Democrats have blood on their hands in anti-corporate witch hunt  

A horrifying new poll shows 41 percent of American young people find Luigi Mangion’s cowardly assassination of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson “acceptable.” How did our youth come to hate corporate America so much?  

I blame Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and other liberal Democrats who continually vilify American businesses, blaming them for being greedy and corrupt and for taking advantage of American consumers. 

Warren, a senator from Massachusetts, seemed to sympathize with Mangione murdering Thompson, a complete stranger. She told the Huffington Post: “The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system. This is a warning that if you push people hard enough, they ... start to take matters into their own hands.” While she included the obligatory “Violence is never the answer,” it sure sounds like she’s excusing the killer.   

The left is quick to blame right-wing rhetoric for inciting violence; they should admit that their own venomous business-bashing has contributed to one death and could cause more. The New York Post reports that James Harr, founder of a “socialist apparel” brand, has called online for the killing of “titans of greed,” and plans to issue decks of cards with the names and photos of “most wanted CEOs.”   

This rising craziness is the direct result of liberals blaming our big businesses for the terrible hardship brought on by Democrats’ reckless spending, which led to soaring inflation. When rising prices began to devour Americans’ paychecks, angering voters and pummeling Joe Biden’s approval ratings, the president didn’t stop spending; instead, he accused food companies of “ripping off” consumers and playing the public for “suckers.”    

Not to be outdone, during her campaign Vice President Harris accused companies of “nefarious price gouging;” she threatened to “go after bad actors” that she blamed for soaring grocery costs.   

In October at a rally, Harris said, “Companies are taking advantage of the desperation and the need of the American people — we saw it, actually during the pandemic as well, where, because of supply chain issues, there was a reduction of supply, and then they would inflate the price of everyday necessities.” Such accusations raised the temperature, but thankfully didn’t save Harris’s presidential bid. 

This leftist blame game is nothing new — Vermont’s independent Sen. Bernie Sanders has been spewing vitriol about U.S. businesses for decades. In 2023, Sanders toured the country touting his book, “It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism,” preaching socialist claptrap to gullible (mainly young) people who are ignorant of collectivism’s tragic history in countries like Venezuela.   

 One of his primary targets has been our healthcare system, and especially the role played by insurers. “No other country has a [medical] system which is dominated by private insurance companies. So the function of the American healthcare system is not to do what the rational thing is, to provide quality care in a cost-effective way,” Sanders told a UVA audience in 2023. “This is designed for making huge profits for insurance companies.” 

Like Warren, Sanders appeared more understanding than outraged by the killing of Thompson, commenting that the “anger at the healthcare industry tells us is that ... you cannot have people in the insurance industry rejecting needed healthcare for people while they make billions of dollars in profit.” 

The left’s maligning of our corporations has taken a toll. Gallup reports that in 2001, 23 percent of Americans had “very little confidence” in “big business”; by June of this year, that number had jumped to 41 percent. That decline took place despite companies spending increasing time and money on community outreach and other efforts to win over the public.  

The drop in confidence coincides with a stark increase in the number of Democrats who describe themselves as liberals. In 2001, only 29 percent of Democrats considered themselves liberal; that rose to 54 percent by 2022. That ascent confirms that the liberal anti-business platform has taken over the Democratic Party. 

It’s a short leap from Sanders or Biden maligning businesses to those businesses and their officials becoming actual targets. That has now happened, and it isn’t just insurers: CEOs all over the U.S. are scrubbing their photos from their company websites and upping their personal security details. They are scared that they might become the next victim of some deranged self-styled anti-capitalist like Mangione.  

You can’t blame them, especially as sickos sympathetic to the one-time wunderkind have been lauding Mangione as a “hero” online, raising money for his defense and — incredibly — putting up “wanted” posters on New York City streets featuring photos of other corporate leaders deserving of execution. Those posters warn, “Health care CEOs should not feel safe” and repeat the words found on the bullets used by Mangione: Deny, Defend, Depose.  

Donors to his defense fund, according to reporting from the New York Post, have attacked “OBSCENE profit,” calling earnings of the country’s largest health insurer “the systematic destruction of the poor to the benefit of the rich” and describing Mangione as a political prisoner. 

We can dismiss these rants as just another spasm from the loony left, or we can take seriously the idea that our corporate leaders are under attack, blamed for the struggles of low-income Americans. I’ll take the latter and call out those who are leading the charge.   

Democrats seem to forget that large corporations in the U.S. employ roughly half the country, provide health insurance and retirement programs to tens of millions of Americans and create most of the new technologies and investments that power our nation forward. These firms are not by angels; they are run by people who sometimes act dishonorably or foolishly, like the managers of every enterprise — including the Democratic Party. That does not mean they should be executed in cold blood. 

Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim and Company.