Trump's Embrace Of The Subway Killer Echoes Our Violent, Racist Past

Daniel Penny, who choked Jordan Neely to death on the subway, sat with Trump at the Army-Navy game. The right-wing celebrations of Penny echo a violent, racist past.

By Dave Zirin, The Nation

The guests in Donald Trump’s luxury box at Saturday’s Army-Navy game in Landover, Maryland, were right-wing A-listers. They included Elon Musk, JD Vance, Ron DeSantis, and the GOP’s man of the moment: Daniel Penny. (If Derek Chauvin hadn’t been convicted of killing George Floyd, he probably would’ve been there too.)

In February, Penny, an ex-Marine, killed an unhoused Black man on the New York City subway. He choked to death a slender 30-year-old street performer with preexisting mental health concerns having a breakdown on the F train. His name was Jordan Neely. Penny said that he saw Neely as someone potentially violent and was therefore compelled to hold him in what’s known as a “coward’s choke” (from behind, without warning). He held that Marine-trained choke hold for six full minutes, even after Neely slumped down and lost consciousness, even after other subway riders begged him to loosen his grip.

Before Neely’s body was cold, Penny became a right-wing, white-power folk hero. He was the Marine “standing up” to the crazies on the big, bad urban subway; his New York City “persecution”—like Trump’s—was a sign of a liberal legal system off the rails. But unlike Trump, Penny was acquitted by a New York City jury. It was a case where the facts were never in doubt: The only question was whether the jury—in a long, ignominious, American tradition—would give its approval to what should be called a lynching.

The word “lynching” is used intentionally here, with all the implied historical weight.

It is an accurate descriptor for a killing that was public (filmed and widely shared on social media) and that many cheered as an act of necessary social and racial discipline. The online revelry accompanying this verdict is a digital equivalent of the old black-and-white Jim Crow lynching postcards, where a sea of white faces and white smiles surround a Black man’s body—neck twisted obscenely—hanging from a tree. Lynchings are not just executions; they’re celebrations of terror.