Repercussions - by Greer Clem

The Kenosha shooter is 17 year old Kyle Rittenhouse, an Illinois native who got in his car last night armed with his AR-15 and drove the 32 minutes from his home in Antioch, Illinois to Kenosha, Wisconsin. He wasn’t just armed with his gun but with an ideology that has been increasing in strength over the last four years. 17 years old now, Rittenhouse would have been 13 when Donald Trump ran for office. He would have been 14 during Charlottesville, when Trump responded to the death of a peaceful protestor by saying there were “very fine people on both sides.” His adolescent brain has been soaking in white supremacy and racism like a sponge, storing images of torch-bearing Klansmen screaming into the night in Charlottesville in 2017, of armed alt-right militia men protesting stay-at-home orders in Michigan in May, 2020. He was either fleeing or in custody last night so he probably did not get to see Nick Sandmann speak at the second night of the Republican National Convention, though he likely remembers his smirking face from the viral video in 2019 at the March for Life protest.

But the point is this: in the years since Donald Trump has been elected, Kyle Rittenhouse has watched the President of the United States affirm the worst, darkest beliefs held by people in this country. Trump has rewarded law breakers, defended racists, invoked hatred, and told kids like Kyle that they are justified in their white rage. Trump has called on members of Congress to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” addressing Ilhan Omar, Rashida Talib, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, and Ayanna Presley - all American citizens. He’s never said this to a white person.

Helping to kick off the RNC last night were Mark and Patricia McCloskey - you probably know them better as the couple who pointed their guns at Black Lives Matter protestors in St. Louis this past summer. Mark was armed with an AR-15, the same weapon that Kyle brought with him to Kenosha last night and the same weapon that has now claimed the lives of two people. Speaking from their St. Louis mansion, the McCloskey’s warned “What you saw happen to us could just as easily happen to any of you, who are watching from quiet neighborhoods around our country.” Though the McCklosekys were the only armed participants in the vicinity, they warn of the dangers of black protestors walking through “their” streets. They say to kids like Kyle and to the world: “black people are dangerous. We are armed against them.” And they are richly rewarded by Trump, paraded out before the world as intrepid warriors against an inferior race. This twisted savior complex so loved by gun-toting racists carries across the internet and through the streets and down corridors of the White House. Alt-right members cry out that the liberal Antifa are coming to take their guns, they must protect themselves! Do they know what “Antifa” means or who it comprises? No, but that does not matter! They are coming! This savior/protector bullshit is the same fodder that, in 2016, pushed Edgar Welch to get in his car, armed also with an AR-15, and drive to the Chevy Chase suburb of Washington D.C. ready to liberate child sex slaves from a secret sex dungeon below the pizza restaurant Comet Ping Pong. On his drive Welch must have thought, “I’m going to be an American hero.” I wonder if Kyle thought the same. I’d bet money that he did.

It’s 68 days until the presidential election, but we will be dealing with the repercussions of this administration for decades to come. Kyle was not the first and he will certainly not be the last, but I can promise you that if Trump is re-elected more Kyles who are children now will be watching and they will learn from our response. They will see that Kyle is lauded by many, that guns are a symbol of strength and righteousness. They will hear from Fox and Breitbart and Info Wars that the Left is trying to take their rights and they will fight back. And they will do it all knowing that President Trump is giving them a sly nod, a gentle nudge, a complicit grin. Trump runs on fear, that cheap commodity bought in bulk and used by dictators for thousands of years. We have to fight that fear with information. We have to cry out against injustice, to paint history’s portrait so that is truly reflects right and wrong. Maybe Kyle could have turned out different - to be honest, I don’t give a shit about him. What is certain, however, is that two people were alive yesterday and are not today. We need to tell the truth about why that is, and we need to hold Donald Trump accountable for his role. Donald Trump and his administration are a threat to non-white lives everywhere. On November 3, we - especially young white voters - need to show him, and Kyle, that we will not stand for that threat.