Welcome to the Club, Kyle: Rittenhouse Joins Pantheon of Young Men the Left Tried to Destroy...

by Athena Thorne at PJ Media

It’s a club no one asks to join, and the price of admission is unfathomable duress followed by a lifetime of watching your back.

I’m not talking about merely having the Twitter mob come down on you and maybe even losing your college admission or job, as horrible as that is. I’m talking about the incomprehensible weight of knowing millions of people who have never met you hate you and are howling for your head. The pain of being defamed. The emotional and financial strain on your loved ones. The horror of being railroaded for something you didn’t do. Suffocating uncertainty about whether you even have a future.

Kyle Rittenhouse is the latest victim of systemic leftist persecution, but he’s certainly not the first. American progressives hate men, especially young, white, patriotic men, and they have developed a sick process by which they target for destruction any lad who refuses to cower before them.

Here’s a quick trip down memory lane, as we pause to remember some of the innocent targets of organized leftist wrath who came before Kyle.

Nick Sandmann

At only 16 years of age, Nick Sandmann was on a trip with his Catholic school class to Washington, D.C., where the young men participated in the 2019 March for Life. As they waited for their bus to pick them up from the event, some of them wearing red “Make America Great Again” caps, the boys drew the attention of some of the more radical, vulgar regular protestors in the area. Eventually, professional rabble-rouser Nathan Phillips joined in the intimidation, walking up to within inches of Sandmann and banging a drum loudly in his face.

That’s when Sandmann committed the unforgivable sin: he refused to back down. He stood his ground, smiling awkwardly as Phillips continued to invade his personal space.

In the blink of an eye, a dubiously clipped video of the event went viral, with the made-up claim that distinguished Native American elder Phillips had been approached and “disrespected” by the teens, and all hell broke loose. To no one’s surprise, the character assassination was led by the fake news media, who had no issues encouraging violence against and destroying the life of a teenaged boy.

Remember when you advocated for violence against a minor? pic.twitter.com/lS3xn9579n

— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) January 8, 2020

Even more disheartening was the reaction of the boys’ school and diocese, who immediately believed the media lies and called for investigation and possible expulsion of the students in their charge.

Eventually, additional video came out, the students were completely exonerated, and Sandmann went on to sue some of his tormentors for defamation (so far wracking up two sizable settlements from CNN and The Washington Post, with more suits still pending).

On Tuesday, Sandmann wrote an editorial for the Daily Mail, welcoming Rittenhouse to the club, advising him on the possibility of following in his legal footsteps, and reaching out to him in friendship.

Here’s hoping the two of them wind up becoming lawyers and founding the law firm from hell, specializing in holding our corrupt media accountable. Maybe they can even have club meetings at one of Trump’s country clubs; the former president surely knows a thing or two about being targeted by Big Left.

George Zimmerman…