Cartoonistry: Avenging heroes are fitting only for the comics, not for real life

There was a question that came to mind during the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. “What would inspire a 17-year-old suburban boy, against all good sense, to grab an AR-15 and dangerously insert himself into violent unrest in a city miles away?”

A cartoon of mine that ran in the Palm Beach Daily News in March 2018 might shed some light. It lampooned the juvenile rhetoric of President Trump, the gun lobby and the political right after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting.

At the time, MSD students were protesting the lack of gun regulations and enforcement that led to a flood of military assault-style weapons in the public sphere.

The political right and gun lobby pushed back. President Trump characteristically deflected the issue by bullying a sheriff’s deputy who had chosen to wait for back-up rather than confront the well-armed shooter alone. The NRA followed its usual playbook and raised fears of government gun confiscation. And right-wing politicians repeatedly asserted that arming teachers was the solution. Unfortunately, our leaders often promote narratives that would be more appropriate in comic books.

With disingenuous politics, rudderless social media and a news media preoccupied with click-bait headlines, we are not very good at separating fantasy from reality these days.

But if you think about it, we’ve long celebrated personally aggrieved fantasy heroes on a crusade for justice. It’s been a consistent theme in dime westerns, pulp fiction, comics and film. From the Lone Ranger to Batman, many beloved fictional heroes are cut from this cloth. The crime noir genre is also replete with PIs, fixers and cops, such as Dirty Harry, who carry a grudge and swear by their own ruthless moral code because they are convinced the law is hamstrung by rules of fairness.

Perhaps this heritage, coupled with the confused messaging of our times, normalizes the idea that patriotism and morality require absolute individualism and a contrarian ideology.

Rittenhouse and the three men tried in Georgia for Ahmaud Arbery’s murder obviously saw themselves as righteous. But they were textbook vigilantes. And if you take a look at the actual history of vigilantism in America, it quickly becomes clear that it has overwhelmingly been used for ethnic oppression during segregation and various waves of immigration. There’s nothing righteous in that.

Maybe my cartoon featuring deluded superheroes sheds light on what motivates people such as Kyle Rittenhouse. But it also raises another question: What do we want America to be in the future, a nation that breeds self-appointed crusaders motivated by perceived slights and showing little regard for the law; or one that celebrates dedicated citizens such as police officers, firefighters, military personnel, medical workers and teachers — anyone who is willing to commit themselves to the common good?

The choice is ours. And it’s an important one.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Cartoonistry: Vigilantism inspired by comic heroes rampant in these times