Politics

Kyle Rittenhouse, All American Killer

Violent white vigilantism is on trial in Kenosha, Wisconsin

If Kyle Rittenhouse had perhaps rehearsed and then delivered his sobbing, gasping but notably tearless emotional breakdown at the precise moment he first began describing the numerous killings he committed under the guidance of his shrewd legal team, Judge Bruce Schroeder gave the performance a helpful boost of credibility by pausing his testimony long enough to allow young Kyle a chance to regain his seemingly lost composure.

The teenaged killer returned to the stand ten minutes later in complete control of his faculties, coolly jousting with prosecutor Thomas Binger for the remainder of the afternoon, and parrying many of his questions with relative ease. Clearly, this young man was extremely well-prepared for cross examination by his attorneys, and it showed in his confidence on the stand.

Still, Kyle Rittenhouse did eventually run into some trouble when it came down to the fundamentals, namely in his total inability to provide any coherent explanation to the jury for illegally possessing an AR-15 assault rifle at a tense street protest against police brutality and racial injustice, where he admitted he falsely claimed to be a medic.

Indeed, Kyle Rittenhouse seemed to be at a loss, saying he brought the gun for protection, while simultaneously emphasizing that he felt he would not need to use it. It’s a contradiction in terms, and untrue, since he used his weapon multiple times to deadly effect.

This seems to be the question at the heart of this trial: why did Kyle Rittenhouse actually come from his home in Antioch, Illinois to Kenosha, Wisconsin armed to the teeth with a military style assault rifle? The stark reality is that he is not trained as a medic or a cop, and yet he deliberately inserted himself into an extraordinarily combustible situation, heavily armed and seemingly looking for trouble.

He found it. The fact that numerous fatalities resulted from his actions in Kenosha that night is hardly surprising. It’s par for the course. Guns beget violence, and America loves its guns.

The prosecutor made it clear that he believed Kyle Rittenhouse was acting as a law unto himself that night, a vigilante teenaged killer rendering murderous street justice at the end of the barrel of his AR-15.

Rittenhouse seemed to be trying to suggest that it was only the actions of others that placed him into a life or death situation where he was forced to kill, as anyone would, to save himself.

It’s a deeply flawed rationale. Yet it still might work on this jury, in a gun-addicted America that is being pried apart by the kind of violent white political vigilantism personified by this kid.

This case has captured America’s attention like nothing since Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s dramatic trial and subsequent conviction for murdering George Floyd, another case that carried similar political and cultural meaning to an American public bitterly divided along partisan lines.

Indeed, Kyle Rittenhouse is at the center of the current churning discussion over guns, race, and policing in our politics, and his trial will ultimately act as yet another referendum within American society.

Do we accept the lethal white vigilantism Kyle Rittenhouse represents? This is our dilemma.

It is a moral and practical question the American right has answered in the affirmative, elevating this boy-murderer to the status of conservative folk hero and cause celebre.

It’s reminiscent of when the Republican Party offered a prime time speaking slot in their political convention to Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the couple who infamously aimed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters peacefully marching past their St. Louis home. The couple later resolved their misdemeanor indictments by paying a small fine.

Indeed, Donald Trump’s Republican Party openly celebrates violent white vigilantism, in an America with a shrinking white population, amidst an increasingly ferocious backlash to political and racial plurality from a radicalized right-wing.

The fact that Kyle Rittenhouse has been seen hanging around with ultranationalist Proud Boys in the run up to his trial simply completes the portrait. The connective tissue between this young vigilante killer and the GOP’s ongoing attack against American democracy is extensive.

It’s no coincidence that Kyle Rittenhouse is being feted by the same extremists who attacked the U.S. Capitol in the name of halting Donald Trump’s election loss. His first lawyer, L. Lin Wood, was intimately involved in Stop the Steal.

The dark swirling forces that would cause Republicans to celebrate a teenaged killer are the same ones behind the withering of our democracy: white America’s violent political decline.

This is a classically American story of guns, white vigilante violence, and deadly impunity. It’s playing out not just in this Kansas courtroom, but across the United States of America.

It’s in the murder trial of the three white men who murdered Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery. It’s in the various legal proceedings attempting to hold the violent insurrectionists responsible for their assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6. It’s in the ignored subpoenas being issued by the House to Trump’s accomplices to compel them to testify about the insurrection.

The facts of this case are well known. Closing arguments begin Monday, and then the case goes to the jury. All that remains is for Kyle Rittenhouse’s admitted violence to be interpreted under the law. Was it self-defense or vigilantism? Should he be condemned or celebrated?

As our democracy buckles under the pressure of violent white extremism, Kyle Rittenhouse finds himself at the dark nexus of right-wing America’s terrifying embrace of political violence. Did he place himself in that situation, or was he forced there? The answer seems obvious.

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