The process of conservative myth-making in the age of the Internet has become breathtakingly fast, as was demonstrated over the weekend in response to an ugly bout of violence at an Alabama Donald Trump rally. On Saturday afternoon, a white crowd at a Birmingham rally mobbed a black man who had shown up to protest the rally and to promote the Black Lives Matter movement. This was witnessed by at least two reporters, one working for the Washington Post and another working for CNN, which also got video of the fight.
“At least a half-dozen attendees shoved and tackled the protester, a black man, to the ground as he refused to leave the event,” David Mark and Jeremy Diamond wrote. “At least one man punched the protester and a woman kicked him while he was on the ground.” This is borne out by the video, which is confusing at points—it was filmed in a crowd—but definitely shows Southall flailing about in a crowd of people that are swarming him while Trump himself yells to throw him out.
But less that 24 hours after the incident happened, the right-wing media was already in full don’t-believe-your-lying-eyes mode. As Callum Borchers at the Washington Post reports, multiple right wing “news” sites are already spinning conspiracy theories about how that wicked liberal media is lying to you about what happened. According to Breitbart, the mob of people surrounding this man are, at best, acting in self-defense. (Because we’re meant to believe that people who are afraid of Syrian orphans run towards perceived danger as an act of self-defense.)