TUCKER CARLSON (HOST): When Jussie Smollett's hoax was still being investigated by the police, The New York Times and other media outlets suggested that it was a, quote, “conspiracy theory” to suspect that his claims might not be true.



The message was “shut up and believe it, or else you're a bad person, if not clinically insane.” Now, as is so often the case, the few people who are willing to think for themselves turned out to be absolutely right, and the press is scrambling to explain how exactly did that happen. How could reporters who are literally paid to be skeptical have fallen for such an obvious lie? It's not an easy question to answer. It's far easier just to pretend the whole thing never happened and that's what some are doing.



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This is the new official story, the one you are going to be hearing for a long time, the one your kids will be learning about in school, and it's this: A specific hate crime may not have happened in this case, but hate crimes overall are incredibly common, and the incidence of them is rising.



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The problem with what you just heard is it's a crock; it's totally false. In fact, it's provably untrue. Anyone who says otherwise, like the people you just heard, is either intentionally misleading you or doesn't understand the numbers -- and that would include most journalists. Type in the phrase “hate crimes” into Google and you will see story after story claiming that thousands of these atrocities take place every year in our country and the incidence of them is rising.



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Reporters almost never do their own statistical analysis for stories like this; they tend to be bad at math. In fact, that's why they are journalists in the first place and not in private equity making real money.



So, instead, reporters take their numbers wholesale from partisan activists who pose as researchers or from wholly fraudulent organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center. These groups use moral panics to gin up fund-raising. They get rich doing it, so, of course, they continue.



The problem is there aren't that many hate crimes occurring in the country. It's just not a very hateful place, so they have to make them up. How do they do that? They do it, and this is key, by counting accusations as crimes. An accusation is not the same thing as a crime; it's not even close.

So, if I accuse you of committing armed robbery, that does not mean a robbery occurred. You have to be convicted of it, and once you are, I can count what you did as a crime -- otherwise, it's just something that you said. It doesn't mean anything. In real life, hate crimes are rare.

Previously:



Tucker Carlson's descent into white supremacy: A timeline

Tucker Carlson's worst white nationalist dog whistles



Video: Fox News' Tucker Carlson echoes white nationalists, white supremacists, and neo-Nazis



White supremacists are thrilled with Tucker Carlson’s war on diversity