Tuesday open thread: A funny thing happened on the way to white vigilantism

Murderous "nursing student" Kyle Rittenhouse could have been expected to go on Tucker Carlson's hate show and crowed triumphally. One could have expected him to say "Yeah, I killed those n****er-lovers. I meant to kill them. Next time I'll kill the real thing."

But he didn't.

He professed his support of Black Lives Matter. He stated vociferously that he wasn't a racist. 

Now, of course, this is ludicrous on the face of it. All of his actions on the night in question, and afterwards, put the lie to his protestations. But it's interesting that he—and/or his handlers—felt the need to put the photo at the head of this piece down the memory hole. Out with the white-power signs. In with sensitive, racially-aware Kyle.

Why did they do this? Because a jury in small-town Wisconsin isn't America. Because most Americans are aghast at his acquittal. Because most Americans don't want white vigilantes roaming their streets, shooting malefactors. Especially since the people Rittenhouse murdered weren't Black, or Latino, but white, like the mushy white middle which decides elections.

Our own Cleto put it well yesterday:

If the reactionaries continue to resort to violence, it will blow up in their faces.

Why?

Because nothing frightens the Mushy Middling Majority into the arms of the Establishment faster than violence.

That was the pragmatic mistake the Weathermen, the SLA, and their ilk made back in the Vietnam War period. That was one of the causes of the Great Rightward Lurch which began in that period, then hit its stride in the 1980 elections.

The Grim Reaper Party (GRP, fka GOP) will hemorrhage supporters if its fanatics succeed into turning it into an openly fascist party.

The Mushy Middling Majority will flee to the arms of the Establishment--which is now the Democratic Party.

The middling sort are annoying. They seem to forget matters which were of great import just the election prior. But they don't want a civil war. They don't want Kyle Rittenhouse on their streets "protecting" them. They simply want to abide, and will give their votes to whichever party can secure that peace. And Rittenhouse's people know this. Thus the 180.

Rittenhouse's life is over. He won't be able to settle back into the middling sort. And by his interview on Fox, he's betrayed his fiercest supporters. But the fallout from his acquittal shows one thing: middling Americans didn't want what he was selling. That's not nothing.

This is your open thread.