December 22, 2021 - 5:34pm
“Do you like [girls] curvy or thick?”
This is not a question typically asked of someone who recently shot and killed two people with an AR-15. Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted on all charges, but his life after Kenosha has taken a rather bizarre, if depressingly predictable, turn (his answer, by the way, was ‘thick’).
Instead, of “laying low” as Rittenhouse suggested he would do, the 18-year-old has been working the Right-wing podcast circuit hard, answering questions about his virginity (or lack thereof) and telling Lebron James to “fuck off”. This week, he entered the Wrestle-mania phase of his celebrity as he arrived at a young conservatives conference to personalised theme music and hundreds cheering his name. Welcome to America in 2021.
Kyle Rittenhouse gets a rock star reception at the Turning Point USA event in AZ.
The teen was found not guilty of criminal charges after admitting to shooting & killing two people in WI. He says it was self defense.
He’a now seen as a hero by some activists on the right pic.twitter.com/fBvl2pKT6q
— Elex Michaelson (@Elex_Michaelson) December 21, 2021
To his credit, Rittenhouse has answered questions about his trial with care; when one meat-headed podcast host crowed that it “was kind of impressive that of all the people you shot at, you killed probably two of the worst on the planet”, Rittenhouse responded that it was “nothing to be congratulated about.” Nor did Rittenhouse try and play up to his audience, even telling Tucker Carlson that he “supports” the BLM movement.
But Rittenhouse has been subsumed into a culture war over which he has little control. Ever since Joe the Plumber harangued then-presidential candidate Barack Obama about his tax policy, there has been a conveyor belt of ordinary Americans being elevated into cult-like status on the Right. Before Rittenhouse, it was Nascar driver Brandon Brown of the now-notorious ‘Let’s go Brandon’ chant, followed by the McCloskey couple who brandished weapons at BLM protesters forcibly entering their property. And before them, Nick Sandmann, the Covington schoolboy who this week reached a settlement with NBC for defamation after media reports claimed that he and other students harassed a Native American man, Nathan Phillips.
What these new Right wing celebrities have in common is that they have all fallen prey to Left-wing overreach or malice in some way or another. They are the pin-up victims of a culture war with no antecedent status or position.
The Democrats are not afraid to make martyrs out of victims too, but their heroes aren’t Nascar drivers and teenage vigilantes. Rather, it is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Fauci and Frances Haugen who became liberal icons for their unswerving commitment to the “Truth”, nobly treading a path dealing exclusively in facts and reality. This is, after all, the party of the professional-managerial class; their tone is grave, serious and humourless.
The new wave of icons on the Right are more likely to be accidental, half-ironic and occasionally cringe. Rittenhouse will not be the last.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe“Rather, it is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Fauci and Frances Haugen who became liberal icons for their unswerving commitment to the Truth, nobly treading a path dealing exclusively in facts and reality. This is, after all, the party of the professional-managerial class; their tone is grave, serious and humourless.”
Good one James! Wait, you’re serious!? No James, the reason Rittenhouse is gaining the traction he has is specifically because of liberal icons lack of truth and his lack of status. When liberal readers of the Washington Post and CNN viewers are shocked to discover everyone involved in the incident was white or that everyone shot by Rittenhouse had either grabbed a hold of his rifle or pointed a gun at him, there is a serious problem. His lack of previous status is part of the point. If the liberal media establishment will try to destroy someone unimportant like him, they will try to destroy anyone. His defamation lawsuits are probably going to be more brutal than Sandmann’s.
Getting away from Rittenhouse, almost no one trusts Fauci anymore after all the lies. Haugen was the fakest whistleblower I have ever seen. Usually those who challenge the powerful and connected face threats and harassment, not fame and acclaim. I agree with you on Ginsburg, but she is gone now. So tell me who are the liberal icons with an unswerving commitment to the truth? I am having a hard time thinking of any.
I agree entirely other than that it seems to me that some irony has been lost – “Truth” is in scare quotes after all. May well be wishful thinking on my part, though.
I see, he was using the capital “Truth,” as in parody, instead of “truth.” Looks like I fell for Poe’s Law. Part of the problem is I have heard people say almost the exact same things recently and they were absolutely serious.
Well said. Tainting a giant like Bader Ginsberg – for all her faults – by association with these two is disgraceful.
Quite a lively response to the Fauci line… Just to clear things up, it was meant ironically — hence the capital and quote marks.
In any case, Merry Christmas to all UnHerd readers — you have been fantastic this year. I hope you’ll keep reading in 2022 and beyond.
I thought so, but wasn’t certain. I think you overstated it just enough so that I didn’t write an angry reposte.
It was probably a little too subtle for the hyper-politicised times we live.
And you James, more power to the Unherd elbow in 2022.
It was clear – to anyone not on a trigger hair. From abroad, US politics is seen as either exemplary in its range or in a death spiral since 1989. So what ideas may break the spell as serious issues deepen while everyone stares into Andromeda nebula-sized navels? Unfortunately, there are several Deus Ex Machina leaning on the partly-unhinged gates.
It’s Christmas-time James, I’m not rising to it. Stay healthy and enjoy the break.
Yeah, I’ll second that sentiment – Anthony Fauci; commitment to the truth? Come on!
The fact the writer capitalised the T in truth implied to me that he was using it in an ironic fashion, in that it’s the truth the left want it to be rather than the the truth in any meaningful sense of the word. I could be wrong though
Well you are actually as bemused as the rest of us.
I got the impression he was using it in the same way as lockdown supporters talk about “The Science” as if there’s never contrasting views in scientific research. Perhaps the writer could reply to piece to clear it up
Correct
Next time call it The Truth 🙂
Christmas? I thought it was April 1 when I saw mention of Fauci and Truth, nobly treading the path.
“Rather, it is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Fauci and Frances Haugen who became liberal icons for their unswerving commitment to the Truth, nobly treading a path dealing exclusively in facts and reality. This is, after all, the party of the professional-managerial class; their tone is grave, serious and humourless. ”
Is this the finest piece of irony I’ve ever read?
No. If by ‘irony’ you mean what in the UK is called ‘sarcasm’ (they never used to be the same thing) then a particular example of e.g. Fauci’s schtick would have been better. And the last sentence deflates itself by using the word ‘humourless’ (already covered by the word ‘grave’).
It’s good to see Kyle has recovered somewhat from his traumatic experiences at the hands of criminals and the police.
Either the author is a soy-eating member of the Democratic Party, or he’s taking a specimen.
Ask him – maybe he’s not?
I imagine that few people in the UK even have a limited grasp of the implications brought to bear in the fact that a significant number of Americans are not only heavily armed but actually know how to use their weapons.
I really do think we do. The news is full of it each year as News from Nowhere ‘plus gun’ distracts from real crises elsewhere that do matter – to other people also with guns, but also wars, poverty and disease … and perhaps a better grasp of reality beyond a pistol grip. Recent American self-indulgence as a world ‘thought-leader’ is staggering, and talk of US civil war so ridiculous it’s laughable. And yet …
Not much has changed in British thinking in the last 250 years…which is why we are the United States of America and not still a colony. So, no, you don’t get it.
Clickbait cr*p. Unherd should be better than this, trolling your own readership is not a great move
‘for their unswerving commitment to the Truth’
Mm hmm.
With one remarkable exception, our pinups have been ordinary people who were demonized by a Woke media for being normal or doing normal things: questioning a politician; showing willingness to defend their property; being a young, white, bemused male who is a little taller than the Native American old man who was in his face. The remarkable exception has the admiration of people who haven’t had a little krait gene spliced into them.
I hope Kyle Rittenhouse sidesteps inelegances. It’s amazing that he’s done as well as he has. But then, at 17, he showed himself the equal of an extremely well trained, valiant professional soldier.
I don’t want him to become A Celebrity: lucrative public speaking gigs, $100.00 for an autographed photo. But he needs loot, a lot of it, and he needs to be protected from genuine murderers.
Are there people in the Democrat Party who embody the pioneer spirit which founded the USA?
Good question – it would be good to know the full gamut of democrat supporters – I know my brother in SanFran is pretty well balanced…
I think that the continued successful resistance to gun control in the United States is proof that there are liberals who have that kind of spirit.
I realise that Unherd is trying to attract more US subscribers, but this really is desperate stuff.