Spin cycle: What to expect online after the Rittenhouse verdict

Ahead of the the jury ruling on Kyle Rittenhouse’s verdict, right-wing cranks have laid two sets of narrative tracks

Several kinds of nuts. Via Wikimedia Commons

The nation’s eyes have turned to the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, a teenager accused of carrying an AR-15 rifle that he should not have possessed, teaming up with an unlawful private militia group, and killing two people at a racial justice protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Like most of everything these days, the discourse around the trial has split along partisan lines. On the Left, Rittenhouse is a kid who went to Kenosha in hopes of scoring a “legal” kill in line with right-wing fantasies, and on the Right, he’s a test case for the Second Amendment, or even a hero in his own right.

Rittenhouse faces five remaining charges: first-degree reckless homicide, first-degree intentional homicide, attempted first-degree intentional homicide, and two counts of reckless public endangerment with a dangerous weapon. (He was initially charged on two other counts, but the judge overseeing the case, Bruce Schroeder tossed those out.) After a trial full of bizarre twists and turns, like the defense arguing against using the “zoom in” function to view an image on an iPad in greater detail, the jury has spent three days deliberating over its verdict.

Ahead of that verdict, the right-wing spin machine has been hard at work ginning up narratives adaptable for both acquittal and conviction. Though counterparts on the Left have also laid down narrative arcs ahead of the verdict—mostly focusing on judge Schroeder, saying that he seemed to side with the defense during the trial—the Right’s machine has significantly more influence among GOP influencers on Fox News, and even some Republican elected officials.

Below, I’ve identified what I see as the primary conservative talking points around the Rittenhouse trial. All of them flatter the Right’s enormous persecution complex, so they tend to focus on the supposed unfairness of a potential guilty verdict. But if Rittenhouse is acquitted of the most serious charges against him, you can expect to see Republicans—who would otherwise complain that Rittenhouse was convicted because of this host of boogeymen—declare that he was found innocent in spite of them. Either way, you can expect conservatives to urge Rittenhouse to pursue lawsuits against the mainstream liberal press and pundits online.

And if Rittenhouse does not in fact go to jail, you will probably see him on the conservative television and conference circuit for the foreseeable future.

Either way, here’s what they’re going to say.