Why MAGA media is fixated on a Texas teen murder case
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."
Incredible moment in Frisco: Austin Metcalf’s dad just called the organizers of the Protect White People rally to say they’re “part of the fucking problem” and to stop using photos of his kid. They responded by blaming his “white guilt” for “thousands more Austin Metcalfs.”
— Robert Downen (@robertdownen.bsky.social) April 19, 2025 at 2:09 PM
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.
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The details of the killing are tragic, but don't seem mysterious. Metcalf and Anthony got into a scuffle at a track tournament after arguing about whether Anthony was allowed to hang out in Metcalf's team tent. Witnesses say the fight ended when Anthony stabbed Metcalf. When police arrested Anthony, the report says, he began "crying hysterically" and saying it was self-defense. "He put his hands on me, I told him not to," Anthony said, according to the police report. It also noted that Anthony asked if Metcalf, who bled to death, was "going to be OK?"
It's useful agitprop for MAGA, which desperately needs a distraction from Trump's failures and falling approval ratings.
It seems like Anthony is facing an uphill battle with his claims of self-defense. If he is successful, it's due to Texas law's broad definition of legitimate "self-defense," which was passed by Republican lawmakers acting on behalf of gun lobbyists. Despite this, right-wing media is treating this case like it's definitive evidence that a white person can't get justice in "woke" America. Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire treated Anthony's acquittal as a fait accompli, claiming all they need is "one juror who harbors a deep and abiding resentment towards white people" and "Karmelo Anthony can continue driving around in expensive SUVs and living in rented mansions." The Blaze compared Anthony to O.J. Simpson," calling it a "psyop" to "frustrate white people." Will Cain of Fox News has been hyping this story relentlessly, even featuring a conservative commentator Brandon Tatum warning that this is about an "underbelly of racism" he claims is "perpetuated by Black people" and hosting Austin Metcalf's mother and twin bother one day after his killing to publicly reject Jeff Metcalf's plea for grace. "Murdering a white kid in cold blood seems acceptable to some," Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA declared. And because no right-wing grift is complete without it, there's now a crypto memecoin exploiting the incident.
I am legitimately at a loss for words
— Robert Downen (@robertdownen.bsky.social) April 20, 2025 at 12:40 AM
Tellingly, the right-wing noise machine can't even articulate the injustice that needs to be remedied here. Anthony was arrested and is being held accountable. There is not a smidgen of evidence that police and prosecutors aren't taking this case seriously. Yes, Anthony's parents and their friends are defending him, but that's typical in criminal cases and part of a larger right of the accused to defend himself. The deafening outrage is about shutting off the brains of the audience, keeping MAGA audiences in a state of racist paranoia, so they don't think about how Donald Trump's incompetence is hurting the economy and national security.
The spiraling race hysteria had led to serious harassment of both the families of Metcalf and Anthony. Frisco police have confirmed both of Metcalf's parents have been targeted by "swatting" calls, where pranksters send SWAT teams by lying to 911 operators. Anthony's family has been getting death threats and relocated their son, after he was released on bond, to a hidden location to protect him. When Anthony's parents had a likely ill-advised press conference last week, asking people to leave them alone, Jeff Metcalf showed up and had to be escorted out by police. The right-wing press exploited this, as well, which likely contributed to his desire to speak out against those who want to use this to sow racial division. Social media has been awash in lies, including a fake autopsy report. The abuse seems to be coming from all sides, from people who want to demonize either Metcalf or Anthony. But all this is being turbocharged by the MAGA media's obsession with this case, which is raising tensions all around.
It's unsurprising that a Jan. 6 defendant would be drawn to the racialized drama, especially someone with a history as shady as Lang's. His legal exposure from the Capitol riot was not of the low-level "trespassing" charges. He was charged with assaulting officers "using a dangerous weapon" and other violent crimes. The appeals court judge said evidence showed Lang "repeatedly pushed, punched, and kicked at police officers" and "slammed a door against one officer’s head and struck other officers first with a stolen riot shield and later with a metal baseball bat." In jail, he spent his time playing a "political prisoner" on far-right podcasts and social media, and even tried (and failed) to create a MAGA militia from his cell. Now he's arguing that Black people are uniquely violent, as part of his bid to rebrand himself as a Republican candidate.
Lang did not react well to Jeff Metcalf telling him to step off. After the grieving father embarrassed Lang in front of reporters, Lang posted on X that Metcalf is an example of "White Weakness & Submission" and that Metcalf would "hand his daughter over to be raped." Philip Anderson, another pardoned Jan. 6 defendant who has joined up with the "Protect White Americans" stunt, called Jeff Metcalf the P-word on X. Apparently, grieving fathers aren't on the list of white people Lang wishes to "protect," unless they agree with his racist campaign.
This entire debacle reveals the ugly lie Trump and his MAGA movement are selling to white Americans, that they can "protect" themselves by aligning with a fascist movement. In reality, MAGA is only making a terrible situation much worse. I don't know the political leanings of either of Austin Metcalf's parents, but there is no universe in which being the centerpiece of a racialized circus is helping them deal with this nightmarish situation. As Jeff Metcalf observed, it's just making things worse for everyone, regardless of race, when a crime like this is being used to turn people against each other. Dialing down the temperature with a sober-minded, fact-guided effort at giving Anthony due process would work out better for everyone in the community. The person being aided by this racial spectacle is Donald Trump, who needs a highly emotional spectacle to distract from how he's failing Americans, including those who voted for him.
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