Yesterday was certainly an interesting and newsworthy day regarding the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse. After numerous days of the prosecution faceplanting, Rittenhouse himself took the stand in a move that was both shocking and risky. RedState covered the results of that here, here, and here, and to be sure, the testimony that was given and the behavior of the prosecutor will now play a large role in the outcome.
But I want to start with a prediction I made yesterday morning before all that transpired.
Shortly after, things blew up, with the judge going off on the prosecution multiple times for misconduct. That included the questioning of Rittenhouse’s constitutional right to remain silent and an improper entry of evidence that had already been ruled as inadmissible.
Sure enough, it wasn’t long until the talking points went forth. With Rittenhouse staring at a likely acquittal, the left needed a new scapegoat, and this judge, not being a raving leftwing lunatic, is just the target they were looking for.
Note, these aren’t random accounts, but major news outlets.
This is dangerous stuff for two reasons. One, it is putting a target directly on the back of a judge who has done nothing except enforce typical courtroom procedures on a prosecutor who knows he has no case and has been flailing wildly. Two, it sets up the narrative that Rittenhouse being found “not guilty” is somehow not the just outcome.
When the latter happens, what do you get? You get more violence and rioting, and the media do not care one iota that they are pushing that probable outcome with their misleading coverage.
Let’s also note the hypocrisy here. Whenever Donald Trump dared to make an off-hand comment about any judicial proceeding, the media lit into him as unduly interfering in the court system. Yet, when Democrat House leader Hakeem Jeffries proclaimed that Rittenhouse should be locked up and the key should be thrown away last night, no criticism emerged in the mainstream media at all. Weird, right? It’s almost as if the standards the press laid forth for Trump were really just malleable, partisan lines of convenience to push political attacks.
But while those in the press are attacking the judge based on the idea that he holds some mythical bias (he was appointed by a Democrat), others are going right to the left’s favorite play: Calling him a white supremacist.
Those “sanctity of the judiciary” takes pushed from 2016-2020 sure went out the window fast, didn’t they? And who knew that a white person shooting other white people in self-defense is indicative of white supremacy?
What we are seeing are liberals who simply can not cope with the reality that the facts don’t support their preferred outcome. But instead of just admitting that, or at the very least, just shutting their mouths, they are now demanding a teenager be thrown in prison to validate their ridiculous worldview. These last-minute denouncements of the judge, based on nothing tangible whatsoever, are just another attempt to influence a trial that isn’t going the way they think it should.
The broader problem with that beyond the obvious implications in this specific case (i.e. Rittenhouse going to jail for defending himself) is that it shows one side of the political spectrum has no boundaries. They will literally seek to imprison people who they feel run afoul of their political views, facts be damned. That’s scary stuff.