'A new low': Republicans blasted for making heroes out of vigilante killers

Support from right-wing politicians for a former Marine accused of killing New York City homeless man Jordan Neely with a chokehold on the subway is the latest in a surge in celebrations of "vigilante 'justice,'" the Washington Post wrote Tuesday.

The backing of Daniel Penny after he was hit with second-degree manslaughter represents "a new low" for GOP extremism, wrote Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman for The Washington Post on Tuesday. A GoFundMe fundraising effort for Penny has raised more than $2 million, with several Republicans publicly donating.

"When Ron DeSantis defended Daniel Penny, the former Marine accused of killing a man suffering from mental illness on a New York City subway, the Florida governor didn’t just laud Penny as a hero. He also cast the law enforcement apparatus prosecuting Penny as presumptively illegitimate," they wrote.

"In so doing, DeSantis joined many on the right seeking to transform Penny into a martyr being punished by the 'deep state' for supposedly defending civil order. But this is particularly sobering coming from DeSantis; it suggests the two leading contenders for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination — DeSantis and former president Donald Trump — are open celebrators of vigilante 'justice.'"

This sort of rhetoric, they wrote, signifies that the wing of the GOP supposedly obsessed with "law and order" is now "blatantly celebrating extralegal violence."

"Like all defendants, Penny should be presumed innocent of the charge until proved guilty. A lot remains unknown about what happened. It would be one thing if right-wing figures were merely reminding people of this presumption and urging them to allow the justice system to do its work," said the report.

"Instead, some are valorizing Penny as a hero and the victim of a prosecution that has been decreed inevitably unjust, no matter what the facts prove. They argue that Neely was a threatening figure who needed to be restrained, and that subway riders who fear for their safety have been unfairly victimized by political and societal failures. Therefore, not only was Penny’s apparent use of lethal force justified, a jury cannot legitimately decide it was excessive."

The lauding of Penny mirrors that of Kyle Rittenhouse, a man who killed two men during a Black Lives Matter protest and who claimed self-defense. He's become a celebrity among right-wingers, wrote Jamelle Bouie for the The New York Times.

Indeed, Republicans are now converging on describing Penny as a "Good Samaritan," noted Bouie. But they don't seem to understand the actual Biblical story in the Gospel of Luke that that phrase originates from.

"Ron DeSantis called Penny a good Samaritan. We also saw that language used in defense of Rittenhouse during his trial," wrote Bouie.

"In American English, the term 'good Samaritan' has come to mean any person who helps someone else in distress, but the actual parable of the good Samaritan is a little more complicated. In the story, a traveler is assaulted by thieves who rob him, beat him and leave him for dead. Three people pass him. The first, a priest, ignores him. The second, a Levite, also ignores him. But the third, a Samaritan, binds his wounds and helps him recover, asking for nothing in return."

What made this story so significant is that at the time, the Samaritans were a despised and distrusted out-group — making it also a cautionary story against prejudice.

"Given the full meaning of the story, do we think a modern-day good Samaritan would use lethal force or act as a vigilante in defense of order?" concluded Bouie. "Probably not. But the idea that he would — and that this is what it means to act either ethically or responsibly — is evidence enough of a sickness that festers in too many American hearts."