Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the shooting ignited a "mass bubbling of resentment around the precarity that people have been living with."

Summary

Progressive lawmakers view the online praise for the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson as a sign of deep public frustration with the U.S. healthcare system.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called it a “wake-up call” highlighting resentment over financial and health precarity, while Sen. Bernie Sanders emphasized that anger reflects the belief that healthcare is a human right.

Though all lawmakers condemned the murder, some progressives argue it underscores systemic issues like claim denials.

Calls for healthcare reform have intensified amid public outrage.

  • Tinidril@midwest.socialEnglish
    176·
    15 days ago

    What exactly are you basing this on? Harris ran a terrible campaign with the usual Democratic half-measure policy proposals and lost. That should hardly be a surprise. There is no evidence to say that a populist Democrat like Bernie or AOC couldn’t win.

    What if Harris had made the whole campaign into a referendum on the broken healthcare system? It turns out that that’s where the Republican voters she was trying to woo were hiding all along.

    • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
      102·
      15 days ago

      What if Harris had made the whole campaign into a referendum on the broken healthcare system?

      Wouldn’t have mattered. Trump would have just countered with a similar populist angle, and by the time it was filtered down to voters, it would still be pro-Trump.

      To be more specific about the college students, I saw them coo and rave about how “strong” Trump feels, or list off all these (seemingly) blatant lies about policy or what either candidate going to do, a few I recognized online, and again this is ostensibly a well connected and “smart” demographic. At that point, I realized their world is totally shaped by what their favorite feeds and influencers tell them, and this is a space being won by the GOP:

      https://www.axios.com/2024/11/18/news-influencers-conservative-tiktok-youtube

      • Tinidril@midwest.socialEnglish
        4·
        15 days ago

        I’m seeing a lot of right wing propaganda agents having their audiences turn on them over the shooting.

        The Democrats would have had to do it right, and I do admit they wouldn’t, but I think it could have made a difference. Unfortunately, Republicans always have a villain to direct anger to, while Democrats are allergic to anything more than mild criticism of the oligarchs.