16 Nov 2021 Truth Doesn’t Matter to Rittenhouse Critics
“In today’s America, the facts do not matter as much as the story.”
This is on full display as the nation – and the world – await the jury’s verdict in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, who faces charges related to the deaths of rioters in Kenosha, Wisconsin last year after the police-involved shooting death of Jacob Blake.
In a Newsmax commentary, Project 21 Co-Chairman Horace Cooper analyzes the sinister motivations of those seeking to punish Rittenhouse:
Cases like these reinforce what many already know about the left: They seek out stories to exploit for political gain, often before the facts are out.
Rittenhouse claims he defended himself against attackers aiming to kill him. The left – including at least two members of Congress – immediately rushed to call him a “white supremacist” based on nothing. Horace notes how the Rittenhouse case and other race-infused events during 2020 were used as a political cudgel by Joe Biden against Donald Trump in the presidential election.
America has become a racial tinderbox since the death of George Floyd. But don’t look to blame alleged white supremacists. Horace explains:
Fast forward 14 months, and the Rittenhouse trial is complete. Both the defense and the prosecutors have made their case and the left’s narrative has all but collapsed in the courtroom. It looks likely that Rittenhouse may walk away conviction free after Judge Schroeder dismissed the charge for carrying a dangerous weapon while under the age of 18.
We know now that all the people who were shot that day were white, and video footage has shown clearly that Rittenhouse acted in self-defense after being pursued by violent protesters, was struck with a skateboard, as another brandished a firearm toward him.
In other words, a 17-year-old boy was miscast as a white supremacist for over a year by the media and elites in Washington based on almost no evidence.
Yet the Wisconsin National Guard is on standby as the jurors deliberate – fearing violence if the mob doesn’t like the verdict.
“If Kyle Rittenhouse is acquitted of his charges,” Horace writes, “we can only hope the aftermath doesn’t result in a similar turn of events as the protest over Jacob Blake’s shooting did.”
More violence certainly won’t improve things:
[I]f America burns again, there is only one winner: division and further separation.
To read all of Horace’s Newsmax commentary – “Kyle Rittenhouse and the Liberal Media’s Race Against Facts” – click here.