Panic World - BONUS: Does the left really need a Kyle Rittenhouse?

Episode Date: December 20, 2024

Ryan and Grant talk about the fallout from Luigi Mangione's alleged assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and whether or not it will have ripple effects in this political climate. Want to hear the full episode? Sign up for a membership at: https://www.patreon.com/PanicWorld Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ryan, what is your favorite piece of erotic fanfetron? I came across a network on Amazon a few years ago that was writing erotic fanfic about Chinese president Xi Jinping, head of the Communist Party in China. And I thought that was pretty good. It seemed respectful and somewhat passionate in a way that I was surprised by. So I know you have read all three of these. so I want you to tell me your favorite. 1.

The United Health Care CEO assassin finds a safe haven in you after his crimes. He knew you'd welcome him with open arms and open legs. 2. Luigi meets the love of his life at McDonald's. Read what happens next.

3. You are the trial lawyer assigned to Luigi Mangione's case. You keep your distance, making sure it's professional, despite finding your client very handsome. Which was your favorite of the story? I'm excited to talk about my pet peeve around talking about fan fiction and how I hate it,

actually. I find it extremely tedious, and I'm excited to finally get into this. So, no, I have not read any of those. Today, we are talking about the media storm and budding class war following the killing of United Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson on December. Wait, what happened? I'm Gran Irving. This is a Panic Road bonus.

Joining me today, the host of the show, your true crime podcast bestie, your favorite erotic fanfic writer. That's right. Ryan Broderick. Hello, thank you for having me on my show. I open with the fanfic because it's funny, but also because it shows the real dichotomy we have going on in our new internet age. And I want to talk about killing and fanfic and a paper or two that has spread some words about this. And I want to do that all after a very quick break. Do you remember your reaction when you heard the news of Brian Thompson's death on December 4th?

Yes. At that time, I was like, if they don't catch this guy, this is going to go down as like one of the great crimes in American history. It's now entered a new sort of phase for me where it will go down as one of the great trials, probably in American history. The Gen Z O.J. Simpson trial, if you will. that's that's kind of where I'm at the moment how would you describe uh the initial reaction in the media and the initial reaction online from the shooting through the manhunt i was actually uncomfortable i mean at first uh it was obviously funny but it is uncomfortable and i put it in my weight and see pile for for for reporting and garbage day stuff because uh there wasn't really a lot

to go on and then i believe over that week we got the drip drop of like the bag full of monopoly money and the defend, dispose, whatever, deny, whatever bullet shells. Deny defend and depose. Yeah, bullet shell casings. We were still sort of getting pieces of his schedule. So there wasn't a ton to go on. And after many years of doing this job, I just sort of was like, I'll come back to this

when everyone knows what's going on. What would you say the internet, when the bullet casings or what? whatever were found. What kind of, what did the internet project the killer's ideology to be? It seemed like the internet's first reaction. And we're sort of like talking in large generalities here, but it did seem like the going theory was this was some kind of hit. Rich guy gets murdered in like a parking garage or a hotel or whatever.

I was like, oh, it's probably like someone hired a hit man to kill. Then the bullet shell case has come out and you're like, oh, this is suddenly. a lot more interesting than I thought. And then it has only kind of continued to become more interesting politically in the in the day's sense. So on December 8th, Luigi Mangione's mom talked to the NYPD and she said that they showed her surveillance photos and she said that might be her son, which they're going to have an interesting Christmas discussing that decision.

And then the next day, Mangione was seen at an Altoona McDonald's cops for receiving. to tip and arrested him. Before we saw him and he was caught, what were the vibes? And did anything seem suspicious about it? I mean, I would say, like, reaction-wise, people were already saying he was probably hot. There was a ton of thirst posts about him when he was still masked up. In terms of, like, how they were going to catch him, I mean, the video that I think of

is the one of, like, the NYPD checking under benches in. in Central Park. And there was, I think, an initial assumption, particularly from people on Blue Sky, that the NYPD just weren't going to catch him because they like to pretend like cops don't have a multi-billion dollar surveillance state at their fingertips.

Sure. But then they did catch him. And then there was also like a wave of discourse about like not giving police any information because they, the NYPD and then the FBI had sort of released a bounty. And so there was all kinds of people trying to flood the bounty tip lines. It was like over that weekend, I want to say that people started to realize that this guy

was possibly on their side of the class war. And so the internet kind of, you know, did what the internet does. We then all learned that police arrested 26-year-old Luigi Mangione. So I assume that every podcast listener doesn't read or look at any images. is they only like things in audio. We should not ever make that assumption. But sure. Can you describe for the audience that has no idea, I'm sure, what Luigi looks like?

Yeah, he's a babe. He's like the moderately handsome man in every American college dorm room. And by all accounts, was a nice guy. He just seemed like, I watched a video this morning of him shotgunning a beer in a backyard. He seemed like just like, he was also, it was interesting when he was named and people started to fully find his social media history, he was somehow connected to like every single suburb that I follow. Like every single fandom space and community that I monitor seemed to have some kind of connection to him, which I thought was at first I thought it was interesting. And I was

like, oh no, he's just 26. Like that makes sense. But I think a lot of the intention around him right now are people possibly realizing for the first time that like this is just what a normal person in 2024 looks like under the age of 30 prior to him being found the blue skyers assumed his his media diet and ideology would be versus what it actually was yeah so they're like I'm sorry like leftists are not smart and like they don't have any sort of they have like no object permanence when it comes to this stuff. Like, or maybe it's because I'm more sensitive to it because I just had to cover so many crimes and atrocities for so long that like I'm just sort of used to like, maybe like don't like

take a bet on something. And so like you know what it is. But there seemed to be this sort of assumption that he was going to be a leftist terrorist, you know, of some kind. Of course, he wasn't and isn't. He has things that he cares about that are connected to concerns on the left. but he is not, I mean, he likes the Unabomber, according to his Goodreads account, but he is not the Unabomber. He's a very different new thing.

Go to the chat. Can you summarize his pin tweet? I think this helps encapsulate him. Is this the one about Japanese birth rates? No, it's a different one. So he writes, seven years ago, I gave my high school senior speech on this topic, quote, today I will be talking to you about the future, about topics ranging from conscious. artificial intelligence to human immortality.

Likely you'll dismiss all this pretty quickly as interesting, but just science fiction. And it's about he's quote tweeting, quote posting a chart that like I've tried to read this chart so many times and I can't make head or tales of it. But it's essentially like a like an Elon Musk fanboy, like science fiction is real if we're capitalistic enough kind of post. And he's he's agreeing because that's sort of the kind of guy he was. Right. I'm not sure if he still is, but most of his internet activity kind of lines up with a LinkedIn hustle bro kind of guy.

Not a communist manifesto type of guy. No. No, I mean just, I mean, no. Yeah. Right. So on June 10th, he was linking to a podcast with Jonathan Haidt. You can listen to our Michael Hobbs episode to learn our feeling towards hate's work about the rewiring of kids' brains. The tweet right under there on June 6 was a clip of Peter Thiel.

and you can listen to our episode with Tell Lorenz about our Peter Thiel feelings. So this was, as you pointed out, he reviewed the Lorax on Letterbox. He supposedly smoked weed with a user of Red Scare's subreddit. Yes. He's hitting all of our topics. You just said it. But now that we've gone over the highlights of his internet history, who would you think this guy would be? Literally the most normal 26-year-old white American man.

that exists. I think that there is a predisposition among people who either live in New York or California, New York or California, or use the internet too much to perhaps forget that the majority of Gen Z men are growing up

in a post Jordan Peterson world. And so they're just like this stuff is just normal for them. I don't even think it has any like political basis for them. I mean, clearly they're not picking up the right wing vibes of it. So yeah, It was one of those things where I was looking at all this stuff and I was like, that's weird.

And then I was like, no, it's not. Wait, no, no, this is not weird at all, actually. This is exactly what this kind of guy would look like online. Do you think if there was a Joe Rogen of the left, this would be his media literacy? I would go so far as to say, this proves that there can never be a Joe Rogen of the left because the majority of his audience does not have a political compass as we currently understand it. We are in a brand new world. with this stuff. There's one, you said in garbage day that there was one detail going through his internet

history. You found interesting. Do you care to explain that? Yeah. It's the number 286, which is interesting. I mean, the Altoona, the Altoona McDonald's, he was arrested in, was 286 miles away from the hotel he killed that guy in. He's display picture on X is of Brelume, a number 286 on the Pokedex.

There's a whole bunch of other 286 stuff floating around about him. I think it's fun to think about. It's possible. It's all a coincidence. It's also possible that this dude was into angel numbers because that's also a kind of thing that this kind of guy would be into. I wouldn't be surprised. Can you explain what 286 is in healthcare?

It's the code for a healthcare insurance denial. And it also lines up with an angel number about like financial prosperity or something. It breaks my brain. if it is not coincidental that the polka decks is gets a part, becomes a part of this lore. It like, it, I would say,

I make the show and I, I understand all your points and it still kind of floors me. I would say that there's almost no other explanation for Brilum being in his display profile picture or whatever because it is not a popular Pokemon. It is not, it does also not line up with almost any other internet activity he's doing. He's not like a, he's not a big, I mean, he was a gamer in the sense that he had was like in a discord to play among us. But he is not, it is so beyond the rest of his digital footprint that it feels, I'm willing to say like getting arrested in an Altoona McDonald's 286 miles away from the crime.

That's a bit of a stretch. Although he did sit down to eat a hash brown and take his mask off in front of a camera, which I think is interesting. but the Berylum thing feels just yeah like there's no other explanation for that it's not a popular Pokemon I don't like that Pokemon I don't use it um I think its base build is pretty similar to vile plume or like victory bells like why would you even bother I'm not Josh I can't help I can't participate in this bit I'm so sorry um since his arrest we've learned that he is from a prominent He went to UPenn. He seemed to love the gym.

Yeah, he loved, like, working out and, like, listening to, like, audiobooks. And, yeah, I mean. I think the post, you tell me if this is fake, but there's a picture of him at a football game where he's wearing body paint that helps spell penis. I think that's real. You know, I'm not even sure at this point, but it was surprised. You've seen it. I have not. It's in the chat while you're looking at that.

Um, along with the inner history, the details that came out to pick, get right, like you're saying, a very normal 26 year old, uh, until he suffered, seemed to have suffered a horrible back injury. What do you make of his radicalization? Well, there's two ways to process it. One is that his entire digital footprint had no bearing on his politics whatsoever, that he was reading Jonathan Haidt and he was talking about Elon Musk and Tesla and reading all kinds of weird literature on goodreads.

And that just didn't bleed over into his views on health care. Possible. It is very possible that a 26-year-old just like does not connect like leftist politics to health care reform. The other possibility. That's so bleak. I mean, it's honestly like it's a major explanation that I keep coming back to for the overwhelming amount of gentty support for Trump and like the interviews I've read of young people who are like

what do you mean Trump is anti-abortion what do you mean Trump is anti-health care like I don't I think there's just a very possibility like just because he murdered a guy doesn't mean he's smart like it doesn't know but but if he was doing the polka-dex thing like if no I i i i i think he might be a savon at trolling I don't even think he's a troll I actually really don't I think like it's very possible that he is just like a very very basic guy who like did not understand and had a personal like for him the personal reality was very real but like he just like didn't connect the dots very possible the other thing that i've kind come back to and i've written a little bit about because i find it interesting and i have to be

really careful higher phrases because i don't want to sort of like you know try to read his mind here uh and i'm sure that we're going to spend the next like several years pouring through like what what happened here especially as the trial starts true crime was going to run for this for the rest of our lives. Yeah, probably. I mean, probably.

So he, for the most part, seemed to have logged off of public internet around June. And that to me is very interesting because I was talking to another writer friend about this and I was,

in fact, I'll just read it. So I wrote, yeah, I have to imagine that finally logging off as a 26 year old in 2024 would be a very disorienting and perhaps clarifying experience. And that is essentially,

my one sentence take on this entire thing. I feel like it's a simple matter of a zoomer stopped mainlining cultural war slop for a month and suddenly is like, what the fuck is a class war? Like that is kind of my read on this whole thing is that this kid grew up. I mean, let's see, 10 years. So he was 16 when Trump first started running, he has spent the majority of his life pretty much living in a culture of war. He logs off for the first time and six months later kills a CEO. And it's like that that kind of lines up with what I would think would happen.

If you were like an angry young man living on angry young man internet and you log off for the first time and you like crawl out of Plato's cave. Two questions. Do you believe in turning points culturally, societally? And if so, do you think this is one? So I had earmarked a video that I didn't have using in Garbage Day, which was, shared by a writer Sana Saeed who shared this video of a DJ playing and behind the DJ was all of the photos of Luigi

Mangione like behind him and the crowd's like going nuts and Sona Saidaead wrote yeah we have not even begun to process what we're in the midst of I understand why you would put that on the internet to get retweets like I think it's very easy right now

to be like we are in the midst of a great and potent cultural shift. Please retweet this post. I think that that is not really how things work. It is possible that we have a renewed conversation in this country about health care and perhaps about like CEOs, you know? I just, I don't think it works that way. I also, to go back to a previous point in this episode,

I think it's very possible that a lot of young people saw this and they have no concept that it has anything to do with leftism at all. Maybe it's my fault because it's like after the election and I've sort of just come through like a ton of post-mortem about the 2024 election. But my my overall take is that like not even just young people, but like the majority of Americans like don't actually understand what different policies line up on different sides of the political aisle. Like it's like I just don't think there's any connection for most people. Right. Right. I think that's like I could see a bunch of people killing CEOs going forward which you shouldn't do we're very anti that on this show but the people doing it have like no idea what politically that means in a larger macro sense true like like I could see a bunch of people killing CEOs going forward which you shouldn't do we're very anti that on this show but the people doing it have like no idea what politically that means in a larger macro sense. Yeah, I don't know that that matters.

Well, I'll tell you why it matters. It matters, I think, because if you want to process this politically in any way, constructively, which I would suggest maybe not, because it's a guy who kills CEO. I would say like, maybe like the official position of the shows, don't kill CEOs, kill C-O's because they are the ones who are seeking. Yeah, that's right. That's right. No. No, but I would say like maybe the DSA like refrains from like selling Luigi Mangione merch or something. I don't.

Has anyone put his face in the Obama like style print yet? Can we be the first? Can that be the first Panic World merch? Can we take Luigi's face? Not not this podcast. I did see a hardcore band selling like a really sick like hardcore band shirt that had like the slogan of the shell casings on it and stuff. best of our life. Yeah, no, I just, I think, I, I, I think he's essentially off limits for any sort of real political

revolution in America, but I do see him as becoming kind of an underground folk hero. But at the same time, I've seen other people compare him to like killdozer and like other kind of, you know, like internety folk hero types from the last 30 years. And who is, do you know who killed? No, I don't. Do you know who? See, then that proves my point. Who is Kildozer?

Kildozer was a guy who got a bulldozer and went on a rampage. He was a libertarian and he was mad about zoning laws or something. But like, I mean, it's still, I don't know if anybody died or anything, but yeah, if somebody died and didn't laugh, added out this laugh. But that is a very funny way to decide in a country abundant with guns. That is a very... Hold on. Let me get this right.

So, Marvin He Meyer. Yeah, he owned a muffler repair shop. Fuck, yeah. He built a modified bulldozer in Colorado, and he called the killdozer, called a killdozer. And he demolished a bunch of buildings in the town. And it's because he had, as Wikipedia describes it, various grudges against town officials, neighbors of his muffler shop, the local press, and varied other citizens. Okay.

I did, I did know about this. This is the thing about the internet where, like, I knew about this at one point. and I would and why would I need to hold on to it. This is this is fundamentally different in that. Hold on. Let me just finish the thread here. He demolished the town hall, the house of the former mayor, a bunch of other billings, according to Wikipedia, and then he, his, his bulldozer got stuck in a hardware store that he was trying to demolish and he killed himself.

So no one got injured or killed other than him. and like everyone evacuated and he's kind of become like a folk hero. It's better to burn the fade away, you know. Now you say this is different. And I would say that you don't know that yet. Because politically, this guy is, yeah, quite incoherent. He had a few things that he cared about, mainly like he wanted to legalize gambling and like a couple other sort of like getting rid of zoning.

laws type like libertarian soft kind of libertarian you know ideas um and then he went on a rampage we don't know like there's there's literally no i read luigi's manifesto which was not 286 words it should be worth pointing out but 200 i think 66 61 read like a guy breaking up with a girl on his way to a football game i'm i i don't know that he counted the other thing is like a lot of his political writing on good reads was not written by him It was copy and pasted from Reddit threads about those books. I've not seen. And then the only other sort of political act that you could kind of point to with him right now is he had this quote as he was being like hauled into jail.

Like the American people are smarter than this or something. You know, there's a very good chance that this guy has like has similarly incoherent political beliefs that led him to do like an act of high profile violence. Like we will know more soon. But as of right now, he could just be. Gen Z. Kildozer. Totally possible. Yeah, but it is of an issue that actually, like, I know that there's, I know that it's relevant. I know the, hold on. If you want to come to my hometown and talk to like men in their 50s about zoning laws, I would say that like this guy was tapped way more into the Zite guys.

I know that. I know that those guys exist for the. Yeah, no. Those guys exist. They're called every American man over the age of 45. Um, no, I, but I get what you're saying that like this guy was clearly he he he he picked a buzzier way to do this he picked a buzzier way he picked an issue that makes lots of people's blood boil everyone at least second hand has a story

with health care that is fucking enraging of course um and i guess a part of me is wondering based of what you're saying let's say he doesn't have a clear political ideology but he becomes a symbol everyone is that everyone is against you and they are just lining the ceo

pocket the ceo pockets that is quite a unifying class war thing, regardless of how incoherent his thoughts are. I'm with you that it is unifying to a degree. Whether it will succeed, we don't know yet. I'm not arguing that it will. So Alexandria Arcazio-Cortez put out a statement saying, this is not to say that an act of violence is justified, but I think for anyone who's confused or shocked or appalled, they need to understand that people interpret and feel an experience denied claims

as an act of violence against them. This is a smart way to do this. And so in Garbage Day when I wrote about this, I chose a different recent assassination to compare this to because it is possible. It goes this way. So are you familiar with the Shinso Abe assassination? Yeah. So for our listeners who aren't a guy built a contraption, a doo-heki, that shot

essentially batteries additions of Alpe and killed him because he was mad at his ties to a politically powerful and dangerous religious sect and everyone was like yeah that guy's right we should probably remove those people from politics

and Japan for the most part seems to have actually kind of made an effort to do so so there's nothing to say that this doesn't happen here to some degree I think though that we are just too early in this to know

but it would be great. It would be great if it happened. I think the reaction amongst the powers that can react show fear that they are worried that something like this could happen. And I want to talk about this. Guess where? Right after the break. Nope.

On the Patreon for... Right after the jump to the Patreon. That's right. The jump for the Patreon. So if you... I don't want to record pickups. I'm going to do this now. So if you want to...

hear us talking about how the media has handled this and our splintered society. You can go to patreon.com slash panic road and give us five bucks to keep the lights on. You can also gift it to people if you're already doing that, but you really love us. Amazing. And yeah, there's free ad-free episodes. There's a ton of other bonus content. And just being real with you, this $5 when you give it, when you invest it in us, it makes me feel really good in a way that $5 does.

doesn't normally make me feel. So you just know it makes me feel really good that it actually is worth your money. Patreon.com slash panic world. Panic World is a garbage day production. It's written and produced by Grant Irving, hosted by myself with research from the always fantastic Adam Bumis.

A huge thanks to Gabby Cash for designing the incredibly deranged art for this show. And a huge thank you to Kat Rajeshk, our lovely video editor. And if you'd like to sponsor an episode, you can reach out to Multitude, our wonderful partners,

multitude. productions slash ads. We have a Patreon which you can find at patreon.com slash panic world. And I'd like to end this episode with an important reminder. Log off and touch grass while you still can.