Daniel Penny and the Shifting Mood of America

The Penny trial will be a temperature gauge for the coming era

Daniel Penny, New York City, 2024

The manslaughter trial of Daniel Penny has entered closing arguments today and the fate of the 26-year-old former Marine hangs in the balance.

Penny was charged with the death of a New York City subway passenger who was acting erratically and threatening other passengers. Penny acted to protect the subway car full of people and placed the attacker (who was Black and had previous charges) in a chokehold, which allegedly led to his death.

In any other era this case would have probably been very straightforward. Crazy person threatens subway riders, f**ks around, finds out. This sounds like a particularly New York City kind of response. At least the New York City of old.

In new New York City, the most hated person is the law-abiding citizen. The migrant crisis has pushed native New Yorkers out of their homes, schools and communities and increased the chaos of their homeless problems. City resources are so strapped the police must prioritize their responses. Victims of petty thefts or non-fatal physical attacks are encouraged to file complaints on their own at their local precincts. I recently interviewed model and entrepreneur Victoria Henley on a harrowing experience she had in New York City when she was attacked by an illegal migrant who had previously been arrested five times for assault.

The city enacted draconian lockdown measure during the pandemic, even as their celebrity class received exemptions so they could attend their red carpet events and fancy dinner parties. Churches were closed but strip clubs were open. ANTIFA and BLM protesters destroyed religious and government buildings with impunity. Climate protesters blocked traffic in the Big Apple, preventing thousand of New Yorkers from getting to work, home or help, yet not a single consequence was meted out to the offenders. The police did not even attempt to remove them from traffic, instead allowing the entire city to be held hostage.

It is in the midst of this heavy and descending disorder that the Daniel Penny case sprung up, and it has the potential, I believe, to become a significant demarkation point in America’s current sharp cultural shift.

The case seemed so cut-and-dry in the beginning, Penny wasn’t even arrested. It wasn’t until protesters showed up on prosecutor Alvin Bragg’s doorstep that police showed up on Penny’s. It seems his main offense was being a white man in the Era of Woke, when race trumps everything, including safety.

Bragg, of course, is no stranger to malicious prosecution. He brought Trump’s sham trial in NYC and has been delivered humiliation after humiliation since the beginning. There certainly could be no greater repudiation of his ineffective and partisan legal leadership than the enthusiastic election of Donald J. Trump in spite of (and maybe even a bit because of) the convictions.

Thanks to the legacy press, there was an information brownout of the case, but as the trial proceeded and witness testimony became public, it was shockingly obvious that Penny had done his civic duty. His prosecution has been purely political.

In November, Americans delivered a resounding mandate to their political class. We are done with the upside-down America we’ve all been forced to live in over the last four years. We are tired of watching criminals be rewarded while good American citizens are chastised and shamed for speaking up on their own behalf. We are tired of being told bad is good and down is up and black is white. We are tired of the Ivory Tower set lecturing us about our reality even while they try to pretend a man can become a woman by putting on a dress. We are tired of the intentional degradation and denigration of everyday American heroism while pretending the real heroes are people who mutilate the bodies of vulnerable children or choose alternative sexual lifestyles.

We are tired of being deceived into fearing each other.

Daniel Penny’s actions that day represent the best of us, and people like Alvin Bragg know it and hate it. They hate the best of us because that “best” includes self-reliance, independence, and neighborly love. It does not include the government. Daniel Penny made the mistake of taking the protection of his fellow citizens into his own hands in an on-the-spot decision in a crisis situation. The Braggs of America don’t like Americans making their own choices. They want us to fear each other enough to leave each other to the wolves.

The outcome of this trial will say a lot about the shifting mood of Americans. A jury of 12 people in New York City certainly won’t represent all of America, but our reaction to their decision will say a lot about who we are now, what we’ve said “no” to and what we are willing to do to make sure future Daniel Penny’s are celebrated and not persecuted.

America has spoken. We’re over it.

Hopefully that sentiment will extend to Daniel Penny’s case as well.