When my kids were very young, one of the first words that we banned was “stupid.” No one is stupid, I would tell them; some people just don’t think things through. Well, to borrow from that explanation, I probably didn’t think that all the way through.
While I don’t regret teaching the kids not to use “the S word,” as we used to call it, the older I’ve gotten, I’ve had to face the reality that, yes, some people who otherwise are of sound mind are just stupid. Nowhere is this more evident than on social media. The latest example is a social media manager, of all things, who used to work for UnitedHealthcare. That was until the brass at her employer saw this post of hers, where she gave her take on the most recent assassination attempt on the President of the United States.
Keep in mind, this is a person who gets paid to work as a “professional” in social media, and she’s lacking the good judgment to know you shouldn’t go online to wish harm to someone who’s now had three assassination attempts on his life, and the Secret Service and the FBI both report up to him. Now, that’s stupid. There is no other way to say it.
This dunce’s name is Alison King, and according to Fox News, she was “identified as a social media manager for UnitedHealthcare.” Apparently, she was fired for making a TikTok video where she expressed regret that the president survived this latest attempt on his life, when a shooter targeted President Donald Trump and his administration at the recent White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner.
In the video, King says, “We’re cooked as a country when my first reaction to hearing the news about Trump’s (with a hand motion of a slit throat) attempt was, ‘It was probably fake’…Like, immediately I was like, ‘Oh, that wasn’t real, probably fake.’” She then added sarcastically, “And the second was ‘Aww, they missed? So happy they missed.’ Yeah, that’s sad.’”
Fox News Digital reported that a spokesperson for UnitedHealthcare responded to inquiries about King’s post, saying, “Violence is never acceptable and any comments that suggest otherwise are in no way consistent with our mission and values. The person who made comments online about Saturday night’s incident at a Washington event where President Trump and many other political leaders were gathered is no longer employed by the company.”
Keep in mind, this is a company that on Dec. 4, 2024, lost its own CEO to a successful assassination attempt. That was when Luigi Mangione allegedly pulled a gun and ambushed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson at point-blank range just outside a hotel where Thompson was to attend a business meeting.
You’d think that a social media manager who worked for that company would know that things like assassination attempts, and online chatter about them, are taken quite seriously by the government, by lawyers, by law enforcement agencies —and, oh, by the way, by your own dang employer.
Do you think she might have learned her lesson? You be the judge.