Given that the Kenosha riots are already over, can we recognize that the white male pundits screeching about urban disorder or whatever aren’t making a neutral case, but actually trying to assist Trump’s reelection campaign by building the narrative they think he needs?

There were three days of unrest in a small Wisconsin city, and the main effect of that unrest was a double murder by a Trump supporter. If your takeaway is “in recent weeks chaos has gripped America cities like it’s 1968,” you are creating a story, not observing one.

I don’t think the people doing this are even driven by a desire for Trump to win, even. They just intuitively want swings in the race - more interesting to write about - and a canvas on which to work out their pet obsessions with black protest and liberalism.

I’m an idiot, because I just now realized:

“Kenosha” is this year’s “e-mails”

Seriously, it’s the exact same thing: pundits need a quick-and-easy way to “balance out” the horse race, so they’ve all glommed on to a random object that just so happens to represent, to them, some insecurities that they themselves, as white dudes, have with the Dem candidate

As I was saying: "Kenosha" is about setting up a horse-race narrative for election. The pundits wouldn't care if actual Kenosha sunk into Lake Michigan, any more than they care if there's any unrest in cities, or if all the protesters fall off the earth. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/us/politics/joe-biden-trump-conventions.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

They didn't care about the substance of "the email scandal" either. They just wanted someone they could fill in the blank with: "Mr. Trump has been accused by his opponents of being unqualified and racially insensitive. At the same time, Mrs. Clinton has been accused of _____."

Now, they were feeling uncomfortable with the way the campaign had become all about Trump's failings. They wanted to be able to say "But Republicans argue that Democrats will contribute to _______."

So they picked "black urban unrest" because hey, that sounds scary to them.