Kyle Rittenhouse Bridged The Divide Between The Far Right And Mainstream Conservatives

Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial may have ended, but his veneration is only beginning.

On Friday, a jury acquitted Rittenhouse on all charges after he shot three men, killing two and injuring one, during protests against the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August 2020. Ever since the shootings, far-right groups online have fixated on Rittenhouse as a hero who was being unfairly tried, essentially turning him into one of their many living martyrs. A far-right group with 12,500 followers on Telegram, a chat-messaging app, posted daily updates on what it dubbed “the trial of Saint Kyle.” These groups also fixated on the criminal backgrounds of the men Rittenhouse shot, mocked their deaths and celebrated the verdict by calling for more violence. Now, as Rittenhouse receives not only adulation but internship offers from Republicans in Congress, his wide adoption as a right-wing martyr — a phenomenon previously only really embraced by the extreme right — marks just how much closer far-right and mainstream Republicans have gotten.

On far-right message boards and chat groups, celebrations erupted immediately following the verdict. “It’s over. America wins. We can officially celebrate,” read one comment on Patriots.win, a pro-Trump forum that evolved out of the now-banned r/TheDonald subreddit. Many posters wrote that they were crying with relief and happiness. Their approval of the verdict reflects the broader Republican opinion: According to polling from Morning Consult over the weekend, 71 percent of Republicans said they approved of the jury’s decision. But posts quickly devolved into calls for further violence, with many saying they could “reference this case” to defend violent acts. Using slurs for antifa and the Black Lives Matter movement, one poster on Patriots.win said that those two groups “gotta be shitting. We have permission to defend ourselves now.” Another poster responded: “We don’t need fucking permission and never did. But now, it’s legal precedent.” (It should be noted that posters on anonymous message boards are not known for their legal expertise.)