Why Republicans are embracing Kyle Rittenhouse as their mascot |
Wearing suits and ties, the two men give the camera smiles and thumbs up. One is Donald Trump, former president of the United States. The other is Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed two people at an anti-racism protest. And behind them is a framed photo of Trump meeting the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
The mesmerizing tableau emerged from the ex-president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida earlier this week. It was, in effect, the coronation of Rittenhouse as a future star of the rightwing media, Republican party and “Make America great again” (Maga) movement in their crusade against liberalism.
“Kyle Rittenhouse has become the poster child for a general feeling among some in this country that White America is under siege,” Eddie Glaude, chairman of the department of African American studies at Princeton University, wrote in the Washington Post. “Rittenhouse defended himself, this argument goes, and White America must do the same.”
Rittenhouse was 17 last year when he travelled 20 miles from his home in Antioch, Illinois, to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where racial justice protests had been held since the shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, by a white police officer.
Rittenhouse joined others who said they wanted to protect private property. Armed with an AR-style semiautomatic rifle, he shot and killed two people and wounded a third. In court he argued that he fired in self-defense after he was attacked and in fear for his life.
When a jury acquitted Rittenhouse on all charges earlier this month, progressive activists urged fresh debate on gun safety and vigilantism. But Republican members of Congress wasted no time in lionising Rittenhouse as a victim turned hero.
Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, Matt Gaetz of Florida and Paul Gosar of Arizona floated the idea of offering Rittenhouse an internship in their offices on Capitol Hill. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia trumped them by sponsoring a House bill to award Rittenhouse a congressional gold medal for protecting the community of Kenosha.
Not to be outdone, Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida tipped as a potential presidential candidate in 2024, declared: “Kyle Rittenhouse did what we should want citizens to do in such a situation: step forward to defend the community against mob violence.”
And in light of Rittenhouse’s meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, it would come as no surprise if the now 18-year-old is given a speaking slot at next year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) or a future Republican National Convention (RNC).
Kurt Bardella, an adviser to the Democratic National Committee, said: “It’s very clear that they’re trying to make him their mascot. Any time that your mascot is someone who thought that it was an acceptable form of protest to show up at a political event with an AR-15, that is glorifying violence. And that’s a very dangerous thing to prop up and promote.”
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