Here is an unintentional consequence of Luigi Mangione’s assassination murder of the CEO of United Healthcare in the streets of Manhattan.

There will be a quick rush of CEOs demanding – and getting – teams of bodyguards. 

They will think – not without a certain logic – as the fan base of Mangione groupies will likely spawn at least a few other Mangione clones.  These sick sycophants will seek their own brand if “justice” against some aggrieved corporation.  If it can happen to a health insurance CEO – the others in that industry will swiftly move to get the best security guards money can buy.  They will rightly see themselves as targets, because a lot of people hate insurance companies. 

But soon it will spread.

Having security guards will be justified as a necessary perk for CEOs, not just at health insurance companies, but at all companies – including those who don’t normally attract a lot of hatred. 

But where do you draw the line? 

And, with the example of Mangione, who can say that, “no, our CEO isn’t a target.”  What Board would take the risk, since even an expensive security team is barely a rounding error on major corporations’ balance sheets?

But soon – and amazingly soon – having a security team will be seen as a status symbol for CEOs, starting with massive companies like United Healthcare, then very large corporations, then just large corporations. 

How far down this will go is anybody’s guess, but it will happen, and quickly.  It may have already begun, though if so, it’s not happening enough to be seen as a trend.  Not yet, but soon.

Then this process will be repeated for really large non-for-profit organizations.  You may recall that, after 911, the Red Cross was found to be taking all the many donations they received to channel on to families who lost someone when the twin towers fell.  All Americans – or so it seemed – wanted to help.  I saw groups of young people holding bake sales in the Kroger parking lot, raising money to send to the families, but who would know them but the Red Cross.  Right.

Well, it turned out that the Red Cross had a massive slush fund already in place for massive disasters, so their CEO decided to direct the donations into building up an even larger organizational slush fund. 

CEO Dr. Bernadine Healy, president since 1999, appealed nationally for donations to help survivors and the families of those killed. In short order, they raised $543 million. The Red Cross had promised that all of those funds would be go to the victims’ families.  However, the Red Cross – a Congressional hearing later uncovered – held back two thirds of those funds for other Red Cross “needs.” 

Healy was forced to resign – once Congress had uncovered such a massive cover-up.  Her replacement, not wanting to be tarred with that same brush, made good on the $543 million donated to the families – years before.  Does “a day late and a dollar short” mean anything?

As someone who was horrified by 9/11, I assumed that the funds raised by kids’ bake sales and church collections and thousands other ways that people contributed to the Red Cross, confident that the funds would get to the victims – and fast, when they’d need it most.  And like those millions of people who “did their part,” when I heard what the Red Cross did, I felt betrayed and never gave to them again, even though I worked in the healthcare field and knew that they managed the nation’s largest blood bank.

Some of those betrayed people, Mangione-style, might feel that the Red Cross president, twenty-five years after 9/11, might make a good target.  So they will – or should be – among the first non-profit to get a security guard team for their CEO.  This – or something like it, will lead to the same process in the non-profit world as I predict will happen in the for-profit world. 

For some – like the Red Cross – they have real sins that might only be exonerated by death, at least in the whacked-out mind of Mangione-clones.  There are many unsavory non-profits which spawn anger, but what can you do?  Now the nut-cases know – they have a role model.

But they won’t be the only ones who will soon get security guards.  The next group will do so at government expense.  Some, such as Kamala Harris in her days as a California Senator, already have, having illegally dragooned the Los Angeles Police Department into that role for prestige purposes.

In our heated election cycle, with Trump supporters being cast out of liberal families, and – I imagine, the reverse happening as well, though the media hasn’t covered it – will soon suggest to members of Congress that they aren’t all that well-respected by large sections of the public. 

Including, to be sure, some proto-Mangiones out there.  However, unable to go to the Board Chair for relief, they can just vote themselves tidy personal security programs, and by paying top dollar, they could assume to get the best in the market.  They wouldn’t be wrong.

But here’s where a supply-and-demand problem will arise.  There are only so many professional bodyguards currently working in America – presumably enough to meet the demand, with perhaps a few extra who are “between positions.” 

However, suddenly, almost overnight, the demand for professional bodyguards will vastly outdistance the supply. 

Salaries will – law of supply and demand – skyrocket. 

The highest bidders – Congress, the very largest corporations, and a few of the largest and most unpopular non-profits, like the Red Cross – will pay whatever it takes to get the best. 

At some point, fairly early into this radical transformation of a fairly small “industry,” the supply will be exhausted.  But with demand growing, not stabilizing, the rest of the security guards will be large men – pug-uglies who look intimidating in suits while not having a clue what it takes to be a real security guard. 

Would such a guard deter Mangione?  Unlikely, and since he struck from behind, while amateur security guards will almost certainly look toward where they’re going instead of where they’ve been, very unlikely.  Other motivated proto-Mangiones will mostly get through, ironically creating an even greater demand for security guards, driving up prices for not just the best, but with all the rest, too.

I am not a Nostradamus, but my career has been largely focused on identifying trends ahead of the completion, and because I worked in the hospital field, anyone with an unsatisfactory outcome might decide he now knows how he can “complain” to about a bad outcome or an outrageous hospital bill. 

So yes, I think this can, and most likely will, happen, and quickly.  If I was the CEO of another very large insurance company – and aren’t they all? – I’d have already started the process.  I don’t want to die just because someone had a grudge against my company.  Would you?

Ned Barnett, a frequent contributor to American Thinker dating back to 2006, spent his career in the hospital side of healthcare for more than 25 years, and used that experience to write his first ten books.  He now works with other authors, helping them to write their books as a ghostwriter, or helping them to market, promote and sell their books.  His next book for authors is Write Now!  How to Market, Promote and Sell Your Book.  It’s scheduled to come out in 2025.  Ned can be reached at nedbarnett51@gmail.com or 702-561-1167.

Image: Pixabay, via Picryl // Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication