The worst part is that these kinds of grasping-at-straws conspiracy theories are pushed by the same people who complain about the United States entering “post-truth politics” thanks to Trump. But a fact-averse environment isn’t new, not by a long shot. Facts have been reduced to the status of an occasionally useful but in no way necessary means to political ends since the rise of the postmodern left in the 1970s. Decades later it’s stronger than ever, perhaps even reaching a fever pitch in the wake of Trump’s victory.
News outlets everywhere reported that Muslim women everywhere were being attacked by suspiciously perfect Trump supporters. The New York Daily News, Gothamist, Yahoo, Slate, Talking Points Memo, and ABC all reported one instance of such a hoaxed story as fact. They took the story of an activist as fact, flaunting journalistic standards by using the words “allegedly” or “reportedly.”
Talking Points Memo, a left-wing advocacy website, doubled down on their sophistry when they were caught, saying that “one hoax” doesn’t discredit the “hate crime wave” that hit the country. Yes, that’s technically true, professor, but police information showing the nonexistence of any such hate crime wave does exactly that.
Ideological narratives beat facts. There is nothing above it except crude ideology that demands that Trump be painted as a hyperbolic evil. Police data may show that there is no spike in hate crimes at all, but activists think there could or should be. That’s the story we’re going to be hearing for the next four years, and it will be nothing more than happy accident if the facts end up aligning with it.
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