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Kyle Rittenhouse Didn't Act Alone: Law Enforcement Must Be Held Accountable
The massive show of force from 40 law enforcement agencies in Kenosha didn’t make anyone safer.
Nov 21, 2021
For two weeks, we've heard trial testimony and seen evidence of the events that occurred on August 25, 2020 -- the night that Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two people and injured another during a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. While Rittenhouse was not held accountable, he was not the only one whose conduct on that deadly night should be scrutinized. The actions -- and inaction -- of the Kenosha Police Department and the Kenosha County Sheriff's Department in the preceding 72 hours played a critical part in the tragic events that took place.
As we reflect on that night, we must remember what ignited these protests. Two months after the murder of George Floyd, on August 23, 2020, Kenosha Police shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, in the back multiple times, paralyzing him. Faced with this latest manifestation of law enforcement's systemic mistreatment and disregard for the lives of Black and Brown people, people took to the streets of Kenosha. Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth oversaw law enforcement's response to these protests, including the coordination of over 40 local, state, and federal agencies.
The day after Kenosha Police shot Mr. Blake, former city alderman and self-proclaimed commander of the Kenosha Guard Kevin Mathewson wrote a racially charged "call to action" inviting armed civilians to protect Kenosha from "evil thugs" the following day. The comments on his Facebook invitation, corresponding Reddit threads, and Infowars degenerated into racist threats to kill and maim protestors.
On the night of August 25, law enforcement not only failed to protect protestors calling for police accountability and more humane treatment of Black people, but actively put them in harm's way. Officers enabled and encouraged predominantly white, right-wing armed civilians and militia groups that night, creating a situation in which tensions escalated and people were killed.
Following the violence in Kenosha, an investigative team at the ACLU filed approximately 40 public records requests to local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies; reviewed more than 800 records and 50 hours of video footage; and conducted over 40 in-depth interviews with community members to better understand what happened in Kenosha and how we can avoid these tragedies in the future. Here is what we found:
Kenosha law enforcement was aware of the threats that these armed civilians and militia groups posed to protestors exercising their First Amendment rights. Mathewson asked Sheriff Beth and Kenosha Police Chief David Miskinis to deputize these armed civilians and militia groups, noting that more than 3,000 people accepted the online invitation to "protect" the city. In addition to this correspondence, community members in Kenosha contacted law enforcement with concerns for their safety after reading this online vitriol. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security told local law enforcement that the Boogaloo Bois, a right-wing group with a history of violence, were planning an event in Kenosha on August 24. The Federal Bureau of Investigation also warned that the conflicting ideologies of protestors and these armed civilians and militia groups could "potentially be a flashpoint for violence" the next day.
Despite the obvious safety threats, law enforcement embraced the incendiary presence of armed civilians and militia groups. In a widely seen video, law enforcement thanked and even offered water to the armed civilians and militia groups attending the protests, as they instructed those protesting police brutality to leave. In text messages retrieved through our public records requests, after someone circulated a video of the Rittenhouse shootings, a Waukesha County Sheriff's Department officer commented "nice video" in a message to colleagues and added that he was "[l]istening to gunfire. Such a nice night."
In fact, it appears Kenosha law enforcement coordinated an effort to push protestors south on Sheridan Road, towards armed civilians and militia groups. Ryan Thomas Balch, an armed civilian affiliated with the Boogaloo Bois, was recorded saying on the night of the shootings, "Do you know what the cops told us today? They were like, 'We're gonna push them down by you, because you can deal with them, and then we're gonna leave.'" In an August 26, 2020 written statement, Balch added, "K[enosha] P[olice] D[epartment] made a conscious decision to abandon the people of Kenosha to people they felt justified in using machines and weapons of war against. And were going to piss them off and drive them at us and let the chips fall where they may."
The Kenosha County Sheriff's Department, led by Sheriff Beth, commanded law enforcement agencies to clear Civic Center Park and push protestors south towards the danger that lay multiple blocks from the park at the intersection of 60th and Sheridan. Multiple law enforcement officers documented their knowledge that armed civilians and militia members were concentrated in that direction, near 60th and Sheridan. Officers from various law enforcement agencies described the use of armored vehicles, foam bullets, tear gas, and flash bangs to herd protestors from the park toward the intersection, and to prevent the return of protestors to the park. After pushing the protestors south for over an hour, Kenosha law enforcement took a strategically timed break, consistent with Balch's description. These efforts were well documented in the records our investigative team obtained:
- 9:43 pm: The Kenosha County Sheriff's Department documented "gas being deployed in front of the courthouse, goal to push crowd south."
- 10:32 pm: Kenosha Police Department dispatched patrol to 58th and 8th to "keep crowd moving south on Sheridan."
- 10:40 pm: Three bearcats moved south from 56th on Sheridan.
- 10:44 pm: Law enforcement continued to push protestors down the road.
- 10:57 pm: Law enforcement took a break.
- 11:12 pm: The Waukesha County Sheriff's Department reported that protestors "have been pushed south and we are holding our position at the park."
- 11:40 pm: Bearcats from Racine, Walworth, Waukesha, and Sauk Counties held protestors at 60th and Sheridan, and noted a loud crowd at the gas station.
- 11:44 pm: An Oneida County bearcat moved to 60th and Sheridan.
- 11:50 pm: Rittenhouse shootings begin at 63rd and Sheridan.
The West Allis Police Department also described its actions:
At the request of tactical command, the armored vehicles and crowd control [o]fficers would direct the protestors south and hold or move the protestors south and back away north. Tactical command requested several times for this process to occur which led to the protestors being directed as far south as 60th St. & Sheridan.
Three important lessons emerge from this tragedy.
First, entrenched racism contributed to the events that unfolded. Make no mistake, the shooting of Jacob Blake and the related protests and fatalities stem from the deep-seated white supremacy that pervades our criminal legal system. Police officers brutalizing people of color who are protesting that very brutality and leaving people of color and their supporters at the mercy of armed white vigilantes is a pattern that recalls the origin of American police in slave patrols. These patrols sought to capture and return formerly enslaved people to the violence of enslavement, and their later connections to white supremacist agitation during the Civil Rights movement are echoed in the violence seen in Kenosha. In today's world, Black and Brown people are not only targeted by police and frequently treated as presumptively guilty, but white people brandishing weapons of war are given the benefit of the doubt and even encouraged by officers of those same police agencies.
Second, law enforcement must not be permitted to weaponize the presence of armed civilians and militia. Jacob Blake's shooting and the subsequent tragic, fatal shootings by Rittenhouse should usher in a significant wave of change, not only in Wisconsin but across the nation. Kenosha is not even the latest example of this pattern of police ignoring (at best) or facilitating (at worst) white mob violence: Following the January 6 insurrection, it was revealed that over 30 off-duty police officers attended the rally, and several joined the mob that stormed the Capitol. We must reexamine the roles and powers of police in American society, and listen to the communities of color in Kenosha and elsewhere that are calling for new approaches to public safety that protect all people, regardless of the color of their skin.
Finally, more officers and weapons do not increase safety. Law enforcement should play no role in protests, unless it is to protect our First Amendment rights, and they should not use violence to control the crowd or silence those they disagree with. Beyond the context of protests, there is little evidence that police effectively prevent or reduce violence, while there are many alternatives to policing that do make communities safer.
As our investigation illustrates, approximately 40 local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies responded to the protests in Kenosha, utilizing various forms of force against protestors. This massive show of force failed to keep people safe -- and in fact facilitated grave harm by pushing protesters into close proximity with Kyle Rittenhouse and other armed white civilians. The violence that night is a further reminder that well-resourced law enforcement agencies are failing to protect and even harming the communities they are sworn to serve. It's time to acknowledge this failure and invest in measures that actually keep communities safe.
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'Saddening, Infuriating, and Utterly Unsurprising': Rittenhouse Acquitted
The verdict, said the Huber family, sends the "unacceptable message" that armed vigilantes can "use the danger they have created to justify shooting people in the street."
Nov 19, 2021
Racial justice advocates reacted with outrage and a complete lack of surprise Friday after a Kenosha, Wisconsin jury found Illinois teenager Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty on all charges for killing two men and wounding a third during a 2020 protest against the police shooting of Jacob Blake, with some observers asserting that the verdict encourages vigilante attacks on protestors.
"Judge Bruce Schroeder presented a case study in how the judiciary upholds systems of white supremacy. And he's no anomaly."
Rejecting the prosecution's assertion that "you cannot claim self-defense against a danger you create," the nearly all-white jury acquitted Rittenhouse, who was 17 years old when he shot and killed Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle on August 25, 2020.
"We are heartbroken and angry that Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted in his criminal trial for the murder of our son Anthony Huber," the slain 26-year-old's family said in a statement. "There was no justice today for Anthony, or for Mr. Rittenhouse's other victims."
"Today's verdict means there is no accountability for the person who murdered our son," the statement continued. "It sends the unacceptable message that armed civilians can show up in any town, incite violence, and then use the danger they have created to justify shooting people in the street."
Speaking outside the Kenosha County Courthouse after the verdict, Justin Blake, Jacob Blake's uncle, contended that "from day one, the judge had his hand on the scale."
"He didn't allow pictures. He didn't allow videotapes. He didn't allow. He didn't allow. He didn't allow," he said. "He was doing everything he could to allow this young man to leave the courtroom clear and free. It put blinds on the eyes of the jurors, and maybe because he did it, they didn't see the evidence how they could have seen it."
"He was doing everything he could to allow this young man to leave the courtroom clear and free," Blake added.
The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence said it could "not forget the root of this issue."
"Kyle Rittenhouse murdered two people during protests against the police shooting of Jacob Blake," the group continued, referring to the Black man shot seven times in the back and paralyzed by Kenosha cop Rusten Sheskey. No charges were filed against Sheskey, who remains an officer today.
"Jacob Blake has yet to receive justice," Brady Center added. "We must continue to fight America's systemic racism, which fuels police violence and white vigilantism."
Stosh Cotler, CEO of Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, said in a statement that "Rittenhouse's acquittal shows how the criminal justice system is designed to protect racist vigilantism."
"When Rittenhouse went to Kenosha last year he was continuing a long and ugly history in this country of white supremacists responding to multiracial movements for justice and civil rights with violence, and then claiming to be the victim," Cotler asserted.
"We saw this truth from the moment police allowed him to leave the scene after killing two people," he added, as well as "his brutal actions championed by politicians and pundits who routinely manufacture fear and division in order to hold onto power."
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) said in a statement that the verdict "is saddening, infuriating, and utterly unsurprising."
"It came at the end of a trial in which Judge Bruce Schroeder went out of his way to favor Rittenhouse in ways that would have been inconceivable were the defendant a Black person who had taken a semi-automatic rifle to a protest and killed two people," the group argued.
CCR continued:
After an aspiring militia leader invited "patriots" to combat "evil thugs," Rittenhouse, an Illinois, resident, was one of a group of heavily armed, pro-police paramilitaries who descended on the protests in Kenosha and to whom the local police provided their gratitude, support and encouragement.
Not surprisingly, Rittenhouse, with his link to the Proud Boys, has become a hero to white nationalists and many on the right. His racist vigilantism adds him to a long line of racist vigilantes, including George Zimmerman--Trayvon Martin's killer--and the three white men now on trial in Georgia for killing Ahmaud Arbery. Their actions are set against the backdrop of ongoing law-enforcement targeting and surveillance of Black-led organizing.
The People's City Council of Los Angeles said "white supremacy will do whatever it can to protect itself. Kyle Rittenhouse getting off should surprise no one."
"America is a racist, anti-Black country," the group added. "White supremacists around the country will now be emboldened to hunt down protestors."
Rashad Robinson, president of the racial justice group Color of Change, said in a statement that "Kyle Rittenhouse's acquittal doesn't just add insult to injury in this horrific case, it sends a dangerous and twisted message about how the legal system coddles white defendants accused of unconscionable crimes."
"For too long, the system--judges, lawyers, police officers--has accepted this as the norm, but we cannot tolerate this kind of negligence anymore; it's literally killing us," he continued. "Throughout the trial, we've seen the structural inequities within the legal system on full display."
"From dismissing the underage weapons charge to politicizing the straightforward facts of Rittenhouse's case, Kenosha County Judge Bruce Schroeder presented a case study in how the judiciary upholds systems of white supremacy," Robinson added. "And he's no anomaly. His behavior underscores how the entire legal apparatus perpetuates the existence of two criminal justice systems: one for white people and another for Black people."
U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) tweeted: "Kyle Rittenhouse is living proof that white tears can still forestall justice. A murderer is once again walking free today--our system is terribly broken."
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Bond Modification Sought After Alleged Kenosha Killer Kyle Rittenhouse Drinks Beer, Flashes White Power Signs With So-Called 'Proud Boys'
"The defendant's continued association with members of a group that prides itself on violence, and the use of their symbols, raises the significant possibility of future harm."
Jan 13, 2021
Criminal justice reform advocates on Thursday reaffirmed calls for cash bail reform following reports that Kyle Rittenhouse, the alleged killer of two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin last August, was recently spotted drinking in a bar and flashing white power signs with men who local prosecutors said in a court filing were neo-fascist Proud Boys.
Kenosha County prosecutors on Wednesday asked a judge to modify Rittenhouse's bond agreement after he was seen visiting Pudgy's Pub in Mount Pleasant with his mother on January 5, the same day he pleaded not guilty to first-degree intentional homicide charges in connection with the shooting deaths of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber at a Black Lives Matter protest on August 25, 2020.
The August demonstration was one of many that followed the police shooting and paralysis of Jacob Blake, a Black man. Rittenhouse quickly became a cause celebre among white nationalists and other far-right figures, who claimed he acted in self-defense and helped raise the funds to cover his $2 million bond.
Now prosecutors want the 18-year-old Rittenhouse banned from bars and from fraternization with white supremacists following surveillance footage showing him in the bar apparently drinking beers while wearing a "Free as Fuck" t-shirt, flashing white power signs, and posing for maskless photos with apparent Proud Boys supporters, who loudly serendaded the alleged killer with "Proud of Your Boy," a song from the 1992 Disney film Aladdin coopted as the hate group's unofficial anthem.
People ages 18-20 can legally drink alcohol in Wisconsin if accompanied by a parent, guardian, or spouse. However, prosecutors argued that "the defendant's continued association with members of a group that prides itself on violence, and the use of their symbols, raises the significant possibility of future harm."
"Further, this association may serve to intimidate potential witnesses, who may be unwilling to testify in this case because they may fear that the defendant's associates with harm them or their families," they added.
Cash bail abolitionists and other progressive observers were quick to note the hypocrisy of so-called law-and-order conservatives who oppose criminal justice reform--unless the criminals in question espouse their beliefs.
Others noted the disparities in treatment between Black victims of police shootings and white supremacist shooters like Rittenhouse--an aspiring cop who was praised by officers before he allegedly killed Rosenbaum and Huber and was then allowed to go home after shooting them.
Proud Boys have a history of violent attacks and were prominent participants in both the 2017 United the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia--where antiracism protester Heather Heyer was killed--and the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection incited by President Donald Trump, some Republican members of Congress, and others peddling lies that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen."
Although Proud Boys are a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group, Trump has been reluctant to condemn them. At a 2020 presidential debate last September, Trump told Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by," remarks widely interpreted as a shout-out and marching orders.
Rittenhouse is due back in court on March 10 for his first pre-trial appearance.
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'Justice Was Not Served': No Charges Against Kenosha Cop Who Shot and Paralyzed Jacob Blake
"We feel this decision failed not only Jacob and his family, but the community that protested and demanded justice," said his attorneys.
Jan 04, 2021
A Wisconsin district attorney announced Tuesday that he will not file criminal charges against a white Kenosha officer, Rusten Sheskey, who on August 23 shot Jacob Blake in the back several times at point-blank range near a vehicle containing his children, paralyzing the Black 29-year-old and sparking deadly protests against police violence.
"This was a tragedy first and foremost for Jacob Blake, who still suffers from grievous injuries," said Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley during a Tuesday press conference while also revealing that "no Kenosha law enforcement officer in this case will be charged with any criminal offense based on the facts and the laws."
The decision drew condemnation from civil rights defenders and advocates of police reform who have long criticized U.S. law enforcement's treatment of people of color.
Ben Crump--a nationally renowned civil rights attorney retained by the family of Jacob Blake and others injured or killed by police--along with co-counsels Patrick A. Salvi II and B'Ivory LaMarr said in a joint statement that they were "immensely disappointed" in Graveley's decision "not to charge the officers involved in this horrific shooting."
"We feel this decision failed not only Jacob and his family, but the community that protested and demanded justice," the lawyers said. "Officer Sheskey's actions sparked outrage and advocacy throughout the country, but the district attorney's decision not to charge the officer who shot Jacob in the back multiple times, leaving him paralyzed, further destroys trust in our justice system."
"This sends the wrong message to police officers throughout the country. It says it is OK for police to abuse their power and recklessly shoot their weapon, destroying the life of someone who was trying to protect his children," they added. "It is now our duty to broaden the fight for justice on behalf of Jacob and the countless other Black men and women who are victims of racial injustice and police brutality in this country."
The lawyers vowed that they "will continue to press forward with a civil lawsuit and fight for systemic change in policing and transparency at all levels," and urged people across the country to "continue to raise their voices and demand change in peaceful and positive ways during this emotional time."
Chris Ott, executive director of the ACLU of Wisconsin, similarly expressed disappointment that the district attorney decided against "holding police accountable for another example of their repeated use of excessive force against people of color."
"This continues the cycle of enabling police violence and evading accountability when they seriously injure and harm a Black person," Ott said in a statement. "Based on the video footage of the incident, it remains hard to see any reason to shoot Mr. Blake in the back repeatedly. But, as we've seen so many times before, the police in this case were held to a different standard of responsibility than the rest of us."
"Kenosha has given another terrible example in a national pattern of police using excessive force against people of color during routine encounters, escalating situations instead of defusing them and then being given a pass," he said. "This officer will continue with his career with the mistaken belief that he has done no wrong, while Jacob Blake will remain paralyzed and left to deal with the consequences of this officer's actions. Today, justice was not served."
Denouncing Graveley's decision as "foul and shameful," NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson said, "It is yet another stark reminder of the free-willing atrocities committed against Black people at the hands of those entrusted to maintain public safety."
The district attorney explained Tuesday that he "would have to disprove the clear expression of these officers that they had to fire a weapon to defend themselves," and he did not believe the state would be able to do so.
According to the Associated Press:
Sheskey fired seven times, hitting Blake in the back four times and in the side three times, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Graveley said the shots in the side show [Blake] had twisted toward the officer.
Graveley showed reporters an enlarged photo of what he said was Blake's knife, adding that Blake acknowledged to investigators he had it. The district attorney walked reporters through how he would have prosecuted the case, saying jurors would have had to put themselves in Sheskey's position and that the officer's self-defense claims would have held up given the circumstances of the case.
[...] The officers were not equipped with body cameras.
Carl Takei, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Trone Center for Justice and Equality said, "This decision--and the prosecutor's reliance on tropes of superhuman Black men to justify police fears--should not come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to police's role in Black communities since they began as slave patrols."
"All of this emphasizes how the criminal legal system, from police to prosecutors, have functioned to oppress and harm Black people," Takei added. "While accountability for the officer might have led to some semblance of justice, real justice would have been Jacob Blake never being shot in the first place."
Ahead of the announcement, the AP noted, Kenosha's Common Council "on Monday night unanimously approved an emergency resolution giving the mayor the power to impose curfews, among other things, and Gov. Tony Evers activated 500 National Guard troops to assist."
Johnson of the NAACP declared that "at this moment, the work of the American people is clear: we must continue to fight, organize, and mobilize against police brutality. Far too many Black lives have been damaged or lost due to the egregious malpractice of police officers, elected officials, and the justice system as a whole. While the visions of Jacob Blake, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others play over and over in our minds, we must not grow weary until we've achieved police liability and substantive change is realized."
Outrage over Blake's shooting led to protests this summer as part of a national wave of racial justice demonstrations that began after Minneapolis police killed George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, in May.
During Kenosha's summer protests, Kyle Rittenhouse, a white teenager from Illinois, allegedly shot and killed two protesters and wounded a third. Rittenhouse, who turned 18 after the incident, pleaded not guilty to all charges at a Tuesday hearing.
"This is sickening. No charges for the cop who shot Jacob Blake seven times, and meanwhile Kyle Rittenhouse is out on bail," Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of the advocacy group Indivisible, tweeted Tuesday. "There is no justice. The system is rotten to the core."
Scott Roberts, senior director of criminal justice campaigns at Color of Change, said Tuesday that "in the absence of justice today, Kenosha deserves a full accounting of the clear misconduct in this case and an commitment to protect Black communities from this form of violence that has been allowed to run rampant in our country."
"America's policing problem has always been a threat to public safety, but the issue is spiraling in Kenosha," Roberts said. "The crisis in Kenosha reveals the ugly, racist double-standard of American policing where an armed white gunman can be detained peacefully while an unarmed Black man gets seven bullets in his spine."
Roberts reiterated his organization's call for the removal of Sheskey and Kenosha Police Chief Daniel Miskinis as well as a U.S. Justice Department probe of the city police department's policies, in addition to its investigation into this case.
He also urged President-elect Joe Biden to "upend our policing system and reimagine public safety in a way that protects and affirms Black lives," emphasizing that "as local officials continue to allow police violence to go unchecked, we desperately need the president-elect to follow through on his commitments to police accountability by using the full force of the federal government to investigate individual police shootings, police departments as a whole, and the prosecutors who give them cover."
This post has been updated to reflect additions to the Associated Press report.
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'Hurts to Breathe... to Sleep... to Move... to Eat': In First Public Remarks Since Being Shot, Jacob Blake Describes Constant Pain
"Every 24 hours it's pain, nothing but pain."
Sep 07, 2020
Speaking publicly for the first time since police officers shot him in the back seven times at point-blank range, Jacob Blake on Saturday said he is in constant pain as a result of the shooting and--while referring to his probable paralysis from the waist down--reminded listeners just how quickly everything "can be taken from you."
Blake's family's lawyer, Ben Crump, shared the video on Saturday night via Twitter. From his hospital bed, Blake told viewers "there's a lot more life to live," but to not take anything for granted because "your life... your legs, something that you need to move around and move forward in life," can be stripped away in an instant.
Blake explained he has staples in his back and stomach and described the extent of his suffering. "Every 24 hours it's pain, nothing but pain," he said. "It hurts to breathe, it hurts to sleep, it hurts to move from side-to-side, it hurts to eat."
Urging those watching to change their lives, Blake also called for social cooperation and insisted on the importance of economic opportunity, which he said would "make everything easier for our people out here."
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Trump's Fascist Signaling Is Going to Create More Kyle Rittenhouses
The president's re-election depends on fence-sitting Americans in swing states excusing fascist-inspired violence in order to feel safe. That's a strategy straight out of the fascist playbook.
Sep 02, 2020
It's not hyperbole to say that President Trump is encouraging right-wing domestic terrorism.
After a white supremacist killed one and injured nearly two dozen others in a 2017 terrorist attack against protesters in Charlottesville, Trump initially condemned the violence, saying the hate groups present were "repugnant." The next day, he reversed course, saying there were "very fine people on both sides," even though one side almost entirely consisted of the same hate groups he maligned the day prior who chanted slogans like "Jews will not replace us." Trump's remarks were celebrated by neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin.
But in 2020, there's apparently no longer any need for Trump to pretend to dislike domestic terrorism carried out against his political enemies. In fact, he's signaling to his most rabid followers that he wants more of it. Despite getting a straight-down-the-middle, home-plate pitch from a journalist to speak out against 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse's alleged murder of two protesters and alleged injuring of a third in Kenosha last week, Trump insisted Rittenhouse--whose contingent in Kenosha included a man who routinely posted neo-Nazi propaganda on social media--was acting in self-defense.
REPORTER: "Do you condemn the actions of vigilantes like Kyle Rittenhouse?"
TRUMP: "We're looking at all of it. It was an interesting situation. We saw the same thing and he was trying to get away from them... And he fell, and then they very violently attacked him."
Legally, it would be difficult for Rittenhouse to effectively claim self-defense, given that his mother drove him across state lines with an assault rifle he isn't old enough to legally carry to shoot people (instead of staying home and doing what normal 17-year-olds do, like TikTok or homework). But the defense of Rittenhouse isn't even the worst part. Trump went further to suggest all non-Republican political ideology was inherently dangerous to society.
"Law-abiding suburbanites who get their information from Facebook and local TV news will be the voters who decide whether or not a man who encourages white supremacist domestic terrorists to kill Americans in the streets gets to be the most powerful person in the world for another four years. America simply won't recover after another four years of Trump."
"We have to stop this horrible left-wing ideology that seems to be permeating our country," Trump said at the end of his press conference. "I was with the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, and he was explaining they wouldn't put up with it for a minute."
Trump very likely knows by now that his base is both eager and more than capable of committing acts of political violence. Kyle Rittenhouse was in the front row of a Trump rally as recently as January. Trump supporter Cesar Sayoc mailed pipe bombs to news outlets and prominent Democrats that Trump attacked. The man who killed 20 people at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 wrote a manifesto that borrowed heavily from Trump's remarks about undocumented immigrants.
Trump's suggestion that "horrible" left-wing ideology must be stopped could very well be interpreted by the Rittenhouses and Sayocs of America that they need to take up arms against the political left, and that if they do so, they can claim self-defense.
This was likely the impetus behind herds of Trump supporters swarming on Portland, Oregon, driving into crowds of protesters, spraying pepper spray at protesters through open windows, and shooting paintball guns at them. Ironically, it's the same thing that Trump warned would happen in 2018, when he suggested a caravan of undocumented immigrants was going to invade cities and attack citizens. Except the caravans are his most loyal supporters.
Since early June, Portland State University professor Alexander Reid Ross has been documenting the campaign of unprecedented violence that far-right militias and homegrown terrorists have been waging against largely peaceful protesters. Ross' interactive map of either outright violence against or menacing of protesters shows hundreds of incidents in hundreds of counties in virtually every state in the country.
As Ross told me in an interview, the summer of right-wing terrorism that's been sweeping the U.S. is not unlike ISIS' targeted terror attacks in Europe over the past several years.
"Image boards like 8kun, 8chan, when they see this kind of thing, there's no other word for it than jubilation. And that kind of celebration of extreme violence and murder, with a political end, I don't know how else you would define that," Ross told me. "What you usually find when you study terrorism is that it's not necessarily designed to carry out a direct objective other than the heightening of political tensions and oppositions. It's there to polarize... That's what leads me to believe that the objective is in fact terrorism."
President Trump's re-election depends on fence-sitting Americans in swing states excusing fascist-inspired violence in order to feel safe. And as Robert Paxton wrote in "Anatomy of Fascism," that's a strategy straight out of the fascist playbook.
Fascist violence was neither random nor indiscriminate. It carried a well-calculated set of coded messages: That communist violence was rising, that the democratic state was responding to it ineptly, and that only the fascists were tough enough to save the nation from antinational terrorists. An essential step in the fascist march to acceptance and power was to persuade law-and-order conservatives and members of the middle class to tolerate fascist violence as a harsh necessity in the face of Left provocation.
While this may seem painfully on-the-nose for some people reading this, others will certainly be duped. Columnist Andrew Sullivan--a product of elitist institutions like Harvard University and New York magazine--essentially admitted he preferred fascism if it meant overly militant protests would be squashed.
"If one party supports everything I believe in but doesn't believe in maintaining law and order all the time and everywhere, I'll back a party that does. In that sense, I'm a one-issue voter, because without order, there is no room for any other issue," Sullivan wrote. "Disorder always and everywhere begets more disorder; the minute the authorities appear to permit such violence, it is destined to grow. And if liberals do not defend order, fascists will."
Given the threat of another four years of fascist terror, it brings me no pleasure to say Joe Biden will need every swing state vote he can get--even despite his latest $45 million ad buy condemning rioting and looting. Strategically it makes sense; Biden knows the people protesting police brutality will never vote for Trump. What he needs are votes in swing states like Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Wisconsin from people who think like Andrew Sullivan does. It's the reason he picked a lifelong cop to be his running mate, rather than someone more progressive like Elizabeth Warren or Karen Bass.
As disappointing as it is to admit, the God-fearing, police-respecting Andrew Sullivans of swing-state America are far more numerous than the people marching in the streets against police terror. They will be the ones who decide whether or not a fascist whose negligence during a global pandemic has led to tens of thousands of preventable deaths will remain in charge of the federal government for another half-decade. Law-abiding suburbanites who get their information from Facebook and local TV news will be the voters who decide whether or not a man who encourages white supremacist domestic terrorists to kill Americans in the streets gets to be the most powerful person in the world for another four years. America simply won't recover after another four years of Trump.
When having to choose whether or not we want to fight an authoritarian fascist regime or a spineless neoliberal administration, the answer is clear.
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