Trump-Inspired Murders in Kenosha

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

One evening late last January Donald Trump was haranguing a crowd at a hate-infused rally in Des Moines, and there, soaking it all up like a thirsty sponge, sat a young man on the front row who had turned seventeen only a month before.  That youngster, a kid by the name of Kyle Rittenhouse, seemed to have had two causes in his life - guns and support of police - or three causes if you count Trump.

Kyle's family had taken a photograph of him as a preschooler holding a large automatic weapon with his finger on the trigger.  The gun was almost as big as he was.  And in high school he had been involved in a police "cadet" program where he was supposedly schooled in some of the basic tactics used by law enforcement officers.

That night at the rally in Des Moines he paid rapt attention as Donald Trump snarled out his standard stump speech with its focus on dividing America into "us" and "them," and with with all of the Trump dog whistles in support of racism and white supremacy.  Kyle returned to his home in Antioch, Illinois, the following day undoubtedly more committed to serving his country through the active support of its police.

Last week after riots broke out in Kenosha, Wisconsin, when one of that city's policemen shot a black man in the back seven times as he was walking away and trying to get in his vehicle, Kyle responded to a Facebook post asking that armed civilians rush to Kenosha to protect property from vandals and looters - an act supposedly in support of the police there.  

Kyle was on "patrol" with his large automatic rifle as the situation began escalating.   At some point he began firing into the crowd of protesters.  One young man, Anthony Huber, a 26-year-old from Silver Lake, Wisconsin, known for his love of skateboarding, rushed at Kyle and attempted to knock the rifle from his grasp with a skateboard, but Kyle fired and killed the man.  Then he shot two more.   Thirty-six-year-old Joseph "Jojo" Rosenbaum of Kenosha, the father of a two-year-old daughter, was killed, and 26-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz was wounded in the arm.

Kyle, who described the evening's carnage as his "job," then ran toward the police line with his weapon strapped to his back.  He was captured on video telling someone over his phone as he ran that "I just killed a guy!"

It was definitely a big night for the teen cop wannabe!

When Kyle got to the police line, he made his way through it, with his rifle still strapped to his back, and got to his vehicle, and managed to drive the twenty miles back to his home in Antioch, Illinois, on his suspended driver's license.  He was arrested the following day for "intentional homicide" by Illinois authorities and is awaiting extradition back to Wisconsin.

Presidential spokesperson Kellyanne Conway denied any Trump responsibility in the murders in Kenosha noting that some Joe Biden speech could have just as easily provoked a murderous rampage - and that Trump bore no responsibility for the consequences of his words.  And Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson told his audience that the state of Wisconsin had essentially abandoned Kenosha to rioters, and then added:  "How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would."

Kyle Rittenhouse has grown up inside of a bubble where the police are always right, and people who oppose or stand up to the police are always wrong - especially if those people happen to be black.    He is about to enter a different reality, a world of concrete barriers and steel bars and armed guards - and a world where the social order will be markedly different from the world where he grew up.  He will never become a policeman, he will never own another gun, and his days of freedom have dried up and blown away.

Kyle Rittenhouse destroyed his own life and the lives of several others in service to Donald Trump's vision of what America should be.  He is going away for many years and perhaps for the rest of his life, and others, those who put him on his path to infamy, should damned well be made to follow!