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Last night, a gunman shot and killed two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin and injured a third. This was on the third consecutive night of protests sparked by the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Blake, and unarmed black man, was shot in the back seven times in front of his three young sons, paralyzing him.

Today, US President Donald Trump tweeted that he will be sending federal law enforcement to Wisconsin after getting Governor Tony Evans to agree to the deployment:

It’s clear to anyone who has been following Trump’s response to protests these past few months that the “violence” he hopes to quell is the protests themselves. In reality, though, the most devastating violence in Wisconsin these past few days was at the hands of the police and the young gunman.

What We Know

Speaking of the gunman, there are reports from witnesses that he passed a line of police before the shooting, carrying a large weapon, and they thanked him for being there. Multiple people on the scene claim that he is part of one of the “self-styled militias” that have been present at the protests.

He was arrested in Antioch, Illinois and while authorities initially refused to give his name as he is a minor, various social media posts and now CNN confirm that he is 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse of Antioch. I generally shy away from repeating the names of murderers who crave notoriety, but in this case, it may not be an open-and-shut case legally, plus his influences are relevant, so making him famous could be a necessary step towards getting justice.

So what do we know about him? At this point, not much for sure.

Is he a member of an organised militia? Probably.

Is he a white supremacist? No evidence of that, but it honestly wouldn’t surprise me.

One thing we can tell through his social media posts is that he is very much pro-police. I’m talking cosplay fetish-level pro-cop.

So it’s not too much of a stretch to say that he viewed the protests as a threat. Of course, the fact that he crossed state lines to march around them with a large weapon pretty much confirms that.

Mirroring Trump’s RNC Message

This is all happening while the Republican National Convention is in full swing. One of the recurring themes of the RNC this year is that America is under attack from “dangerous leftist radicals” in groups like Black Lives Matter and Antifa (which isn’t even an organized group, but whatever).

Forget the heady days of “good people on all sides” as a way to normalize white supremacists by drawing a false equivalency with anti-racist and anti-fascist protesters. Now, Trump and his GOP cronies are full-throated police state advocates.

Their messaging is clear: People protesting police violence are a threat! Their messaging to protesters is equally unambiguous: Stay off the streets! If some vigilante influenced by us murders some of you, rest assured that we’re still coming for you, not them!

Whether Rittenhouse was actually inspired directly by what’s being said currently at the RNC or not is irrelevant. The narrative that leftists are dangerous that started with them has now sunk through to other levels of society, including armed 17-year-olds.

Donald Trump’s messaging has casualties in Wisconsin.

Featured Image via Democracy Now!

News

Imagine for a moment, there is a terrorist attack based on ethnic hatred that took place in the heart of America. Now imagine that the President of the United States went on TV and said the victims are just as much to blame as the terrorists. Well, that happened yesterday.

To recap, there was a so-called “unite the right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia which ended up being a unite fans of the Confederacy with the KKK and neo-Nazis. I’m not exaggerating. There were flags with swastikas on them. There were Hitler quotes on t-shirts. David Duke was there. And this followed a nighttime march where they carried tiki torches and chanted Nazi slogans.

There was also a counter-protest made up of people from groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter and some who just didn’t think those proud of their racism and hatred should go unchallenged. If hatemongers can use free speech to defend their ignorant, white supremacist views then it’s good that some people are there to point out that this is, in fact, hate speech and fight it.

Then someone rammed a car into the counter protest, killing one and injuring many. If ramming a car into people on foot is terrorism when an Islamic extremist does it in London, then it clearly is terrorism when a white supremacist does it in Virginia.

Eventually Donald Trump, current President of the United States, made a statement:

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides. On many sides.”

Um, wait, what? The hatred and bigotry were clearly only on one side in Charlottesville (hint: it’s the people carrying the swastika flags, not those opposing them). The violence, in the form of mowing down people with a car, was only on that side, too.

Groups against race-based police assassination of innocent people and groups opposed to fascism in all of its forms, new and old, are not hate groups, they are defenders of human rights. Nazis, the Klan and their associates are hatemongers and a threat.

That is a simple concept that shouldn’t need someone murdering people with a car to prove. But now, even with a white supremacist terrorist attack, the President is still on the fence.

Things couldn’t be clearer. I’m all for nuance, but this time it’s black and white. The guys with the swastika flags, they’re the bad guys. Those with the confederate flags, they’re associates of the bad guys. If you can’t see this, you are either truly ignorant or so obsessed with not alienating your own base that you don’t care if they are the scum of the earth.

If it’s the latter, at least, for now, you’re presidential material. For the rest of us, it’s another sad day when racists can kill and not be labelled as the terrorists that they are.