At the end of the day, many of the people outraged by the Rittenhouse verdict have no use for the notions of armed self-defense, trial by jury, and reasonable doubt — long-standing bulwarks of our system — if they are obstacles to punishing and acquitting people based on a grand woke narrative of America.

In this worldview, Kyle Rittenhouse is what was once known as a class enemy — guilty by definition.

What woke progressives ultimately want is a justice system that looks more like campus sexual-assault tribunals, where the accused is presumed to be guilty based on his status and the tried-and-true practices of our adversarial system have been discarded. Then, Kyle Rittenhouse wouldn’t have stood a chance, and a righteous blow would ostensibly have been struck against white supremacy.

This is obviously a dangerous tendency that is going to get more pronounced and powerful in the years ahead. The Rittenhouse verdict shows that it hasn’t yet perverted our system of justice, but all people of good will who believe in fair play and the rule of law will have to resist it with all their might.