In a special long-weekend edition of the NewsBusters Podcast, we look back to answer the question: How energetically did MSNBC smear Kyle Rittenhouse as a white supremacist, white nationalist, or racist? Quite a bit. Joy Reid led a pack of smack talkers about Kyle being a little racist coward with an AR-15 menacing a violent neighborhood.
We go back a month to October 27 for examples, but it was especially thick on the night after he was acquitted on November 19. Filling in as Reid's guest host, Jason Johnson said "Like if I'm walking around and I'm a white nationalist, you know, coward little kid with an AR-15 and I see someone drive by with a Black Lives Matter bumper sticker and I feel threatened, I can open fire. If I go by a youth group standing outside a local target and their chanting Black Lives Matter and I feel threatened, I can open fire."
On the same night, Rachel Maddow mourned "the knock-on effect of Republicans and far right groups including white supremacist groups, Nazis, militia groups, holding up Kyle Rittenhouse as not just a person who was acquitted of murdering two people and shooting a third, they`ve made him a hero on the right for admittedly killing those people and getting away with it, which raises questions about the safety of public protest in the future."
The rioting, -- oops, "public protest" -- would have been safe that night without Rittenhouse?
Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
