Republicans have jumped all in on the recent Jussie Smollett conviction as part of an obvious propaganda effort to try to imply that “because the Smollett story was fake that means all reports of hate crimes are fake”. Many NationalZero readers are already aware of Russian trolls who respond to every story about a hate crime or murder committed by a Trump supporter with a reply akin to “Just like Jussie, Right?” The Republican response to the verdict is clearly an attempt to use the story as a false equivalency to excuse acts of domestic terrorism committed by Trump supporters.

In one example, disgraced former legal analyst turned John Solomon protege Jonathan Turley derided attention to the Smollett case as the work of “opportunistic politicians” and “advocacy journalism”. Turley is making a very clear attempt to promote an environment where any reportage of a civil rights violation is regarded with suspicion, as a means of granting Trump supporters public license to commit terrorist attacks. An article about the story on the Gateway Pundit referred to Smollett’s actions as a “racist hate hoax“, a term that we’re sure to see used by conservatives to try to impugn legitimate reporting of domestic terrorism incidents in the very near future.

There is no question that Jussie Smollett engaged in an act that harmed our country by providing conservatives with a political narrative that they will use to try to undermine legitimate reporting of actual hate crimes. Republicans are clearly over-reaching, and making a desperate attempt to try to use Smollett’s act to provide themselves with a ready made excuse for crimes committed by Trump supporters, and while their actions may not be criminal in the eyes of the law, when speaking in moral terms, they are every bit as guilty of crimes against the people as Jussie Smollett.