Some Republicans Are Staying Quiet About Rittenhouse

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Republican politicians may privately feel good about the Rittenhouse "not guilty" verdicts and think that it will keep their base fired up on things like gun rights and white supremacy - and they may smirk and grin and even wink among themselves - but, by and large, most have the good political sense not  to get too carried away on the topic in public.  Rittenhouse is still young and still likely to make the news again - and why should politicians run the risk of saying something positive about any shooter now and having it come back to haunt them after another killing spree?  Most Republicans seem to be standing ready to accept any political benefits that Rittenhouse and people like him push their way, without becoming outright cheerleaders for carnage.

There are, of course, outliers.  I saw a posting from a Republican sheriff in Ohio who was bitching about the jury taking four days to reach a verdict when he seemed to think the case for the shooter's innocence was so obvious that they should have reported the verdict out in ten minutes.

And then of course there was the bane of the Republican Party, Donald John Trump.    Trump has no filters, and he will not be quiet about any subject on which he has an opinion.  He told Laura whats-her-name on Fox News:

"I think it was a great decision.  I was very happy to see it.  A lot of people were happy to see it - most people."

Trump does not understand the fine are of smirking, grinning, and winking.  He is a bullhorn in a library.  

After that scripted soundbite, Trump went on to say that he had sent the National Guard to Kenosha back in August of 2020 - and saved the day.  That was a lie.  The governor of Wisconsin, a Democrat by the name of Tony Evers, brought in the National Guard.  

Trump is loud - and he lies.  Some things never change.

I had a theory that my congressman, Republican Jason Smith, would resist the urge to openly exploit the Rittenhouse verdict, and I was proven right when his weekly email newsletter went out late last night.  Smith, who has never met an armaments bill or a bill reducing the tax rates of corporations and the ultra rich that he could not enthusiastically support, whether the bills were financially responsible or not, was furious in his email newsletter over Joe Biden's proposed human infrastructure spending.  Republicans always seem to see spending money to benefit real people as something we cannot afford.

But, Smith's newsletter never mentioned Kyle Rittenhouse at all!  

Smith's newsletter also said that he had voted against a bill sponsored by Democrats which stripped a House GOP member of his committee assignments.  He sanctimoniously voted against that bill because, he said, Democrats have done worse themselves than what his fellow Republican stood accused of doing.  (That's the old schoolyard bully defense - I'm innocent because he did it, too.). The Republican who lost his committee assignments and was censured was Paul Gosar of Arizona after he (or his office) tweeted an anime depiction of him murdering a Democratic member of Congress.   The unrepentent, and none-too-bright, Gosar immediately reposted the same offensive tweet after his censure by the House.  

And while Congressman Smith voted "no" on the censure of Paul Gosar and was appropriately outraged about it in his newsletter, he declined to mention Congressman Gosar by name.  (At some point Congressman Gosar, like Kyle Rittenhouse, is very likely to make the news again, and some politicians would rather not have quotes of support lingering out in cyberspace that could come back and bite them on their well-fed butts.)  

So for now, even though the Rittenhouse verdicts make members of the GOP feel as though they are in a stronger political position, the sensible thing for them to do is to not insert themselves into the story - because the story in unlikely to be over.  Rittenhouse and/or others like him may well have more wild bullets to sow, and vigilantes (as long as they are white) can now claim the "I was scared" defense.

It is what some might call a "fluid" situation - and the fluid is gasoline.