Why Many Americans Are Celebrating the UnitedHealthcare CEO’s Murder

American culture teaches its citizens that democracy is the ideal method for resolving disputes, but that political violence can be acceptable in the face of tyranny or to preserve that democracy. There is a broad consensus about certain tyrannies that have justified it: the British redcoat in 1776, the slavers’ whip in 1860, the swastika in 1939, and so on. But tyranny is an inherently subjective idea. It is unsurprising that the few Americans who are inclined to use violence may have different standards and targets for doing so.

I do not mean to suggest that Americans are generally prone to political violence. If anything, I think the opposite is true. This is one of the most heavily armed societies in human history. Thirty-two percent of the nation’s adults own a gun. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun industry trade group, there are nearly five million lawfully registered silencers owned by Americans. In the modern era there have been far bloodier conflicts in wealthy industrialized countries with much more limited access to firearms, like the Troubles in Northern Ireland or Italy’s Years of Lead. Americans’ cultural respect for the rule of law and the Constitution may have kept rivers of blood at bay so far.

How much longer that respect will last, however, is unclear. Reversing the nation’s democratic decline will be even harder if enough Americans come to believe that violence is a more effective means to solving the nation’s problems than participating in democratic institutions. Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield’s climbdown from a controversial and ill-timed billing policy change on anesthesia may convince people that political violence, even indirectly applied, can produce positive outcomes.