Shock poll: 41 percent of young voters find killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO acceptable

Shocked its so low
- People aren't exactly gonna tell a random stranger and probable Fed that they support murder even if it's really based
  
  It's not illegal to say you believe Brian Robert Thompson deserved to die. Hell, you could, perfectly legally, file paperwork to hold a parade in Luigi's honor, right through the heart of DC. It's illegal to make death threats, but it's perfectly legal to express support for someone being killed.
  
  Why not? Feds support murder, certainly. Heck, the Constitution supports murder: it establishes an Army.
- after the Nov 5th display of oligarch worshipping, maybe not as surprising it isn't higher
- Shit was rigged, you know they made the question something insane to get more people to not agree with the killing.
  
  Link to study
  Do you think the actions of the killer of the United Healthcare CEO are acceptable or unacceptable?
  I've seen worse phrasing for survey questions.
  
  Exactly. The question should have been, "did the CEO deserve to die?" It was likely, "was the killing acceptable?" It's perfectly possible to believe the bastard had it coming without thinking one person has the right to be judge, jury, and executioner.
- I'm genuinely shocked... Maybe they didn't want to go on record saying it because they were concerned about backlash.

Only? Wtf
- When I was young, I wouldn't have found it acceptable. It doesn't matter how badly you're treated, you need to find a peaceful way to resist. It's something drilled into my and my peers' skulls since I can remember.
  After seeing little progress (but mostly worsening) with polite requests and peaceful protests, I really can't figure out how it can be unacceptable.
  A lot of those kids probably just haven't gained that wisdom yet.
  
  There's a middle ground between no violence and shooting someone. I'd find it acceptable if we'd all get some pitchforks and whips and send them into the diaspora. Some light lashing, some expropriations, that I could really enjoy.
- For one thing, you can sympathize but not find it acceptable.
- 51% think he should have been set on fire.
- It's still the majority opinion.
  19% don't care.
  
  the word you're looking for is plurality.
  Majority means over 50%.

That low?
- There's a teensy bit of data massaging to make the approval rating appear lower... in my opinion of course.
  The respondents were asked to rank "acceptability of the killers actions" on a scale of 1 to 5.
  Assumin'the average "young voter" views gunning strangers down as:
  [1.very unfavorable]
  (You would, if asked about murder, say it was bad As a rule. right? I would too. Ya know, unless it was justified.)
  Looking at it that way, the same data looks a lot different suddenly.
  33% young voters still think the killer is completely unjustified.
  7% think there was some justification
  19% are undecided if the CEO deserved to die for what he did
  24% think the killer was mostly justified... But have reservations
  17% believe he was 100% in the right
  I got a little free with the interpretations but you get the idea, You could decide to frame the data this way too. there's a saying: statistics don't lie but statisticians do. Here's my 100% true alternate title using the data but presented with the story I want to tell:
  67% of Young Voters at Least Partly Approve of Killers Actions
  
  Selective selection of selected data by billionaire controlled media still can't get below 41%
  It's awesome how willfully they exclude or manipulate in attempt to soften the information.
  
  "Don't completely disapprove" might be better phrasing
- Yeah that's the shocking point for me
  
  I'm of two minds about it. Half the time, I want to build a statue of Luigi
  The other half of the time, I'm feeling the Tolkien quote, "many that live deserve death, and many that die deserve life. Will you give it to them?"
  In other words, at no point do I feel that Brian Robert Thompson didn't objectively deserve to die. He is objectively doing more good for the world as worm food than he did as a living man. My only question is on the ethics of anyone actually killing him. On one hand, no one should have a right to make that call on their own. On the other, it's not like he was ever going to face justice any other way.
  I wonder if this dilemma is reflected in this poll. You can believe that killing the CEO was unacceptable, while also believing he absolutely deserved it.
- I've been trying to tell you guys this is an echo chamber on the issue.

The fact that politicians and executives consider this a “shock” is part of the problem.
- I've heard a saying that if you do anything enough, it becomes normal.
  
  Yeah, good habits n such are important to cultivate until they're second-nature.

Yeah that is shocking. My guess is lots of people declined to say for obvious reasons. The number has to be closer to 80%
- Neutrals are 19%, so even if we assume half of those are actually ok but didn't say so, that's still only 50,5% acceptance

Shocking that it's so low
- 41% admitted to it.
  
  41% of people they asked! Who knows what criteria they used to get their sample set, so the number may even be higher.
  
  Rather than "admitting", I would think that most of these people are proud of it. If the insurance companies can kill people in large numbers (and they do), and somehow that's OK (which it shouldn't be), then that's the new standard (sadly), and that's life (or death, as the case may be).

Only 41%?
- I think of it this way. 41% are willing to say the killing was justified to a perfect stranger.
  
  Guessing here, but an absolutely a MINIMUM of an additional 20% find it secretly acceptable.
- Seems low. Like if they polled exclusively young conservatives or something.
- I don't think I'd be considered "young" anymore, but I don't know if I'd say I support it.
  Is the world better off without him? Yes.
  Did he deserve to die? Yeah, probably.
  Do I want to support vigilantism? Probably not.
  Would it have been better if he had to deal with some terrible incurable and deadly disease? Yeah, if karma was real.
  
  I'm almost 40. And I support it.
  All other avenues are closed. All the proper and acceptable forms of redress are either coopted or outright captured. Civil, political, or otherwise. Peaceful Protest is universally ignored because it lacks the implicit threat of violence that makes it effective elsewhere in the world.
  “When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.” ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau
  
  I feel the same way about Brian as I do about trump. Not sad or angry that they got shot, but I'm upset that someone shot at them. In a better world, we would be empowered enough that the answer to these moneygrubbing grift barons would come before violence, unfortunately, when you only react to violence, violence becomes the only answer.
  For my FBI agent... I do not have plans to harm anyone, and this comment is an observation of the current political, social, and equality situation in the US, and not an advocation of violence.
- A further 19% were neutral.
  
  "I have no strong feelings one way or the other."
  ―Neutral President
  "If I don't survive, tell my wife, hello."
  ―Neutral President
  "All I know is my gut says maybe."
  ―Neutral President
- Same, this number seems way too low. Even from my skewed perspective of a "old guy" - fastly nearing 40.

I doubt I’m "young" but I find it acceptable. I’m only shocked it doesn’t happen more. These people making insane amounts of money off the suffering of the working class have been getting away with too much for too long.
- They make money by murdering people. Someone has to hold them to account since our justice system, which is bought and paid for by these same scumbags, surely won't.

That is shocking. Get your shit together, 59%!
- America is still too rich imo.
  I think economic collapse is near, next 10 years.
  That's when we would have a chance to recalibrate this country
  
  Yeah. Unfortunately too many americans still view themselves as the ruling elite.
  If you look at things globally, they still have a lot of reason to believe that even if it isn't actually true.

Many of these polls are written in way to ellicit a biased response.
Others have already covered how this works, but I'll add to it anyway.
If you ask a question like "do you condemn violence against healthcare CEOs?" A lot of people are going to say yes, because they view themselves as people against violence and respond mostly to that first part.
If you ask "did brian thompson deserve to die for his crimes? Many of the same people will say yes to that too, because people have an innate desire for justice.
Polls do this all the time. It's part of social engineering and plays on the phenomenon that the Asch Conformity Experiments analyzed. Around 35% of people will change their opinions to fit everyone else's even if the answer or opinion is very obviously incorrect.
Don't let them take the narrative back.
- "Do you condemn hummus?"
- "Do you think your house is too small", vs "would you like a bigger house" .. >> x% of people happy with size of their house
- did brian thompson deserve to die for his crimes?
  The answer is no. Unless you are counting his drunk driving and insider trading. His business was operating legally, and he was providing legal orders when directing UHC to deny 30% or more of bills. And that's the problem. Brian didn't commit crimes, but the industry as a whole is insufficiently regulated, and should not be privatized, but they are so large and powerful that the general citizens cannot oust them. Denying any coverage and passing the bill on to the insured party should be illegal, but it isn't.
  
  Yeah, rich people get to operate legally with the laws they create. Who'da thunk?
  It's a shame people like you still take every opportunity to sell yourself out so someone you'll never know can be just a bit richer.
  I highly recommend you read up on the social contract, it looks like you haven't reached that lesson in grade school yet.
  
  It’s not just legal to deny 30% of claims, but he had a fiduciary duty to find ways to make the company profit. He may have “served the wrong master”, but the real crime is the existence of an insurance market where that’s both legal and expected
  For my similar brush with moral ambiguity, I interviewed for a job at a mass-email provider. It’s a perfectly legal company extending a legit job offer to do similar work as what I do now. However I find their existence repugnant, and generally oppose their actions where they affect me. Most importantly I said no. You have to take some responsibility for your actions.
  So no, he didn’t deserve to be killed. We can only hope the anger and outrage from that leads to health insurance reform so the crime of that market no longer exists. I’d be more than happy for someone in that position to lose a job they should not have taken. However, these extenuating circumstances mean that I also would not convict the person who executed him in protest

That sounds extremely low. What young voters are they polling? The Amish?

Gotta pump those numbers up. Those are rookie numbers!

The generation whose future was stolen by greedy, sociopathic billionaires doesn’t care if they get killed. Fetch my fainting couch!
- As a millennial, I’ve accepted (disgruntled) that I won’t buy a house. The Gen-Z kids can’t even buy a car. If any Gen-Z need donations to their defense fund, you can always count on me.
  
  I am an older millennial and most of my friends that I went to school with own homes. They also lived with their parents into their 30s and still live in the shit-hole town we grew up in. I moved out of my shitty, toxic parent's house when I was 17 and moved to someplace I actually want to live.
  I may be stuck renting until I die but I have no regrets.
- Stolen? The assholes are giving it to them.

Many things people find despicable are common place in the fog of war. I will never agree with gunning down a poor person no matter what they did, justice is served for the poor daily on a cold lead plate. For the 1%??? Who can we call when insurance kills our loved ones? When Dr's make intentional mistakes and your loved one is dead? Can you call the police and expect them to go snorkeling to find evidence? Or can you maybe expect a call in a few weeks with a maybe update? We have seen how they respond when one of their masters is murdered. Until there is actual justice for all citizens, there will be no peace. Eat the rich.
- The poor can't even get justice wrenched from the poor, much less the rich.
- I'm not prepared to say people can't deserve being gunned down based on socioeconomic status, but I am all for the rich getting their fair share of the gunning down. Preventing active murder or grievous bodily harm, harming children, etc.
  There is too much gunning down, and especially for unreasonable things, but I won't lose sleep when those in power effecting and enforcing the injustice get theirs. The phrase "just desserts" exists for a reason.

110% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Young, like under 26? Like never having had to supply their own health insurance maybe?
- Exactly this. I suspect this group is both young enough to not have to supply their own insurance, or at least young enough to not have faced significant health costs yet. Many people have not yet experienced just how trash the US healthcare system is.

That low? That is a shock.

It’s not shocking if you’ve had to deal with any sort of healthcare in this god forsaken shithole of a country.
- Most young voters haven't had to deal with it yet.
  
  They have parents who have.

Only 41%?
We still have work to do.

Americans have been trained to wish on the CEO the negative things that those CEOs have caused.
Game CEO cancels or ruins an anticipated game? Wish on to them that something they value gets canceled.
Car company CEO makes cars more expensive? Wish upon them financial trouble.
Social media CEO invades your privacy? Wish on them someone to track their plane wherever it flies.
But there exists a subset of companies where death is the outcome of a bad CEO, and the end consequence of encouraging an eye for an eye is what we just saw. Perhaps if a company can decide whether you live or die, the government should play some role in it. Then at least voters will at least have a stake in the governance.

Shock poll? Who is shocked?
- I'm shocked that the number isn't higher, does that count?
  
  Indeed it does. Take my upvote.

This old voter finds it acceptable. Not a problem. It's a good start.

Cannot believe what our nation is coming to! How the hell is it under 50??
- I imagine it's from people who just don't watch the news. They don't know how evil that CEO was, so they blindly apply common sense.
  
  That was my gut reaction right after it happened, since UHC is my insurance company. But I'm just disappointed people are either lack curiosity, lack empathy, or actively support the true evil here.

They also claim that they want more equality, universal healthcare, less student debt, etc. And then a ton of them proceeded to vote for Donald Trump. I can't take anything they say seriously.

Pretty shocking it’s that low honestly.

It’s a wake up call, but it’s not really going to change anything. You want universal healthcare? We need a general strike. Shut everything down for a month and demand it.
- Rather then a general strike the perfect time to get it would have been voting for it in November. Even if everything shut down tomorrow, cities and towns burned, and people starved for months the GOP would spit on you.
  
  Which party advocated for universal healthcare in the 2024 election? Sure wasn't the Democrats.
  
  If voting actually worked it would be illegal. It's meaningless as long as the DNC Services Corp controls the controlled opposition party.

Should be higher.

It's shocking in the sense young people are the ones least effected by our shit Healthcare system since they tend to be the most healthy, and have less interaction with it.
You'd expect the middle aged and older with chronic illnesses would be the most supportive of Luigi, but they have Stockholm syndrome from living under this shitty system their whole life. This is also reinforced by the cable news they watch telling them how tragic it was that a man with a wife and kids was murdered.
Meanwhile, young people are just laughing at memes and tiktoks of how hot and based he is.
- I think if my mother's heart condition gets worse and she needs some kind of treatment that gets denied by insurance and thus she decides not to go through with it and dies because of it that you could consider that me having interaction with the system.
  A lot of times for younger people, it isn't direct personal experience that radicalizes us, but the effect a system has on people we care about.
- Thanks! @candybrie@lemmyworld
  
  The article didn't specifically show other age groups but it did give the overall number which shows more disapproval, implying that older age groups found it less acceptable. It also links to the survey that shows the different ages' break down:
  The survey from Emerson College Polling found 68 percent of all respondents found the actions of the person who shot and killed Thompson unacceptable.

A person has to ask themselves the question of does this person help or hurt humanity, and if you look at this company denials since he took over he definetely hurts humanity as a whole.
Not every human life is valuable or worth keeping. We need to treat our weakest members of society better, which is elderly, disabled and children. He hurts those people the most, when he should've trying to protect them. He chose to chase profits over human life.
This is simply a logical consequence. Income equality now is FAR worse than the french revolution, I'm just suprised it took this long.
- Every life is valuable and sacred. Every death a tragedy. But I will not cry when tragedy comes for those who grow rich by permitting tragedy.
  
  “Permit” even seems like a generous word in this case.
- some murderous douche bag asked that same question of a brave doctor doing late term abortions and had the same conclusion as you.
  But then again I'm also against the death penalty, so, maybe different strokes different folks.

I mean, "Broadly gesturing to everything"

Since Thompson was shot, first in the back and then again as he fell to the ground, a number of social media posts from people saying they do not have sympathy for his death have gained popularity.
I bet if that was the question an even higher percent would agreed.
- Ten is a number. So is one, or zero.
  
  Agreed, but I'm not sure I follow.

19% neutral
40% against...

Just 41%?
The pain felt in the US is still not high enough.
- You better believe they skewed this poll to get the result they wanted
  I'm willing to bet that most people are indifferent, end of the remainder the vast majority are in support of the killing

I don't understand what's shocking about that?
I would have called that predictable.
- It seems pretty low

Some of us are perfectly capable of having many conflicting opinions on the subject.
Don't know how anyone could really boil this whole thing down to a nice boolean opinion.

Site doesn't load without JavaScript
- What type of browser doesn’t support JavaScript?
  
  It's not about "supporting Javascript."
  If a webpage does not require javascript to function, then it should not have javascript on it.
  News articles do not require javascript to function.

More than that I bet. Much more.
- They're sharing such a low number to make people think it's not supported by the vast majority

If this trend continues, by 2073 100% of youth will completely agree with it.
- Why stop at 100%

I find it understandable. it isn't something I would do but I can not find it in my heart to condemn the deletion of a bad human. The scumbags like him are a bunch of whiny little weaklings.

Only 41% ???
- A lot of people have a belief that murder is bad and that if you want change you have to vote for it.
- Ikr? Should be 95%
  
  This isn't a great poll. It's 41% think it's acceptable, 40% unacceptable, and 19% don't care. In this context, I'd argue that not caring and accepting mean basically the same thing.

I wonder how the terrorism charge affects things. Are people going to stop saying they support him out of fear or disgust? Will other people (and/or the government) go after people that say they support him because they can claim they’re supporting a terrorist? Will people become less affected by the word “terrorist” because it’s being applied in this way?

That's actually a lower number than expected

only?

59% are trust fund kids

So much of the morality we're taught is really only applicable to our class.

Room for improvement. Modest.

Anyone shocked by this is a hopeless soul

The survey from Emerson College Polling found 68 percent of all respondents found the actions of the person who shot and killed Thompson unacceptable.
For those on here who think there’s a secret silent majority who are just waiting to emulate him, y’all need to read this part.
- That question is flawed. You can believe the CEO objectively deserved to die without thinking murder on the street is acceptable. In an ideal world, Thompson would have been charged in a court of law, convicted, and hanged for his crimes.
  
  Maybe, maybe not. 68 is pretty high even if you can argue for shaving off a few points though. If another poll that gets to that more directly comes out I’ll be curious to see it.

Any CEO (actually, any rich person- the ticket the more this applies) that doesn't donate obscene amounts to good (good as in "would probably be hated by MAGA" or "politically neutral") charities can be "acceptably put down".
Even more so if they are actively causing direct harm to their customers/clients.

I've been trying to tell ya'll that you dudes are the Cringe-Fringe for worshiping Luigi.
TBH I find his death acceptable but I would never be the friend of the killer.
- 41 percent is fringe? You do know how percentages work?
  
  24% said somewhat acceptable. 17% completely acceptable.
  This is different than worshipping. Just because someone points out an ugly truth about the bubble we can be in here, doesn't mean you have to call them a bootlicker.
  Edit: they edited out 'bootlicker' to ask a rhetorical question, still missing the point that the meme levels of worship found on Lemmy is fringe compared to the rest of the country, let alone the world.
- Still find it funny as fuck you'll shit on supporting Luigi but didn't back down from defending actual Nazis a few months back
  Fucking weird priorities from you
  
  Never once have I ever defended actual nazis.

67% of Young Voters at Least Partly Approve of Killers Actions