There's Two Kinds of Luigi Supporters: The Understanders And The Truthers

This is modern America.

I have learned that the pro-Luigi tribe can be divided into two distinct camps who see the case very differently. One camp supports him because they respect the political statement inherent in murdering a health care CEO. They think he’s a vigilante folk hero who’s morally innocent even though they expect that he will probably be found guilty. In the other camp they see all of this totally differently. They think Luigi is innocent. They think the person on trial is not the person who shot Brian Thompson. These two groups represent a lot about modern America.

The people who support Luigi’s political statement remind me of Chris Rock’s famous punchline—“I’m not saying I would’ve done it, but I understand.” That’s been the reaction of people in the camp I’m calling Understanders. They don’t condone murder per se, but they understand the political statement the shooter was making and they respect a principled attack on a power structure that often makes our lives worse. Chris Rock also spoke for Understanders when he said on SNL, “Sometimes drug dealers get shot.”

Understanders separate morality from legality and think of Luigi as righteous even though they believe that he’ll probably end up in prison forever. The Understanders are a large class of people. They share the shooter’s anger at the health care system and are desperate to see this country change. They hope Luigi can help open that conversation. These are the people who initially reacted with cheers for the shooter they nicknamed the Adjuster. Their reaction shocked many in the media class and in the upper class, but we have long known that anger about class and the challenges of accessing health care are hugely emotional for Americans.

Until recently, I thought that all of Team Luigi were Understanders. But I have realized that there’s a lot of people in another camp—a camp where they think Luigi is innocent. In this camp, people think the police apprehended the wrong guy.