On the right, support and donations are pouring in for Daniel Penny

Little is known about the political views of Daniel Penny, the ex-Marine accused of fatally strangling Jordan Neely on a New York City subway.

But since Mr. Penny was arrested Friday on charges of second-degree manslaughter, he has been quickly embraced by right-wing political figures and groups.

A campaign to raise money for his legal defense — set up on GiveSendGo, a self-declared Christian crowdfunding site that was also used to raise money for some of those detained in the January 6 attack on the Capitol — raised more than $1.8 million. raised. from Sunday evening.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a likely Republican presidential nominee, urged his followers to donate to the fund and compared Mr. Penny to the Good Samaritan, a biblical figure who comes to the aid of a man who has been beaten, stripped of his clothes and left to along the side of the road behind.

“Let’s show this Marine … America is behind him.” he said on Twitter on Friday.

Representative Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Florida, called Mr. Penny a “Subway Superman.”

Other right-wing commentators have also sided with Mr. Penny, including Charlie Kirkwho runs Turning Point USA, a conservative student group, and Jenna Ellisan attorney for former President Donald J. Trump.

The tidal wave of support from the right contrasts sharply with the reaction on the left following the May 1 murder of 30-year-old Mr Neely. Protesters called for Mr Penny’s arrest. Political figures, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, should have sued Mr. Penny immediately.

Republican support for Penny, 24, who grew up on Long Island and whose most recent New York voter registration, from 2016, lists his party membership as conservative, followed a pattern of reactions to past incidents, according to political analysts.

Conservative commentators also hailed as a hero Kyle Rittenhouse, a white 18-year-old from Antioch, Illinois, who shot three men, two of them fatally, during demonstrations in Kenosha, Wis., in 2020. Mr. Trump met him after he was acquitted of murder charges and called him “a nice young man.”

Texas Republican governor Greg Abbott has said he intends to pardon Daniel Perry, an Army sergeant who was sentenced to 25 years in prison earlier this month for fatally shooting a gunman during a Black Lives Matter protest in Austin.

Like these men, Mr. Penny has become the symbol of a “macho” and “tough, take action, stand firm” ethos that appeals to a conservative part of the country, said Douglas Muzzio, a political science professor at Baruch High School. .

Noting that many facts about the chokehold case remain unclear, including what happened before Mr. Penny grabbed Mr. Neely, Mr. Muzzio said, “It doesn’t matter what he did or what he felt or what he believed.”

The charge against Mr. Penny “takes place in an atmosphere of extreme polarization and racial polarization,” said Mr. music. “It’s symptomatic of our times — the split between red and blue, the split between black and white — and it resonates with some deep-seated realities of American politics.”

Moments before posting his support for Mr. Penny on Twitter, Mr. DeSantis shot at Mr. Bragg while visiting Peoria, Illinois—expressing his contempt for prosecutors backed by “people like George Soros.” referring to the liberal billionaire and Democratic donor who is a frequent target of right-wing attacks, some of which use veiled anti-Semitic tropes.

Jumaane Williams, New York’s public advocate, said Mr DeSantis’s criticism followed a right-wing playbook to gain political support by instilling fear “regardless of what the facts say”.

“If the violence can be linked to black people or people with mixed skin, they go even harder,” he said.

Mr. Penny’s praise is “depressing,” said Gabriel Murphy, an engineer who served in the Marines from 2006 to 2010. and who started a petition calling for charges against Mr. Penny shortly after Mr. Neely’s deathsaying that he had abused the chokehold.

He said people have an image of the military in their heads. “They applaud that mental image — that every Marine is a bloodthirsty killer waiting to commit just violence,” Murphy said in an interview.

But Marines are trained to give a chokehold to enemy combatants and stop using such force once their opponent loses consciousness, he said. A four-minute video recording the chokehold showed Mr. Penny clinging tightly to Mr. Neely 50 seconds after he went limp.

“I don’t think what he did was okay, and I don’t think it’s consistent with anything the Marine Corps teaches,” Mr. Murphy said.

The fund for Mr. Penny’s legal fees was organized by his lawyers, including Thomas Kenniff, who ran as a Republican against Mr. Bragg in 2021. Mr Penny’s lawyers were not immediately available for comment on Sunday.

An anonymous donor gave $10,000 with a note that read, “thank you for protecting the citizens that day.”

As of Sunday, a fund set up by Mr. Neely’s family to help pay funeral expenses had raised just over $102,000.

Nicholas Nehamas reporting contributed.