The American health care system is broken. We pay expensive premiums and have huge deductables for care we’re often denied because, thanks to market interference from government and three-card-monte cost-shifting, we spend exponentially more for less care than we would in a free and transparent system.
What’s the solution to this? According to one of the liberal media’s darlings, at least one solution is to express a sense of joy when a health care CEO is killed.
In a Monday segment on Piers Morgan’s show, former New York Times and Washington Post darling Taylor Lorenz defended her BlueSky posts celebrating the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson — social media missives that coincided with news liberal outlet Vox Media was ending their distribution deal with her, according to Semafor.
In addition to posting, “And people wonder why we want these executives dead,” Lorenz shared messages like “CEO DOWN” on her account, according to Mediaite.
Thompson was killed last Wednesday in New York City, allegedly by a 26-year-old, anti-capitalist, Ivy League graduate from Maryland who had professed admiration for the works of “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, according to the New York Post. He was taken into custody on Monday morning in Pennsylvania.
Even before her appearance on Morgan’s show, Lorenz had defended her rhetoric — blaming the mainstream media for demonizing her.
“Naturally, the mainstream media began pearl clutching in outrage. After I posted a quote tweet about insurance companies no longer paying for certain anesthesia with the phrase, ‘And people wonder why we want these executives dead,’ legacy media outlets including Fox News pounced and wrote a slew of articles about my ‘calls for violence,’” she said in her newsletter, apparently unironically using the “conservatives pounce” trope.
She said that she wasn’t specifically calling for health care executives to be killed, be aware, she just doesn’t mind it: “I am explaining that thousands of Americans (myself included) are fed up with our barbaric healthcare system and the people at the top who rake in millions while inflicting pain, suffering, and death on millions of innocent people,” she wrote.
“If you have watched a loved one die because an insurance conglomerate has denied their life saving treatment as a cost cutting measure, yes, it’s natural to wish that the people who run such conglomerates would suffer the same fate.”
OK, so she was given one more chance to redeem herself from that mess on Piers Morgan’s show. Shocker of shockers, she did not take it.
“I do believe in the sanctity of life, and I think that’s why I felt, along with so many other Americans, joy, unfortunately,” she said.
Morgan incredulously asked her if she really meant what she said — that she was joyful “at a man’s execution.”
“Maybe not joy, but certainly not empathy,” she said.
“We’re watching the footage. How can this make you joyful?” Morgan asked as the surveillance video played.
“This guy is a husband, he’s a father, and he’s been gunned down in the middle of Manhattan. Why does that make you joyful?”
“So are the tens of thousands of Americans that he murdered!” Lorenz interjected.
“So are the tens of thousands of Americans, innocent Americans, who died because greedy health insurance executives like this one push a policy of denying care to the most vulnerable people, and I am a part of the many millions of Americans that have watched people that I care about suffer and in some cases die because of lack of healthcare.”
“So should they all be killed then?” Morgan said. “Should they all be killed, these health care executives? Would that make you even more joyful?”
Lorenz laughed and said no — which is odd, on two levels: She shouldn’t be laughing, and that’s exactly the argument she’s making.
“Why are you laughing? You seem to find the whole thing hilarious,” Morgan said. “A bloke’s been murdered in the street. I don’t find it funny at all.”
As he invited conservative pundit Tomi Lahren to speak, Lorenz said that Morgan shouldn’t “say I’m joyful.” (Apparently, only she’s allowed to do that.)
Which is why she used it and/or defended her feelings of elation over the death:
JUST IN: Taylor Lorenz giggles and says she felt “joy” when Brian Thompson, a husband, father, and CEO of UHC was k*lled. pic.twitter.com/Y57NTWfM6C
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 9, 2024
As Manhattan Institute fellow and writer Christopher Rufo pointed out, Lorenz represents “the perfect representation of the arc of woke” — gaining employment in mainstream media outlets until they realized she was too crazy even for them and she was drummed out:
Taylor Lorenz is the perfect representation of the arc of woke: using Cluster B tactics to elevate herself to positions of power at NYT and WaPo, then, as cooler heads prevailed, they recognized her as utterly pathological and cast her out. A cautionary tale. https://t.co/vL3MVYvoxO
— Christopher F. Rufo ️ (@realchrisrufo) December 9, 2024
Lorenz is probably best remembered for doxing the woman behind the Libs of TikTok account while simultaneously decrying doxing on herself, a public figure.
She should be best remembered for other things, including having the ability to request and secure bans on Twitter during the Jack Dorsey years and a whole raft of shoddy journalism. Even after a thoroughly botched job on a story regarding the internet’s response to the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard civil trial led to some behind-the-scenes checks on her work at the Post, she still wasn’t fired — as any reporter who had made the raft of deliberate errors and misrepresentations she did normally would be.
Now, of course, she’s technically an independent journalist, although her reach will likely be curtailed thanks to the fact that her deal with Vox Media for distribution has been ended — just as her employment with both the Times and the Post should have been ended. If there’s any bit of “joy” to be found in this sordid tale, there it is: One of the voices who enables radicals like the man who allegedly killed Brian Thompson will be a little softer thanks to a liberal outlet finally coming to its senses regarding this one-time establishment media darling.
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