Robin Hood. Folk Hero. Hottie.

Glorification of Luigi Mangione, the man accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson this month, has been chilling. Sympathy for Mangione’s reported aims has come not only from anonymous online hordes, but also supposedly serious public figures, including at least two federal lawmakers.

This is an escalation of an existing political trend: public bloodlust for destruction and retribution. Americans are rejecting leaders who propose solutions for their problems in favor of antiheroes who want to burn everything down - figuratively or literally.

Americans are furious at not only the health-care system but also all of corporate America. Much of their resentment is understandable. U.S. health care has long been expensive, even for those with insurance, and health outcomes are mediocre relative to our costs. Meanwhile, other major expenses, such as housing, have grown oppressively high.

Politicians used to promise to address these kinds of problems with policies. They often disagreed on the exact mechanism, but the goal was always amending laws and regulations to fix things.

But in recent years, legislative gridlock and rage-baiting political rhetoric have made voters more impatient with this approach. The system is rigged against you, populists preach, so forget trying to fix that system. Instead, let’s blow it all up and punish whoever rigged it in the first place.

Take, for example, Donald Trump, whose incoming administration is preparing mass purges of the “deep state” and prosecutions of the president-elect’s political enemies. His picks to run the FBI and IRS, among others, have pledged to destroy the institutions they would lead.

But this is not solely a right-wing tactic. Populists on the left have also shifted away from pedantic, white-paper-based policymaking toward more “rigged system” rhetoric.

High housing prices, they allege, are driven by a few evil “corporate” investors, not insufficient housing supply and zoning restrictions, complex problems that require complex solutions. High gas prices are likewise the fault of “profiteering” oil corporations, not supply disruptions or producers’ wariness from a recent market crash. Expensive health care is the fault of a few covetous insurance villains rather than a system that encourages administrative waste and enables providers to charge the highest prices in the world.

Do all these corporate actors always behave well? Obviously not. But they’re mostly responding to incentives that markets have set for them. Instead of realigning those incentives, the populist approach emphasizes retribution against perceived villainy - punishing companies for making “excessive” profits, for instance.

Which brings me to the chilling exaltation of Mangione. The suspected shooter’s appeal is not unlike that of politicians who pledge to rain fire on the system on behalf of the people. Until now, that rhetoric had been mostly metaphorical. I fear we’re turning a corner after which voters might come to expect, and celebrate, literal violence against people they believe are conspiring against them.

For instance, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), the erstwhile “I have a plan for that” technocrat, expressed sympathy for Mangione’s brutal answer to the health system’s failures. “The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the health-care system,” she said. “Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far.” (Warren later walked back her remarks.)

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) also came awfully close to condoning vigilantism: “This is not to say that an act of violence is justified, but I think for anyone who is confused or shocked or appalled, they need to understand that people interpret and feel and experience denied claims as an act of violence against them.”

Here’s the thing about indulging this annihilative reflex to infuriating social problems: Besides the obvious moral odiousness, it doesn’t fix the problems.

Murdering health-care executives won’t help more Americans get care. Purging the FBI won’t reduce crime. Jailing political enemies won’t lower egg prices.

It’s easier to break something than to build it. But to solve a problem, something eventually needs to be built. That part is boring, hard and, lately, not well-appreciated by the public.

If you need health-care heroes to valorize, look to those who help, fight and build: Legal-aid attorneys who represent sick people denied health coverage; nurses and doctors at community health centers; clinicians who blow whistles on environmental threats to their patients; social workers who connect low-income families with services. And yes, politicians who’ve worked to help Americans access care.

Catherine Rampell is a Washington Post columnist.