Now that it is rather obvious that "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett paid two Nigerian-born brothers (one of whom was for a time his personal trainer) to help stage a hate crime hoax in Chicago, one must ask why so many in the media and Democratic Party fell for such a questionable story in the first place.
To paraphrase Agent Mulder in another popular FOX show, it was because they wanted to believe.
They wanted to believe that President Trump has fomented such a hateful environment that his supporters would attack a gay, black Trump critic simply for being a gay, black Trump critic. They wanted to believe that, as CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin put it, "this is America in 2019."
Only it isn't. It's the America that the political left and its media allies have invented. Sadly, hate crimes do occur, but they are dramatically outnumbered by the truly staggering number of hate crime hoaxes that generate similarly uncritical and sympathetic coverage.
Listen to a full breakdown of this sad trend on Monday's edition of "The Dan O'Donnell Show."