By C. Douglas Golden
While there are still plenty of unanswered questions in the Jussie Smollett case, we know much more than we did before. This is a lot different than when Smollett alleged he was attacked, when there were nothing but questions but we apparently knew everything.
If that sounds confusing to you, you clearly aren’t familiar with how liberals view anything that might involve conservatives or Donald Trump supporters in the year 2019.
“Empire” star Jussie Smollett said he was attacked on Jan. 29 by two men who shouted racial and homophobic slurs at him (Smollett is black and gay) along with the phrase “This is MAGA country.” According to his account, a strange chemical was thrown upon him and a rope was put around his neck.
It quickly became apparent there were some inconsistencies in Smollett’s story. Even though the attack happened in a Chicago neighborhood replete with surveillance cameras, it wasn’t caught on video. Smollett hadn’t called the cops from the scene and had requested, once they showed up, that they turn their body cameras off. The sandwich he had purchased from Subway before the alleged attack was completely intact and undamaged, according to reports. These were just a few of the irregularities that cast some measure of doubt upon Smollett’s story from the beginning.
But, more importantly, the story seemed to fit too neatly into a narrative — a narrative many people were willing to buy into before a single arrest was made. This was especially true for politicians and liberal celebrities, who didn’t seem to notice how tailor-made this whole attack was for their agenda. Not everything I mentioned above was public knowledge when they made their pronouncements, mind you, but Smollett’s allegation was tantamount to truth from the start, as far as they were concerned.
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In fact, numerous declared or potential 2020 Democrat presidential candidates were willing to cosign this story before a single arrest had been made:
This is a sickening and outrageous attack, and horribly, it’s the latest of too many hate crimes against LGBTQ people and people of color. We are all responsible for condemning this behavior and every person who enables or normalizes it. Praying for Jussie and his family. https://t.co/eylvxhLT0u
— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) January 29, 2019
You didn’t have to be running for president to jump to conclusions, either:
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Where, then, are these individuals now that Chicago Police reportedly believe the 36-year-old “Empire” actor possibly orchestrated the attack with the help of two Nigerian brothers, one of whom appeared on the show?
“We can confirm that the information received from the individuals questioned by police earlier in the ‘Empire’ case has in fact shifted the trajectory of the investigation,” Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Saturday, according to WLS-TV.
It’s not just politicians, either. Following the news of the attack last month, there was an outpouring of support from celebrities, as well:
Celebrities, I am aware, don’t carry the same responsibilities that politicians do. Their political clout is questionable at best. The reason I include these tweets, however, is to demonstrate just how quickly influencers of all sorts jumped to the conclusion Smollett must have been attacked. Why? Because they seem to believe they believe they live in an America that’s irredeemably racist and homophobic, and has gotten more so thanks to Trump.
In short, these are people who are suffering from conservaphobia. To a large portion of the left, conservatives aren’t just people who diverge from them politically. They’re also not just racists, sexists, homophobes, transphobes, Islamophobes, anti-Semites and, well, deplorables. They’re people who are willing to physically threaten anyone who isn’t like them in order to maintain their privilege or white supremacy, whichever term you feel like using that day.
Take this Democrat campaign ad from 2017, which is a uniquely perfect distillation of conservaphobia. It literally shows a white person in a truck with a Trump bumper sticker and a Confederate flag trying to run down minority children:
That ad was in service of a politician who was later found out to have had a picture of a two men — one dressed as a Klansman and another in blackface — in his medical school yearbook. He later claimed he knew the picture wasn’t of him because he had dressed in blackface on another occasion and would have remembered if he dressed in blackface in that photo. But that’s a story for another day.
Picture this ad running 10, 20 or 30 years ago. It would have been unthinkable because it would have been laughable. Liberals have always tried to paint conservatives as regressive on issues of race, sexism, gay rights and the like. However, there was never that kind of widespread fear of those who believed different than them — the idea that conservatives are lurking around every corner and there’s no idea what they might do. The idea of conservatism as a pickup truck literally running down children would have been considered so far beyond the pale as to sink the candidacy of anyone who released this video. Not so much anymore, which is part of the reason Ralph Northam is governor of Virginia.
That’s why the Smollett case resonated even without evidence to politicians and celebrities of the liberal stripe. Now, mind you, we still don’t know what happened. Conservatives ought not fall into the same trap and conclude this was a setup based on the fact that police have shifted their investigation. Beyond the right of due process, we’ve seen what happens when you jump to conclusions.
As for the celebrities who loathe and fear conservatives, there’s nothing particularly new there. However, for politicians, this is inexcusable. They used a mere allegation to make a political point about an America they believe to be sick to the core — so long, that is, as the Democrats are out of power. Now that it’s looking more and more like there’s a possibility Smollett orchestrated the attack, there’s absolute radio silence. But the tune never changes. The other side isn’t just bigoted, it’s capable of the most unthinkable forms of violence and hatred. The left’s outrage over Smollett may have morphed into silent embarrassment, but conservaphobia will continue unabated.
https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/big-names-outraged-jussie-smollett-attack-facts-came/