Thread by @EdwardGLuce

The more Rittenhouse sinks in, the more unhinged today's America seems. Leave aside the debate over race narrative. No other democratic system would let teenagers, or citizens of any age, go where they please with ultra-lethal weapons, discharge, then claim self-defence. Thread

There’s no parallel universe in which an adolescent with a military-designed assault weapon is making their own life safer, or anyone else’s. The fact that at least one of Rittenhouse’s victims was armed reinforces the point. People with guns attract and create violence.(2)

But what’s most nuts is that public safety isn’t America’s main concern here. Instead we have a meta-debate about biases of each side’s coverage – one making a hero out of an overgrown-child vigilante, the other fitting him into a white supremacist narrative. (3)

That’s what’s most dispiriting about this saga: America’s warring cultural elites are primed to filter so much that happens through the lens of group condemnation (though I’ve little doubt that had Rittenhouse been black, he would likely have died before firing his 2nd shot). (4)

Had this happened in almost any other democracy his defence would be laughed out of court. Rittenhouse, or his friend, would have been breaking serious laws the moment he bought that semi-automatic, as would the seller, and would face jail. (5)

Instead he legally killed two people and will doubtless get rich from it. The fact that public safety is barely an afterthought to the Rittenhouse killings (with some strong exceptions, notably @fmanjoo nytimes.com/2021/11/17/opi…) may be more noticeable to foreigners. (6)

America has given up on what almost every other democracy would now be trying to do - find common ground to stop horrific things from happening. The US is too far gone down the rabbit hole of which identity politics to blame (& which pigmentations to slander) to act wisely. (7)

I say this as a friend & admirer of America – also aware I’m probably barking into the ether. Twitter drives so much of this toxicity but it's not clear which, if any, medium nowadays would do otherwise. Apologies to my numerous American friends who know all this too well. Ends