combination of ideas that people are holding in
their heads, you know, like about I don't know, gender,
or about whatever the welfare state, or whatever kind of
combination they have, it seems like in America. The one
thing that they're united by is that we should shoot

(03:47):
healthcare CEOs, and that was what I think. It's so like.
And also it's so funny just seeing the media, like
even in the UK, really everyone going into overdrive just
to really underline like, oh, this thing that happened was bad,
you know what I mean, Like so many people are
reacting in a positive way about this terrible thing that happened,

(04:09):
you know, and you're like, usually I feel like there's
not that kind of that necessity to like, uh, you
know that terrorist attack, that that terrible terrorist attack, you know,
something like that, just like Okay, we know it's terrible,
you know, so you don't have to say it, so
you just kind of it's just left there. But then
because so many people are supportive of this, like the
media is taking it upon themselves that it's like, we

(04:31):
really have to underline this was a bad thing, and
everyone is supposed to feel like negatively about this, and
just everyone's I don't know how it is in the US,
but from here, it seems like everyone in the US
is either kind of like that guy had it coming,
or like, you know, who cares really.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
And that's what's so crazy to see, like the reaction.
I mean the fact that when United Healthcare posted to
their face page about oh, just a personal tragic note
about how sad it was that their person diet, and
it literally got fifty thousand laughing face reacts, right, and
only a couple of thousand sad face reacts, So then
they turned off the ability to react to it. But

(05:15):
then what that meant was all you could see was
the main reaction and the number, So then it made
it look like there are one hundred and twenty five
thousand laughing faces and nothing else. And like the fact
that the usual suspects, you know, lefty kind of influencers
and things making jokes about it. But the thing that
I find the craziest is like on TikTok, just so

(05:39):
many average random TikTok influencers who just have a couple
of million followers, so they're people that don't make political
content for the most part. They make songs or they
just chat about their lives or whatever. Are just doing
songs about how great Luigi Manjoorni is.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
There was something out that some Disney chant thing or
some Disney Adults gig or something like that, and like
they played some song. I forget what it was, but
they were just playing kind of like a slide show
of like Luigi Manjohana's face just behind them, you know,
I mean, and just like.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
And the whole crowd was cheering. Yeah, And then they
showed his mugshot at the end, and the whole crowd
just went, what like it? Really? I don't know if
it's like a generational thing. I think it's partly generational,
but I mean I've seen plenty of like older people
say so and in comment section, I mean, comment sections
on social media are quite like self selecting because they're

(06:36):
algorithmically like chosen and stuff. But it is very surprising
to see and that so many people are talking about
class as a result of it. Like I've seen so
many just like random apolitical people on social media talk
about oh, like class consciousness. Now that like this sort

(06:57):
of thing, regardless of political views or has given quite
a few people in the US a feeling of class
consciousness that you know, politically or whatever might have disagreements,
but it's like, oh, this is clearly a class issue.
That this was a wealthy capitalist whose job is kind
of helping to kill working class people and it's like

(07:21):
against the rest of us. It's quite interesting.

Speaker 3 (07:24):
Yeah, no, no, it is is incredible to see. Like
what's incredible is that like it underlines this kind of
latent class tension that exists, you know, and maybe like
it comes out in like weird ways you know elsewhere,
you know, I mean maybe like in you know, sometimes

(07:44):
it comes out as like anti immigrant sentiment, or like
it comes out as yeah, maybe occasionally kind of sort
of crystallizes in the form of strikes and things like that.
But yeah, this for it to come out like this
in this way that also like feel like, actually, oh,
there's quite a large constituency in this country for like

(08:07):
offing members of the ruling class, you know what I mean,
you know, which is like, which is quite funny. And
like I'm not sure that like Bernie could run on that,
you know, I'm not sure you could like fit that
into a kind of a social democratic you know, worldview.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
Bernie manchone, twenty twenty eight.

Speaker 3 (08:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no exactly, but it is there, and
I think it is something that always has to be
sort of born in mind, you know, especially when people
kind of criticize things like abolitionist politics or you know,
if people speak in favor of, like, you know, law
and order, like working class people, they you know, they
love law and order politics and things like that. And

(08:46):
I'm sure that's if you do focus groups, that that's
what you would find out. You do focus groups, and
I'm sure you would find that out. But I don't
think that if you'd have done a focus group two
three weeks ago and asked, you know, are you in
favor of, you know, shooting healthcare CEOs in the street,
I'm sure very few people would have said yeah, definitely actually,

(09:11):
But then once it happens, it's like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
Well, I think like true sort of fans of the
part will probably be aware of the Martin Klaberman quote
about action preceding consciousness, which I think has come up before.
That that was in respect to workers in the US
towards the end of the world, we're too voting to
support the note strike pledge but then taking wildcat strikes

(09:37):
all the time.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
Yeah, And I think it's a really like yeah, the
way he phrases that is really good because he's like saying, like,
you know, which one of the two actions is more significant?
You know, is it the vote to give away your
your right to strike during the war. Is that more
reflective of the mood of workers or is the fact

(10:00):
that the majority of auto workers went on wildcat strike
at some point during that wartime strike wave period. And
it's so yeah, that thing of what do you put
down on a piece of paper as your your stated
position and then what do your actions say your stated
position is, and how that kind of contradicts.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
You know, on like the class nature of it. Fox
News commentators people were kind of saying making jokes about
so content note for brief mention of sexual violence, but
were making classic kind of right wing jokes about saying, oh,
Luigi man Geno is going to be subjected to sexual
violence in prison, and then being gleeful about that and

(10:42):
then seeing what actually happened with him in prison with
journalists outside where his fellow detainees were yelling out the
windows to journalists saying that his conditions were terrible and
that they should free Luigi.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
And shouting free Luigi.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah. Yeah, you know again, they're just not, like Fox News,
just kind of not understanding basic ideas about the sense
of class solidarity that a lot of people still have,
you know, on in an eight level thinking that that
people in prison would have the same view of someone
who killed the ceout as a multimillionaire Fox News presenter.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean there's also there's something a
bit discussed in any way about like, you know, a
certain amount of joy that this kind of millionaire like
right wing TV presenter gets from, like the idea of
someone going into a bit like an institution that kind
of encourages and you know, sort of incubates, you know,

(11:43):
these kinds of conditions as well, you know what I mean,
It's like it's something that they seem to revel in
as well, you know. There so there was something, I mean,
there was something sort of like multiply kind of disgusting
about that comment and then for it to just be
proved immediately wrong anyway, you know what I mean, which
is like, because the whole point is is that like
his view of the people in prison are that they're

(12:06):
all kind of basically animals anyway, you know, and they
and they behave like animals because that's what they are.
And you're throwing this guy into you know, this animal
environment which.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
Is run by the state.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
Yeah, exactly exactly, and actually the people in there aren't
nearly you know what what he accuses them of being.
But yeah, anyway, he is quite jokes. It's also it's
mostly quite funny because at the same time that there's
Luigi Manjoan here, there's also that guy with it, Daniel Penny, who,

(12:43):
like you know the right obviously want him to be
like the superhero you know what I mean, like the
White Night going out on the on the New York Metro,
you know, to take down swarthy villains.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
That brings us to the end of this episode preview.
Hope you enjoyed it. To listen to the full thing
and help support our work researching and promoting people's history,
join us today on Patreon at patreon dot com slash
working class history. That's p A t R e o
n dot com slash working class history link in the

(13:17):
show notes. Catch you next time.
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