It was inevitable that the conservative movement would rally to the defense of the latest white, conservative terrorist. To an outside eye, Kyle Rittenhouse would appear to be a pro-Trump, law enforcement-obsessed white vigilante who specifically traveled to the site of a Black Lives Matter protest with an illegal assault rifle because he believed there might be protesters there who required murdering—to the extent that the police would not themselves be able to murder them all. To prominent conservative pundits, Kyle Rittenhouse appears to be ... the exact same thing. But in their eyes, that makes him a hero.
Republican, Trump-based conservatism, of which Rittenhouse was a devoted member, is a fascist movement. And one of the defining features of a fascist movement is an eagerness to celebrate redemptive, cleansing, or necessary violence; that is, violence against the movement's enemies, always defended as now-required because the normal laws of the state have not been able to contain the hated other, necessitating a more aggressive, and more definitive, violent purge.
From Trump-supporting pipe bombers to armed capitol-storming militias to far-right militant street fights and murderers, the Rittenhouse murders are a continuation of a now-familiar campaign of "necessary" violence against enemies of Trump and Republicans who are unironically condemned as antifascists. There is nothing new here—but with each incident, Trump's own allies are more insistent that violence is becoming more necessary, and more justified.
Reading from a now-familiar script, white nationalism-promoting Fox host Tucker Carlson was quick to set the theme. It was perhaps unfortunate that Rittenhouse would do such a thing, Carlson mewled—in the same dull tone of voice that Bill O'Reilly once used to half-distance himself from the eventual murder of a Kansas doctor who O'Reilly had devoted himself to targeting with rabid accusations and declarations—but you cannot exactly blame the child, said Carlson, for thinking he "had to maintain order" when he saw that "no one else would."
By this morning, and after the death of another of Rittenhouse's victims, the defense became more specific. Regardless of his intent or actions, Rittenhouse was justified in killing those who attempted to detain him once he had shot his first victim. It was not just understandable, but the proper course of action. Those who attempted to stop him had it coming.
The claim was echoed by conservative blusterer Erick Erickson and by the Trump White House's most significant architect of white supremacist policies, Stephen Miller. "Do not use a skateboard to attack a man packing a rifle," a mocking tweet retweeted by Miller declared. It refers to a bystander, now dead, who forfeited his life after attempting to stop Rittenhouse from further violence with nothing more than a skateboard to use as a shield against the gunman’s bullets.
In prior shootings we were told that burlier-than-average schoolchildren should be taught to "rush" shooters to try to reduce the total number of dead. This time around we are told that rushing an active shooter is adequate legal grounds for the shooter to kill in "self-defense."
It is because the killer is allied with conservatism. That is the only reason. That is why archconservative pundits are barking that they want the eager murderer Rittenhouse "as my president" after conducting such heroic killings. If Rittenhouse were the one shot and killed after waving his weapon at protesters, each voice would instead be demanding vengeance, and a militarized response. It takes no time or effort to switch from one to the other.
Trump is the head not of a conservative movement, but a fascist one. There can be no plausible dispute about this after ticking off each of the markers of historic fascism. It’s the celebration of necessary or redemptive violence that’s ideologically inherent to fascism—the propping up of acts of vigilantism and terrorism against fascism's targeted enemies, acts deemed good and reasonable and perhaps the only remaining means, laws be damned, of maintaining "order."
There will be more, both before and after the election. The defenses of violence are already twisting, in Tucker's own speech, into notions that it is only natural that vigilante violence will occur if the state is not willing to properly commit the violence itself. The conservative movement intends to broadcast the "need" for such violence as an escalating message. If Tom Cotton cannot rouse the military to suppress the other, the need to maintain order will fall on young Trump supporters willing to do it themselves.
