When the Press Sees Red, by Michael Dougherty.

You’ve probably seen the viral footage of a Native American beating his drum, surrounded by a crowd of students from Covington Catholic high school. One of them, wearing a MAGA hat, is right in front of him, with a smirk on his face. …

The footage went viral, causing the school to promise to investigate and possibly suspend the malefactor students. Social media erupted with attempts to “dox” the students and with full-grown adults encouraging people to assault the student in the video.

The condemnation of the students was nearly universal. There was lots of tut-tutting about how the students must have learned this mob-like and threatening behavior from their “role model,” Donald Trump. Some Catholics, who dislike Trump or conservatism, joined in to condemn the students.

Fake, fake, fake.

And then, predictably, the story began to unravel. Students tried reaching out to the media explaining their confusion about the event. And video began to confirm that in fact it was the Native American who approached the students and got in their faces, as racist and homophobic taunts went out to the students from a nearby group of “Black Hebrews.”

Like so many stories that supposedly conveyed the reality of Trump’s America, that so perfectly displayed white Christian menace, it turned out to be fake. Fake, like the Ohio University student who sent herself anti-gay hate mail; manufactured, like the racist harassment on a bus that Hilary Clinton tweeted about; an attempted frame-up, with liberal credulity made into the co-conspirator, like the vandalism of a Jewish cemetery done by a progressive reporter.

The left couldn’t go after the incomes the high-school students, like it does to adults, so it went after their university admissions: