Callin Discussion at 10 a.m ET: "The Rittenhouse Verdict is Only Shocking if You Followed the Last Year of Terrible Reporting"
This morning, a discussion about Friday's verdict, the TK article on same, and the already-strange fallout
Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted Friday and the messaging since has been curious. The New York Times and columnist Charles Blow largely stayed away from the specifics of the case, making instead a broader point that Rittenhouse belonged to a long tradition of “white vigilantes,” a list that included Bernie Goetz, the St. Louis couple Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the killers of Ahmed Arbery, the Ku Klux Klan, and the entire January 6th insurrection.
Blow argued Rittenhouse belonged among the practitioners of “violent white vigilantism” because he was one of many who used “violence against people of color and their white allies.”
In “Rittenhouse was acquitted, not validated,” Washington Post columnist reminded us that “acquittals are not moral judgments” (who thought they were?) and “what the jury did not do was determine that Rittenhouse acted properly on that evening.” Bump made some interesting points — we can talk more about those later — before reminding at last, “The jury was not asked whether it approved… if individuals should take it upon themselves to supplement or replace law enforcement.”
In a flash, then, we saw editorialists switch from a story about a murderer on trial for “crossing state lines” to wantonly shoot people, to a more academic discussion about the evils of vigilantism. Ironically, some of the reactions hinted at the national discussion we should have been having before the case devolved into another divide-a-thon.
Will be on Callin to talk about all this this morning at 10 a.m. (click here to attend). There have been some complaints from non-Apple subscribers who can’t access Callin as yet. We’ve asked about that, and were told there’s an Android/web app in the works, as there is with a tool that will allow TK-only discussions. Please bear with us while we work out the kinks. In the meantime, look forward to talking this morning.
https://callin.com/?link=BVejxbzHCr
I had dinner with my parents last night. Dad watches CNN 24/7, and he knows nothing about anything in the universe but for what’s shoveled into his head by CNN. It should therefore not surprise me that he’s completely unfamiliar with the concept of self-defense or that it had any relevance to the Rittenhouse verdict, and he firmly believes that Rittenhouse got away with double murder. Because that’s what CNN has been shouting for over a year, and much more ferociously since the verdict.
Imagine the lies and lies by omission CNN had to tell for so long to convince viewers that Rittenhouse is a white supremacist murderer who went to Kenosha to kill people. Yet to someone like my dad, all he would need to know to go from “Kyle is a murderer” to “Kyle is a hero and I love that boy” is knowing that a 5 time sodomizer of 9 year old boys lunged at Kyle and was rewarded with a bullet. I’m not saying that kind of facile analysis of Kyle’s culpability, one that’s informed by the past crimes of the dead, is appropriate either. But I can’t shake the feeling that the media’s crooked reporting not only manipulates people into a desired political stance, but does so against the viewers’ own core beliefs. It’s like my dad has been served a very delicious meal that he’s enjoyed and wants more of and raves about, but would have the opposite reaction if he knew he’d just been fed the corpse of his father. It sickens me to see my dad on a puppet string, raving about the lovely meal that I know he would puke up violently if he knew what was in it.
There is no way that honest, productive discussion can take place in this country when so much of the media is captive to a set narrative that conflicts with simply reporting the news and holding the powerful accountable. There are rumors that CNN is going to revert to a pure news reporting format. Not that straight news reporting will be free from The Narrative, but if it gets Chris “Stop Whining About Your 4 Year Old Seeing A 38 Year Old Dick In The Ladies’ Room” Cuomo off the air, that’s a step in the right direction. But I have little faith that there will be any course correction, or that the media will begin to value its credibility beyond declaring that they have it in spades and giving themselves awards for excellence. They love to see cities burning down, and will tailor their reporting and punditry in service of that love. 2024 is going to be absolute hell.
I can't make the callin - this is a chicken and the egg. Had the cities that allowed rioting, looting, and burning to take place all last summer actually NOT allowed rioting, looting, and burning as per their actual jobs, a lot of things would be different. But self defense is a legal doctrine and NO ONE is required to just stand there and be killed because they "aren't allowed" to defend themselves.