Days ago, Kyle Rittenhouse — admired by Donald Trump and lionized by the far right for shooting three people at a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020, killing two — was in lockstep with the MAGA movement that supported him through the trial that saw him acquitted of homicide. On X (formerly Twitter), the 21-year-old was echoing the conspiracy theory that the attempted assassination of Trump last month was an “inside job” and calling Vice President Kamala Harris a “DEI hire.”
But on Thursday night, Rittenhouse shocked and infuriated the Trump voters who have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover his legal fees over the years by endorsing 88-year-old former congressman Ron Paul for president. After sharing a photo of himself with Paul, Rittenhouse tweeted that he would be writing the retired libertarian’s name in on his ballot come November. He also shared a video first posted by the head of the National Association of Gun Rights (an activist group Rittenhouse says helped his family when the better-known National Rifle Association did not). In the clip, Rittenhouse introduced himself as the outreach director for the organization Texas Gun Rights and acknowledged that followers were upset with him.
“Unfortunately,” he went on to explain, “Donald Trump had bad advisors making him bad on the Second Amendment, and that is my issue. If you can not be completely uncompromisable on the Second Amendment, I will not vote for you, and I will write somebody else in. We need champions for the Second Amendment or our rights will be eaten away and eroded each day. I support my decision and I have no take-backs.” In his caption on on the message, Rittenhouse wrote: “You must stand by your principles.”
It seems, however, that Rittenhouse could only stand by those principles for about half a day before he was ready to compromise. In that time, his replies filled up with vitriol and abuse from one-time fans as other MAGA world influencers denounced him.
“I’ve never in my life, following politics for 40 years, seen a bigger betrayal than Kyle Rittenhouse,” raged the pseudonymous Trump cheerleader @Catturd2, who also blocked Rittenhouse’s account. “Almost every dime for his great defense lawyers and every dime he has in the bank is because of MAGA.” In the same post, @Catturd2 claimed that Trump voters were “the people who literally saved his life.” Another vocal Trump loyalist, Terrence K. Williams, told his nearly 2 million followers, “If you stab Trump in the back then we can’t be friends.” Memes mocking Rittenhouse and arguments that third-party voting would hurt Trump at the polls circulated widely.
Misinformation peddler Dom Lucre, previously banned from X for sharing child sexual abuse material but then reinstated by site owner Elon Musk, wrote that Rittenhouse’s turn against Trump “breaks my heart” and warned that he had “been selected to be exposed.” One conspiracy theorist shared images of Rittenhouse with the text “‘He’s’ a she,” seeming to falsely suggest that he is transgender. Meanwhile, Texas Gun Rights — the organization Rittenhouse claimed to represent in his video — released a statement endorsing Trump, calling him “the ONLY choice for President in 2024.”
While Trump himself appeared to take no notice of the infighting, Rittenhouse didn’t need the former president to weigh in before reversing his position. On Friday afternoon, he claimed that he’d “had a series of productive conversations with members of the [sic] Trump’s team” — no one specific — that left him “confident he will be the strong ally gun owners need to defend our Second Amendment rights.” He also called his earlier comments “ill-informed and unproductive,” and said he was fully committed to “helping send [Trump] back to the White House.”
Whatever Trump’s own views on guns, they’ve been eclipsed in recent years by the decisions of a Supreme Court he packed with hard-right ideologues. In 2022, it struck down a New York law giving the state broad authority to limit the carrying of firearms in public, with a 6-3 conservative majority, imperiling similar gun control measures in other states. (The ruling came shortly after the deadly mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York.) In June, SCOTUS even tossed a ban on bump stocks — accessories that allow a gunman to fire ammunition from a rifle almost as fast as a machine gun — imposed by the Trump administration. That, too, was a 6-3 decision made possible by justices Trump nominated. His 2024 campaign, courting gun owners, touted the ruling as a win, with the former president distancing himself from the original policy.
In any case, Rittenhouse’s immediate flip-flop demonstrates the risks for high-profile figures hoping to defect from the ranks of the MAGA movement. It remained unclear if all was forgiven after he tried to make amends. “LMAOO,” one X user replied. “Kyle did not want to be Bud Lighted.” Another commented, “You have already revealed your true colors. We no longer trust you.” Among those who did readily accept Rittenhouse back into the fold was @Catturd2. “I was harder on you than anyone — but I can’t hold a grudge when a man apologizes,” he wrote.
In a follow-up post, though, @Catturd2 made it clear that civil debate wasn’t the way to keep people like Rittenhouse in line. “And BTW … it wasn’t a productive conversation that changed his mind,” he commented. “It was the anger and backlash from the betrayal. No doubt about it.” When a follower replied to say that he would continue to hold a grudge against Rittenhouse, @Catturd2 answered with laughter. “LOL — can’t blame you,” he wrote.
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