DON’T WORRY, THEY CAN CITE OTHER CASES FIRST: A Washington Post writer is concerned that, in the future, Smollett’s will be “the first example skeptics cite when they say we should be dubious of victims who step forward to share their experience of racist hate crimes or sexual violence.” This, she argues, will cause “irreparable damage” to the “communities most affected.”

She needn’t worry. Alas, skeptics have many examples to choose from: Tawana Brawley, the Duke lacrosse team, the University of Virginia fraternity, the Covington boys, the University of Michigan woman who claimed a man threatened to burn her hijab. Here’s another one and a few more.    Here’s a bunch more. And still more. I am sure that with minimal effort you can find others.

Somebody needs to start worrying about a different kind of “irreparable harm”–that being done to our social fabric by false accusations—especially those that aren’t found out … or those that receive huge publicity in the media until it turns out that they are false and then are quietly forgotten.

We are not a perfect country. Now and then ugly things will happen in 2019—though knock me over with a feather if they involve nooses, the KKK, or screams of “This is MAGA country.” But impressionable young people and immigrants are being convinced that Americans are far worse people than we actually are. Without a more realistic sense of the dangers of ordinary American life, we will all eventually lose our freedoms and our fortunes. Public trust is a precious thing.