Chicago Mayor Goes Full Jussie Smollett, Blames ‘Right-Wing Extremism’ for City’s Migrant Crisis: ‘They’re Still Mad That a Black Man Is Free in This Country’
30th November 2023
Everybody remembers the crazy storyline from January 2019: In the wee hours of a Tuesday morning in Chicago, actor Jussie Smollett claimed he was returning from a trip to a Subway sandwich shop when he was attacked by two white men wearing “Make America Great Again” caps, who shouted racist and homophobic slurs, poured bleach on him, tied a noose around his neck and exclaimed: “This is MAGA country!” As fake hate-crime hoaxes go, this was one of the least plausible narratives ever. Republican terrorists in Chicago? At 2 a.m.? In below-zero weather? Targeting an actor who most people never heard of?
Smollett’s tale was quickly exposed as a lie, but his hoax expressed a common belief among liberals, that “hate” is a widespread menace in America, and that Republican voters are all guilty of “hate.” It was therefore not really surprising that the mayor of Chicago — Joe Biden got 74% of the vote in Cook County — would invoke this belief when discussing his city’s illegal immigrant problem.