But they were sure if Trump did not do it , then some of his supporters did and everyone knows that.

Chris Matthews and the Goofy Looking Dude from the Southern Poverty Law Center have a point: We do not have any evidence Donald Trump did not personally knock over 200 headstones in a Jewish graveyard in St. Louis.

The further from St. Louis you get, the less insane that sounds. Because in St. Louis, large-scale vandalism and criminality is a black thing -- not a political thing.

The Trump tombstone desecration was just the warmup. Chris and the Goofy Looking Dude said Trump and his ilk have been responsible for gajillions of acts of hatred and violence against everybody except white men, starting the day after the election.

In most newscasts, this is usually the time when they run a video that supports at least a little bit what they said. This they did not do, at least not at first.

But when they did get around to giving a specific example of this nationwide tsunami of hatred and violence, the Goofy Looking Dude from SPLC reminded Chris how a woman in a hijab in a New York subway was attacked by the Trump acolytes on a mission of hate: “37 percent of the perpetrators, as you said, either named President Trump by saying something like -- you know -- yelling to a woman wearing a hijab ‘you go back to your country, now Donald Trump is President. That kind of thing.’”

Chris nodded in knowing satisfaction.

That was the only specific example the Goofy Looking Dude could come up with. And it was a lie. A fabrication. A hoax.

Even the New York Times had to admit that in the headlines, no less: “Muslim Woman Made Up Hate Crime on Subway, Police say.”

A few details for the truth- and memory-challenged folks at MSNBC: This happened way back in December 2016. Yasmin Seweid -- if you need help remembering, you could always pronounce it seaweed -- told every cop and reporter should could find “that three white men screaming “Donald Trump!” attacked her on Dec. 1 on an uptown No. 6 train at East 23rd Street,” said the Times.

Over at the Daily Beast, aka Newsweek, they passed along the phony baloney details just as quickly as Seaweed could manufacture them:

On Thursday night, an 18-year-old college student who wears a hijab was on the subway after a Women in Business Style Your Success fashion show when three apparently drunk men began shouting, “Donald Trump! Donald Trump! Donald Trump!” The men then zeroed in on her. “Look, a f---ing terrorist…. Get the hell out of the country!… You don’t belong here!” They yanked her bag and the strap broke. “Can you please leave me alone?” she asked. They responded with laughter and followed as she tried to walk away from them. They tried to pull off her hijab. “Take that rag off your head!” What made it all the more nightmarish was that none of the many other people aboard the train sought to help her. Passengers looked at her and at the men and clearly understood what was happening, but then just looked away without offering so much as syllable in her defense. “It breaks my heart that so many individuals chose to be bystanders while watching me get harassed verbally and physically by these disgusting pigs,” she posted on Facebook afterward. The student—Yasmin Seweid—wrote of the incident itself as someone who is American born and raised: “Trump’s name was repeatedly said & it finally clicked in my head. No matter how ‘cultured’ or ‘Americanized’ I am, these people don’t see me as an American.”

Hundreds and hundreds of other mainstream outlets followed the story with glee.

And when police unmasked the hoax -- every bit of it was a lie, including if, and, and but -- thousands of other outlets reported that too, and wondered why so many reporters were so eager to believe these fake stories about Trump.

Others wonders why these same reporters refused to write about the violence against Trump supporters, which really did happen. On real video. In the real world. Just a few of which you can find on this playlist.

Maybe Chris and the Goofy Looking Dude did not get that memo. Or they just forgot about it.

My hands are not entirely clean here: Shortly after the Boston Marathon bombing, the Goofy Looking Dude gave me the same treatment on the Rachel Maddow show.

GLD of the SPLC said my stories and books about black violence and journalistic denial created a climate of hate that caused the bombing.

Yes: Good ol’ Colin caused the Boston Marathon bombing. I’m looking forward to including that in the scrapbook at my next high school reunion.

So far, no federal agents have knocked on my door to investigate. And neither has Rachel Maddow repeated it again. So I appear to be off the hook. This time.

But this must also be said: I do not have any evidence that Goofy Looking Dude is not a full-time occupant of a mental hospital, diagnosed with an extreme cased of batshit craziness; and that he wears a white straitjacket all day, only to be removed for the occasional appearance on MSNBC.

Ditto for Chris Matthews, now that I think about it.

So it must be true.

Colin Flaherty is the author of the best selling books Don’t Make the Black Kids Angry and White Girl Bleed a Lot. You can subscribe to him on YouTube too.