The accused UnitedHealthcare CEO-slayer, Luigi Mangione, has captured the media’s attention as his social media activity offers insight into his beliefs.
Mangione’s X account frequently engages with topics related to religion, history, ethics, and politics.
One discussion came from a 2014 high school research paper he re-published on X in 2024. The title of the 20-page work is “How Christianity Prospered by Appealing to the Lower Classes of Ancient Rome.”
The paper assumes a class-centric perspective that depicts the Roman Empire’s elite as a self-serving class that used religion merely to aggrandize themselves, make allies, and “propagandize” the public. He supports this notion by pointing to the statue of Emperor Claudius Wearing the Wreath of Oak Leaves. Mangione explains that Emperor Claudius is depicted to the public as a heroic deity figure, styled after the pagan god Jupiter, despite being physically infirm and sickly for his entire life.
This always baffles me too. Not a difficult concept. When I was 15, I wrote a paper about Christianity's rise over (secular) Roman Paganism due to fitness-enhancing benefits for the plebs: https://t.co/lEifzttiRb
— Luigi Mangione (@PepMangione) May 15, 2024
He also identifies that Paganism was malleable and able to be reformed to serve whatever cult following was necessary to support the incumbent emperor.
Contrastingly, his paper describes Christianity as the religion of the masses.
“By attracting the lower classes with otherworldly promises, as seen in the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, Christianity successfully converted people from Paganism and gained support. Moreover, the Gospel aspired to create a community among its members, thus satisfying the yearnings of Romans who suffered poverty, oppression, and isolation,” he wrote.
Later, he added, “Emperor Claudius Wearing the Wreath of Oak Leaves represents how Paganism repelled the lower classes, whereas the Gospel According to Saint Matthew exemplified Christianity’s appeal to the impoverished Romans.”
Tweets he put out, along with links to the paper, give the impression that he views atheism as a flawed religion that cannot compete with Christianity.
Mangione frequently engages with science-related content, including everything from cellular agriculture to artificial intelligence. During one exchange on uploading human consciousness to a digital matrix, he quoted Aldous Huxley in A Brave New World.
“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.” – Aldous Huxley, Brave New World.”
Mangione attached an image excerpt from the book to his tweet that follows similar lines.
He appeared to subscribe to a “great man” theory of history, which contends that history is changed in every generation by the actions of a few great men.
“You underestimate the power of how a few intelligent people + robust systems can keep all the idiots afloat,” he wrote during a debate with another X user.
Prompting an exchange on ethics, X user William Costello wrote, “Rape or Homicide: Which is Worse? 26% of respondents believed rape was less serious than homicide. Most (61%) believed rape and homicide were equally serious, while 13% believed rape was more serious.”
Mangione responded, “Utilitarian Ethics vs Virtue Ethics: Utilitarian: The action is good if the consequences are good Virtue: The action is good if it’s what a virtuous person would do Poll results indicate respondents’ moral frameworks Homicide: worse consequences Rape: worse virtues.”
Politically, the 26-year-old seemed skeptical of the democratic process. However, he did not indicate whether he would prefer to be ruled by a king, theocrat, Leninist revolutionary vanguard, or any other type of government. He once retweeted a rendition of the “Trolley Problem” that would have allowed the victims tied to tracks to live if the track operator had simply chosen to redirect the trolley, even though the decision would not be democratic.
Other retweets were similarly concerned about the media’s ability to propagandize the public into certain beliefs.
Frequently, Mangione signaled a sense of humor. When an X user asked if anyone had a PhD, Mangione responded that he did, if a PhD stood for “Pretty huge D**k.”
Another tweet has been widely shared and has fanned amorous flames for him across the country since police first released his name on December 9. His new adoring fan cams have become an unavoidable spectacle online, even as Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro said, “The suspect is a coward, not a hero.”
Notably, @PepMangione appears under a triptych header.
The first image is of Foongus, a Pokemon resembling a mushroom that can be eaten and used as medicine by players when thoroughly dried. The second image appears to be an X-ray of a spine with numerous bolts implanted. The third image is of a shirtless Mangione, showing off his athletic figure in front of a mountainscape.
Mushrooms are a common symbol used on social media to represent an interest in psychedelic drugs. Mangione’s Good Reads account indicated an interest in popular books on the science of psychedelics. He even occasionally retweeted memes about the drugs.
Mangione’s former roommate, R.J. Martin, told The New York Times that Mangione suffered from intense back pain due to a “misaligned spine” that prevented him from having sex with his peers.
“He knew that dating and being physically intimate with his back condition wasn’t possible,” Martin told the paper of record. “I remember him telling me that, and my heart just breaks.”
It is unclear what connection this alleged condition had with his alleged perpetration of the shooting of UHC’s CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan.
When Mangione was apprehended at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania, police said he had a two-page handwritten manifesto on him that detailed his anger at UHC. The handwritten manifesto “spoke to his motivation and mindset,” according to New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. Mangione reportedly wrote, “These parasites had it coming,” and “I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done.”
When Mangione was taken out of a police car to be transferred into a judicial building in Pennsylvania, he yelled to reporters, “[unintelligible] is completely out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people and their lived experience!”
Adding to the confusion and intrigue about Mangione’s beliefs, he has reviewed books on Good Reads that run the gambit of the political spectrum.
He reportedly reviewed Unabomber Ted Kaczynski’s Industrial Society and Its Future, also known as The Unabomber Manifesto.
In January 2024, Mangione wrote, “It’s easy to quickly and thoughtless write this off as the manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies. But it’s simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out.”
Just a week after the killing of Thompson, Mangione has been denied bail by the Pennsylvania criminal court. He has reportedly indicated that he will fight extradition to New York, setting up a legal fight that could take weeks.