Political trials in America

Let me be blunt: the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha was a political trial.

The case against him, in the face of his self-defense claim, was terribly weak from the beginning, and prosecutors surely knew it.

But such was the climate of the country that they had to charge him. That’s different from political trials in other places in that it was sort of "bottom-up" rather than "top-down" (if you can suspend reality long enough to imagine 2020’s race rioters as "bottom" instead of the children of privilege that so many are). It was an expression of cultural power, not political.

I do not valorize 17-year-old militia wannabes. I wish Rittenhouse had not gone to Kenosha to defend businesses from rioters. I wish he hadn’t been carrying a kind of gun that sends gun opponents to the fainting couch.

But I’m glad he didn’t cave in and plead guilty to the plea deal that I assume was offered. And I’m glad that his defense costs were largely paid by people who do valorize 17-year-old militia wannabes.

I await his acquittal.

UPDATE: Mainstream media just wanted to show Rittenhouse sobbing and hyperventilating, so I hadn’t seen this story about prosecutorial misconduct (which was the real trial news of yesterday) when I wrote the preceding.

I now predict that in the unlikely event the jury votes to convict, the defense motion for a mistrial will be granted and Rittenhouse will walk free.

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