Opinion | The Republican Embrace of Vigilantism Is No Accident

Although it is possible the jury made a mistake when it handed down a guilty verdict, neither Carlson nor Rittenhouse nor Abbott tried to argue the case on the merits. Instead, they made a simple assumption: that any violence against a left-wing protester is justified on its face. Perry had lived out the right-wing fantasy of lethal violence in defense of “order.” By their lights, he had done nothing wrong.

Prominent conservatives have taken the same view of Daniel Penny, the 24-year-old assailant in the killing of Jordan Neely in a New York City subway car this month. What we know is that Neely, who was homeless, was erratic and acting hostile toward other passengers. Witnesses say he had not attacked anyone. At some point, Penny, a former Marine, placed Neely in the chokehold that killed him. Two other passengers restrained Neely while he struggled on the ground. Penny is now charged with second-degree manslaughter.

We don’t know much, yet, about Penny’s mind-set or motivation during his confrontation on the subway. But this has not stopped conservatives from valorizing him in the same way they valorized Rittenhouse and Perry. “The Marine who stepped in to protect others is a hero,” said Greene, now a congresswoman. The decision to charge Penny, said the Fox News host Greg Gutfeld, was “pro-criminal” and “anti-hero.”

In a testament to conservative enthusiasm for Penny, an online fund-raiser has raised more than $2 million for his legal defense. And DeSantis, now angling for the Republican presidential nomination, stepped in with a message of support. “We must defeat the Soros-Funded DAs, stop the Left’s pro-criminal agenda, and take back the streets for law abiding citizens,” he said on Twitter. “We stand with Good Samaritans like Daniel Penny. Let’s show this Marine … America’s got his back.”

It’s the same language, the same tropes, the same ideas. In listening to conservative fans of Rittenhouse, Perry and Penny, you would never know that there were actual people on the other side of these confrontations. You would never know that those people were, in life, entitled to the protection of the law and that they are, in death, entitled to a full account of the last moments of their lives, with legal responsibility for the men who killed them, if that’s what a jury decides.