Desperate MAGA exploits a teen killing

[marmar]

Why MAGA media is fixated on a Texas teen murder case
The racist exploitation of Austin Metcalf's killing shows how MAGA tears local communities apart

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published April 25, 2025 6:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) If anyone hoped that the Jan. 6 defendants Donald Trump released from jail would be humbled enough to embrace a quieter, more productive existence, well, the exact opposite is happening with quite a few of them. And one post-pardon case is already sticking out for sheer depravity. Jake Lang, who spent years in jail while contending with multiple charges for violence during the Capitol riot, is making a racist spectacle of a high school murder case in Texas.

On April 2, Austin Metcalf, 17, was stabbed to death at a track meet in Frisco, a suburb of Dallas. Karmelo Anthony, also 17, was charged with murder, after admitting he stabbed Metcalf to police. Metcalf was white. Anthony is Black. Lang saw an opportunity and leapt into action. After circulating a flyer with Metcalf's face labeled "Protect White Americans," Lang descended on this Texas suburb to lead a rally painting Black Americans as a near-existential threat to white Americans.

When Jeff Metcalf, the victim's father, called Lang during the rally, the former inmate now running for State Secretary Marco Rubio's Florida Senate seat, got visibly excited. But his joy turned to rage when Metcalf did not play along with the racist stunt. "You’re trying to create more race divide than bridging the gap," Metcalf declared, and an enraged Lang called this reaction "weakness."

Lang is a clown, but he is not an outlier. The whole of right-wing media, including Fox News, has decided to make a spectacle of this case, with endless, breathless coverage painting this single situation as symbolic of what they view as a racist war on white people. It's useful agitprop for MAGA, which desperately needs a distraction from Trump's failures and falling approval ratings. It's gross, and it's coming at a high cost for the families involved and the larger community, ratcheting up racial tensions and sowing paranoia, all over a case that is already heart-wrenching enough. .................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/04/25/why-maga-media-is-fixated-on-a-texas-teen-case/

[mwmisses4289]

1. In texas, at least, it seems that

whenever a poc murders a non poc, there's breathless 24/7 coverage. But when non poc murders another non poc? Excuses, especially if the non poc is male.

[mwmisses4289]

3. Hadn't heard about that one.

The dragging case as far as I know was simply AA gentleman going about his business and three white dudes started out harassing him and it escalated from there. All three got life in prison as far as I know.

[mwmisses4289]

4. Link to Wikipedia article

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Byrd_Jr.