On November 19, a jury acquitted vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse of all charges despite the fact that he killed two people and maimed a third during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2020.
For many, the verdict felt like a punch in the gut. But anger quickly turned into determination, and millions of people have shown they reject the vision of America represented by Rittenhouse. This resistance and fight for a just world will continue and grow, as it must.
Many stunned Americans immediately sensed that the verdict represented the crossing of a line. In Kenosha in August 2020, the local police worked in close coordination with right-wing armed groups to put down protests following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a young Black father, in front of his children. By acquitting Rittenhouse, the courts have given legal sanction to vigilante violence. With verdicts like this, the court system is throwing away any pretense of being a neutral arbiter settling disputes impartially.
The Rittenhouse verdict marks a gigantic step toward open, outright, violent fascism in the United States. The rapid rise of armed fascist groupings in recent years and the increased violence and threats of violence by a section of Trump’s supporters raises the possibility that we are headed to a confrontation similar to that in Germany just before Hitler came to power: a battle for the streets in which fascist groups attack the rallies of progressive and working class forces.
With this decision, the assault rifle has been added to the lynch rope as a symbol of American fascism. In America, fascism has its roots in slavery, and in the white supremacy developed first to condone slavery and then to justify the reign of terror in the South after the defeat of Reconstruction. The capitalist system was built on the enslavement and then the inequality imposed on the black worker, but its exploitation has encompassed workers of all ethnicities. In the Kenosha tragedy, the world saw a bitter truth about American capitalism play out: The fascist terror which first attacks the black worker inevitably ends up hitting all workers, including the whites.
The protests in Kenosha in August 2020 were rallies in support of Jacob Blake, a young father who had been shot seven times in the back by a Kenosha cop and left paralyzed. The cop was never charged. Jacob Blake is Black; all three of Kyle Rittenhouse’s victims white.
Joseph Rosenbaum, 36 years old, was unarmed. He tried to stop Rittenhouse and was shot dead at close range. Rosenbaum left behind a fiancé and a young daughter. Anthony Huber, 26 years old, was killed after a gunshot to the head. Gaige Grosskreutz, a medic, ran in the direction of the gunfire, determined to help anyone who had been injured. He was shot in the arm and maimed.
The resistance to white supremacy, police terror and the threat of dictatorship in America has shown itself in thousands of actions and poignant gestures by millions of people across the country, both before and after the Rittenhouse verdict. Anthony Huber loved skateboarding. After Rittenhouse was acquitted, fellow skateboarders gathered in Huber’s honor at a Kenosha skate park. After Elijah McClain, a shy young Black violinist, was murdered by cops in Aurora, Colorado, his fellow violinists conducted musical recitals in his honor and in protest.
After Ahmaud Arbery was murdered while jogging, fellow runners took to the pavement, jogging in protest. When Arbery’s killers were recently found guilty, Arbery’s mother thanked the many demonstrators who marched across America demanding justice for her son. And literally millions of people took part in protests against the murder of George Floyd in 2020. (The killing of George Floyd in particular forced many Americans to finally realize the truth about racism and the nature of the U.S. judicial system.) All these acts of resistance – whether big or little, in large city or small town – show the way forward. Today, there is a rising opposition to a judicial system based on white supremacy. This movement consists of people of all different ethnicities. It will not relent. It cannot.
The terrible lesson of history is that outright fascism comes to power through a systematic campaign to destroy every democratic right. Today, millions of people are sensing that reality and are determined to oppose fascism every step of the way. This resistance needs to continue and to grow. Nothing less than the survival of democracy is at stake.
