The Rittenhouse paradigm enters the campaign
Kyle Rittenhouse is a 17-year-old who lives in Antioch, in the American state of Illinois. His town could be considered a suburb of Kenosha, the focus of the latest racial protest in the United States over the seven shots fired by a policeman in the back of Jacob Blake. Administratively, however, Kenosha belongs to the neighbouring state of Wisconsin and is bathed by Lake Michigan, in a position surprisingly equidistant from Milwaukee and Chicago, from which it receives its greatest influence. Antioch doesn't lag behind: having two giants so close by, with their nearby NBA franchises and skylines, makes the town a well-located place to take care of your family despite the winter cold.
Rittenhouse is a stalwart of Donald Trump, probably one of those young people with a similar profile who, with the right to vote, supported the Republican in the 2016 election because he was fed up with Obama and his inconsistent Administration. After the serious incident with Blake, he saw on television how the protests triggered by the shooting degenerated into violent riots, confrontations with the police and insecurity in the streets of the neighbouring city that dotted his neighbourhood. He did not hesitate for a moment to respond to the white community's call to organise citizens' militias to help the security forces repel these attacks on coexistence which had initially taken place in peaceful demonstrations but were broken by violence in the end.
On Tuesday 25th August, Kyle took a military assault rifle from his wardrobe at home and went to Kenosha with other neighbours. During his appearance at the demonstration against police racism, an officer thanked him and offered him a drink of water to help him get through the upcoming physical attack. "We appreciate you guys. We really do", according to the newspaper USA Today, were the words of the policeman. Minutes later, in one of the clashes with the looting protesters, the shooter's apprentice shot several times at a group of people who cornered him, causing the death of two of them and serious injury to a third.
Rittenhouse was raised in a violent and reactionary environment. He grew up on the north side of Chicago and always had law enforcement as his childhood heroes. He didn't like Spiderman or Captain America. He preferred blue uniforms to those he has glorified with the phrase Blue Lives Matter since the early summer when the worldwide Black Lives Matter movement emerged after the death of George Floyd. Shortly before he shot down the three protesters, he said on tape that his duty was to protect the people. Justice by the hand. Now his commitment and the result of his "protective action" divide the American people into two irreconcilable halves, which will be reflected in the ballot box on November 3.
Collections have been organised to finance his defence, which will have to deal with the charges of first-degree murder. The Republican candidate for the presidency believes that if Kyle had not opened fire, he would have been beaten to death. By doing so, Trump is further polarising the civil strife instead of defusing it, as he should be doing. The images from the shocking video of the event prove that his aggressors were not particularly peaceful, and one of them even carried a short weapon with which he threatened Kyle, as the organisation Watching the Watchers has shown. (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7SooO03bJ8).
Yet this does not justify his shooting, and neither was his persecution, nor was his decision long before to put order in the streets by imposing his own view of justice. The United States is a powder keg. The patriot prayers are facing the anti-fas and blood is running in the streets. Everything happens in a big way there. The blows, pushes and spits we have seen for example in Catalonia from supporters of the separation of Spain against citizens who feel Spanish are transformed into shots and machete fights. If you say in the USA that you are a Trump supporter you expose yourself to a reprimand; if you say that you oppose what he represents, you expose yourself anyway.
But the problem comes from much earlier, it has been coined for many years, probably since that butterfly vote recount in Florida that was decided by the Supreme Court of the country to give the presidency to Bush Jr. Then Obama's two terms did not solve a problem hidden by the neon signs of his presidency, which were full of metaphors and marketing. The paradigm of a society divided to the point of violence is at the surface of the campaign, and the Tuesday after the first Monday of November 2020 will only expose it further.