The significance of this story is that many who believed Mr. Smollett’s account weren’t satisfied with wanting to bring the perpetrator of that alleged assault to justice, or even with standing in solidarity with Mr. Smollett as a victim. No, those “believers” immediately and with certainty blamed President Trump and his supporters for the outrage committed against Mr. Smollett. And it wasn’t only activists – many Democratic politicians, including several who are running for president, unquestioningly accepted that the story was true, and did not hesitate to blame the President and those who support him. Those candidates, and the mainstream news media, did not even qualify their opinions with the word “alleged” or one of its variants. They believed Mr. Smollett’s words and charges, and were never skeptical or suspicious of any detail, and the media and the candidates used the the story to hammer the President, a man whom, for all his faults, was not out on the streets of Chicago that night with a noose and “an unknown chemical substance” prowling for Mr. Smollett or anyone else. He could not possibly have committed the attack, yet was blamed for it anyway. And it bears repeating that: A) the incident that Mr. Smollett claimed took place was manufactured by him and people he paid; and B) the President and people wearing MAGA hats had nothing to do with it.
This is the same viewpoint that lets Hillary Clinton see everyone who voted for Mr. Trump as “a deplorable,” and she is far from the only one who does so. There is hatred in our political discourse today, way too much, on all sides. As Americans, we should be tolerant of viewpoints with which we disagree. We surely have the right to disagree, or to argue, or to try to convince people that they are wrong and we are right, but we should accept that people can hold opinions that differ with ours.
As Americans, we should respect viewpoints. Sure, we can satirize them or argue against the ones we don’t like, but we should not attempt to ostracize or marginalize or silence those who express them. And wouldn’t it be nice if we could limit whatever venom we feel for our political opponents to those who are holding office or running for it rather than for the people who vote for those candidates. It is one thing to believe that President Trump is “deplorable.” It is something entirely different to believe that everyone who voted for him is deplorable.
Perhaps if a healthy skepticism and a tolerant attitude were prevalent, the progressives who rushed to support Mr. Smollett and rushed to blame anyone who wore a “Make America Great Again” hat wouldn’t have such an embarrassingly large amount of egg on their faces once the truth came out that the only crimes that were committed were committed by Mr. Smollett and the people he hired. Interestingly enough, as the truth has been discovered, the same folks who initially jumped in with both feet now are “withholding judgment” and “waiting until all the facts are in.” “If true,” they say about the charges against Mr. Smollett, things should be very bad for him. Sadly, the qualifiers “if true” or “alleged” or any other conditionality were never used in their first reactions.
And of course, conservatives often make the same errors and mistakes that progressives do, but the mainstream media and the political establishment who so promptly agree with progressives even when they are wrong never seem to agree with the conservatives even when they are right, but that’s another issue.
The folks who share our beliefs are not always right, and the folks who do not are not always wrong, and the faster we all come to accept the truth of that statement, the better it will be for American politics.