The American identity crisis

There was no reason for the world ever to hear the name Kyle Rittenhouse. Except that in the summer of 2020 the USA was staring over a precipice. The Covid lockdowns effectively ended after the killing of George Floyd by a Minnesotan policeman. Suddenly mass gatherings in the name of BLM were a public-health duty and, because it was an election year, neither Democrats nor Republicans seemed to know how to react to protests that soon degenerated into serious disorder.

For a country that is only one bad police interaction away from meltdown, it was inevitable that something would happen again. Sure enough in August a man called Jacob Blake was shot by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin. There was a warrant out for Blake’s arrest and he was shot after fighting with police, wielding a knife and having already been tasered. Though Blake was not killed, BLM and other protest movements immediately had another martyr to hold up as evidence of systemic racism in America. And once again the peaceful movements turned very violent indeed. For two nights businesses were looted and burned to the ground. ‘Fiery but mostly peaceful protests’ was how CNN captioned events as its correspondent reported from in front of the fires.

The police and national guard proved wholly ineffective at stopping this looting, and Rittenhouse, whose father lives in Kenosha, decided with a friend that they should go out and try to protect local businesses. They had spent part of the day cleaning graffiti off buildings and, as the evening came in, Rittenhouse offered to help the owner of an as yet unburned-out car lot protect his business. After being threatened and then chased by a mob, 17-year-old Rittenhouse ended up shooting three men, killing two of them.