![E102: [TEASER] Fireside Chat – Luigi Mangione - podcast episode cover](https://assets.metacast.app/images/episode/artwork/5bvOMcE8)
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 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.
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.
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 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 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, 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 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 of general populism where they've got a mixture of and left ideas but support violence.
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, 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 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, 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 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.
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 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 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.
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.
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 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 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
against the rest of us. It's quite interesting.
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 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 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.
Bernie manchone, twenty twenty eight.
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 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, But then once it happens, it's like, yeah.
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 all the time.
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 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.
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 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.
And shouting free Luigi.
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.
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, 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 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.
Is run by the state.
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, 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.
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 show notes. Catch you next time.