People cheering the murder of Brian Thompson is a bad sign for democracy

For many people, America has become a country where nothing works. And that is very bad for American democracy.

Daily life is filled with frustration, disappointed expectations and routine indignities. And that is very bad for American democracy.

For millions of Americans, it is hard to imagine a better future. And that is very bad for American democracy.

These lessons were driven home in the wake of the murder of UnitedHealth Care CEO Brian Thompson last week on the streets of New York. That this could have happened in broad daylight in a busy city is shocking, but commentators were doubly shocked at the reactions to his death and the outpouring of anger that followed it.

They should not have been.

Some attributed those reactions to “the latent anger felt by many Americans at the healthcare system — a dizzying array of providers, for profit and not-for-profit companies, insurance giants, and government programmes. ….[C]ritics of the industry pointedly said that they had no pity for Thompson. Some even celebrated his death. The online anger seemed to bridge the political divide.”

They are right to note the anger registered in public reactions to the New York shooting. But they miss the mark when they say it was directed only toward the health care system.

The reactions to what happened in New York are much more than that. They are a real-time demonstration that America today is a very unhappy place.

It is unhappy because people experience the same kind of frustrations with their children’s schools, crumbling infrastructure, indifferent service providers, or their banks as they do with the treatment they receive from health insurance companies.

Before examining the problems those frustrations are causing for our political system, let me say a little more about the reactions to the murder.

On Dec. 5, The New York Times reported that the brutal killing of Thompson “unleashed a torrent of morbid glee from patients and others.” The Times went on to say that online commentary showed “a blatant lack of sympathy over the death of a man who was a husband and father of two children.”

It quoted one grotesquely witty comment: “‘Thoughts and deductibles to the family. … Unfortunately, my condolences are out-of-network.’”

Another source for the story said, “I pay $1,300 a month for health insurance with an $8,000 deductible. ($23,000 yearly) When I finally reached that deductible, they denied my claims. He was making a million dollars a month.” Still, another captured the breadth of the anger surfacing after the killing: “This needs to be the new norm. EAT THE RICH.”

The author Joyce Carol Oates captured the essence of the reactions to Thompson’s death when she said, “The outpouring of negativity ‘is better described as cries from the heart of a deeply wounded & betrayed country.’”

Other evidence of those “cries from the heart” and the pervasive feelings of betrayal that Americans experience daily are easy to find. Just do an internet search using the term “frustration” and the name of a cell phone company, a cable provider, or a bank.

You’ll find things like this: “My elderly mother has Xfinity tv. It stopped working 2 weeks ago. She tried calling customer service, got a link texted from the automated attendant, then tried numerous times using the link to the automated service to get help. At some point she was finally put into a chat. She went through the troubleshooting steps, and it was determined that she needed a new cable box.”

“Someone was supposed to contact her to set an appointment but she never received a call or text. The next day she tried the chat link again but received an automated generic answer. Again she tried numerous times but finally was able to get into a chat. She was told there was no record of her contacting customer service so she had to go through the troubleshooting all over again.”

Or take one more example: “Verizon has absolutely horrible customer service. ... They pass you off to a different person each time you call, they don’t care about their customers at all. … [T]he things they’ve promised don’t happen, and if they say they’ll call you back, they never do. ... You will not get what you [were] promised and you will be very frustrated. … All they care about is getting their money.”

Sound familiar?

That exclusive focus on the bottom line is surely part of the problem, as customer service gets outsourced and customers are treated like problems that agents wish would disappear. But the situation is surely worse in 2024, compared to even a decade ago: We suffer from what the American Psychological Association calls “the lasting psychological impacts … of era-defining crises. An inspection of pre- and post-pandemic mental and physical health reveals signs of collective trauma among all age cohorts.”

The frustration and trauma help explain why the 2024 edition of Gallup’s longstanding survey measuring “satisfaction with the way things are going in the U.S.” found that “Three out of four Americans (75 percent) claimed to be dissatisfied.”

Who can blame them? Our infrastructure gets a D+ grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers. In education, “U.S students consistently score lower in math and science than students from many other countries. … [E]ducation rankings have fallen by international standards over the past three decades” because “government spending on education has failed to keep up with inflation.”

The United States ranks low in health care compared to other countries, in access, equity and outcomes. We rank at the bottom in health care outcomes compared to other developed nations.

And if you want good customer service, go to New Zealand, Canada or Norway, not the United States. You may even get a better customer service experience in Russia.

Finally, there is the problem of growing income and wealth inequality. Recall the “eat the rich” reaction to the Thompson killing.

“There is little that leaves people as pissed off and frustrated,” Mother Jones’ Michael Mechanic writes, “as the feeling that no matter how hard they work, they can’t ever seem to get ahead.”

Again no surprise. But all of this signals danger for American democracy.

Generations of political scientists have written rote about what they call “the economic and social prerequisites” of democracy. They note that when people are deeply dissatisfied with the conditions of their lives, they are ripe for the appeals of strong men and demagogues.

That is why Italian fascist Benito Mussolini could gain popularity by promising to “make the trains on time.”

Today in this country, Alana Newhouse argues, Americans don’t have to “Give up on our current institutions; they already gave up on us.” She asks whether education, housing, farming, cities and religion are all broken. Newhouse conclude, “Everything is broken” and “What used to work is not working for enough people anymore.”

Anyone who lives in this country knows that to be true.

Yet, as political scientist Damon Linker observes, “for the most part, the people who run our institutions have done very little to acknowledge or take responsibility for any of it, let alone undertake reforms that aim to fix what’s broken. That’s no doubt why angry anti-establishment populism has become so prominent in our politics over the past decades.”

Or as Maria Wagner and Pablo Boczkowski put it, "an angry and overwhelmed citizenry does not seem a good recipe for a healthy democracy.” Creating the environment for that return to health is no easy task. But one thing is certain: No one can Make America Great Again, or preserve our democracy until they Make America Work Again.

If we don’t want people celebrating when the head of an institution that leaves its customers angry and overwhelmed gets shot, and if we want American democracy to thrive, we need to take on the mundane, but essential, task of addressing the brokenness that the people of this country experience every day. There is no time to waste.

Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College.