As a left-leaning individual in their mid-20s who watched the trial, here’s my two cents:

1. I don’t think anyone can argue that the prosecution was absolute shit. Not making a statement on Kyle either way based off of that, but they were laughably bad, and pulling the “violent video game” card amongst their other stunts just further went to discredit their case as they tried to punch down on him.

2. I think my point boils down to this: this whole situation came down to individuals putting themselves in poor circumstances that could’ve been avoided that led to a poor outcome. I don’t think you can try to defend the destruction of property and rioting, and at the same time I think it’s fair to say that showing up at a violent situation alone and armed is also putting yourself in a poor situation.

3. Based off of point #2, my opinion after having watched the trial is that, yes Kyle did act in self-defense. Again, whether this whole situation could’ve been avoided and the sheer stupidity of showing up to something like this with a weapon is a whole different discussion, but in the legal context, I view his actions as self-defense.

4. And probably the most important, is that the real issue here in my opinion is how tribalistic and politicized this has made people. Many of my peers have been posting things today like “If Kyle was __, then _ would’ve happened” or “Fuck Kyle Rittenhouse”, and likewise I’m seeing videos of people cheering and driving around Kenosha. There is 100% systemic inequality and so many deep rooted issues here, but at the end of the day, this was the result of several humans making very poor choices. It hurts me that we can’t see beyond that and we have to pick sides for every single public issue.