COVINGTON FALLOUT: Truth And Disfavored Identities. “This disgraceful affair is further evidence of America’s spiralling polarization and of group hatreds being used to justify sanctimonious mobbing and violence. Activists and Twitter blowhards, some of them with thousands of followers, have run roughshod over the facts with a false narrative of grotesque privilege colliding with noble oppression that confirmed their ideological preferences. Their idle (and possibly cynical) demonization of schoolchildren was then amplified by click-hungry media sites trafficking in furious indignation and recklessly stoking sectarian anger. That Phillips played his own part in encouraging a misleading version of events does not excuse the failure to verify on the part of those uncritically reporting and circulating his remarks.”

Related: Brendan O’Neill: This Is A New Low For The Twittermob.