“I am outraged, and you should be too.” That message from former Vice President Kamala Harris has been a virtual mantra of the Democratic Party for years. For several months, this has meant decrying the imminent death of democracy and our descent into authoritarianism. Now, it means falsely claiming that ICE “kidnapped” or “arrested” a five-year-old boy and used him as “bait” to catch someone.
The “bait boy” story is actually the latest clickbait hoax in our “Age of Rage.”
Five years ago, Harris was expressing the same call for outrage over the false story of Border agents whipping migrants in Texas. She expressed disgust over the “horrible and deeply troubling” scenes reminiscent of the slave period.
It quickly became a pile-on, with the media spreading the false account. Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) described the incident as “worse than what we witnessed in slavery” and “white supremacist behavior.”
The media continued to repeat the false account, even as many of us pointed out that the publicly available video showed the story was demonstrably untrue. It did not matter. It fit the narrative on the left…
After the false story was exposed, the media just shrugged….