Assassins: Luigi Mangione and John Wilkes Booth
[NOTE: Let’s assume for the moment that alleged killer Mangione is guilty, for the sake of this post.)
Luigi Mangione and John Wilkes Booth: what on earth do they have in common?
Well, it’s a stretch, but there are some odd commonalities. They were both from prominent families. They were both raised in Baltimore. They both shot their victims in the back – for Booth and Lincoln, it was the back of the head. They both escaped after the shooting but were caught a few days later: 12 days for Booth and 5 days for Mangione (one big difference is that Booth was killed and Mangione taken peacefully). And they were both 26 years old at the time.
One of many big differences is that John Wilkes Booth was already a huge celebrity when he killed Lincoln, and Mangione was not. And of course Lincoln was also a far more prominent man than Thompson. But Booth’s celebrity status points to another thing he had in common with Mangione: he was considered extraordinarily handsome.
Now, a caveat: I don’t consider Mangione extraordinarily handsome. But he’s a fairly good-looking guy, and a certain female mostly leftist (and not just female) segment of the internet has gone wild about his “hotness.” So I’ll just stipulate that he’s handsome.
Booth, on the other hand, was an old-fashioned bona fide “matinee idol” of startlingly good looks. I recall the first time I ever saw his photo; I was shocked by how classically handsome he was. He was actually often called “the handsomest man in America” at the time:
John Wilkes Booth wasn’t the best actor in the Booth family: he was outshone by his father, Junius Brutus Booth, and by his brother Edwin. But John Wilkes was the most beautiful of the Booths, the handsomest man in all America, it was said: lithe and feline, with dark Fauntleroy curls and a leading-man mustache.
Indeed, and many fans – and there were many, prior to the assassination – had photos of Booth such as this one:
“The stage door was always blocked with silly women waiting to catch a glimpse” of “this sad-faced, handsome boy,” Reignolds wrote. Booth was the first celebrity on record to have the clothes torn off his body by crazed fans.
Of course, that was before he became an assassin. For Mangione, the crazed and lusting women came after.
I sometimes think about what a stupendous shock Lincoln’s assassination must have been, even more shocking perhaps than any other presidential assassination. Not only was he the first US president ever to be assassinated, but he was killed only five days after Robert E. Lee’s surrender. And to top it all off, Lincoln’s killer turned out to be the Brad Pitt and Robert Redford and Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power of his day all rolled into one. We accept the strange event as a given because we learned about it as children and it was just history, long ago and far away. But at the time if occurred, it wasn’t history, it was news.
Mangione’s smiling image in the camera at the hostel made him look very attractive. Unhooded and ranting at the police station, not so much.
At least one can understand, but not agree with, Booth’s murder of Lincoln. His “cause” lost, he looked to eliminate its enemy another way. Mangione’s murder of Thompson is just extremist craziness. In fact, reports say his newly-hired defense attorney may be planning to use an insanity defense.
An insanity defense would have to be something like, “in accord with radical leftist thinking taught in all the best colleges….” Remember, those folks didn’t have much of a problem with the OCT 7 massacre.
So if the defense could prove that Mangione was perfectly rational, knew his alphabet, could count from 100 backwards, and would have passed any competency exam on radical leftism in high-end colleges, would that be the same as proving insanity?
As to looks, Booth was handsome–although wondering about him sans mustache and with short hair–but, as I said earlier, Mangione’s facial bone structure shows high-T, which the ev psych folks say has a strong impact on other people. Without necessarily being handsome in any normal sense.
And then he goes and does a high-T thing.
I would say that both Booth and Mangione were self righteous, egotistical idiots who imagined themselves to be heroes who might even herald revolutions. They both seem to have imagined that there would be massive popular support for their despicable actions. But despite some support from people on the Left, I don’t get the sense that a majority, or even a large minority of people agree with Mangione’s actions, thankfully.
I watched a TikTok of a young woman rhapsodizing over Thompson’s assassination, while playing this in the background:
_____________________________
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes
Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?
Then join in the fight
That will give you the right to be free!
–“Les Misérables | Do You Hear the People Sing?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q82twrdr0U
_____________________________
It’s powerful, stirring music. It is the soundtrack to the movie leftists imagine they are starring in.
Booth was also the first star (I think), who had his hotel sheets stolen and cut up into little squares to be sold to his fans.
@huxley,
“Do You Hear The People Sing?” is indeed powerful, stirring music. “Les Miz” is one of Trump’s favorite musicals, and he likes using “Do You Hear The People Sing?” for a background soundtrack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oePlXgQy5s
Another strange thing: until this moment, I had no idea the assassination was only 5 days after the surrender.
Terrorism and empathy:
https://www.thejc.com/lets-talk/how-terrorists-acquire-deploy-and-weaponise-western-empathy-against-israel-kiubf16b?utm_source=sharebutton&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=bottom
Her focus is on the use of empathy by Hamas, but also applicable to this assassin.
Thanks, David.
A dynamite article describing a catastrophic dynamic.
I just realized this, or maybe it’s just me, but Booth seems to have been used as the visual model for characters in westerns. to the point that he doesn’t seem particularly striking.
Ignoring the disgusting aspects of the deeds, this post is a pretty interesting connection/comparison. I’ve often thought that one of the worst things that can happen to a girl or young women was to be born exceptionally beautiful &/or sexy. Naturally, the parenting and general upbringing is hugely influential too.
I hadn’t really thought about the male converse. But, I also think that at least in the case of Mangione, his privilege and success in school is a factor too.
Booth’s co-conspirator Lewis Powell lacked the charisma of the actor, and was thought by some to be dimwitted, but his photo made him a heart throb like Mangione and Tsarnaev. I’m not sure if he had much of a fan club in his lifetime, but the picture became an icon afterwards.
Boothe looks like Timothee Chalamet these days. https://images.app.goo.gl/nbWkq9CL98skx1mk9
Hmm maybe it’s the bone structure of their face.
I’ve run into Timothée Chalamet being called a “rat boy”. Don’t worry it’s a compliment, sort of.
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Vermin have entered the crowded beauty lexicon to describe unconventionally attractive Hollywood actors with large ears, angular features and lanky frames.
Dune actor Timothée Chalamet, Challengers leading men Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist, along with The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White and Ferrari’s Adam Driver, have been tagged as “rats” and “hot rodent boyfriends” by supposed admirers.
https://qoshe.com/the-sydney-morning-herald/damien-woolnough/timoth-e-chalamet-isn-t-a-rat-boy-and-neither-am-i/173747710
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He didn’t work for me as the supreme warrior leader in “Dune” — he looked too much like a boy band singer.
However, he was brilliant as a would-be student revolutionary in Wes Anderson’s parody of the New Yorker, “The French Dispatch.”
“It’s powerful, stirring music. It is the soundtrack to the movie leftists imagine they are starring in.”
Yes, precisely, or perhaps the on-line video game they continually play, in which the “star” (i.e., the viewer) gets to shoot the “bad guys” with total impunity, and never pays any lasting price for the mayhem perpetrated. Even if he is “killed” all that is necessary is to reboot and voila–back to life and more mayhem, ad nauseam. For the distaff among them, they get to fantasize about tossing 260 pound, muscular men like rag dolls and looking sexy at the same time. Never mind the real world where such confrontations are never going to end as well. For these self-imagined “revolutionaries,” reality seldom intrudes. Life is an extension of their imagination. Until it isn’t any more.
I saw Timothée Chalamet on Theo Von’s podcast recently and he seems like a nice enough guy. As to whether he was right for playing Paul Atreides, he was decribed in the books as having an “oval face was like his mother Jessica’s, but he had stronger bones and a browline reminiscent of his maternal grandfather. He had a thin, disdainful nose, long lashes concealing lime-toned, directly staring green eyes, and a hardness in the expression like the old Duke, his paternal grandfather.” It seems to me Chalamet at least matches some of that pretty well.
https://nypost.com/2024/12/19/us-news/accused-ceo-killer-luigi-mangione-may-have-been-plotting-attack-against-brian-thompson-as-far-back-as-august/