Did you hear about the second Unite the Right white supremacist rally in D.C.? You must have heard about it because it was all over the news. In fact, it was so well covered by the media that there were more reporters at the event than white supremacists.

Can’t stress enough how underwhelming the #UniteTheRight2 #unitetheright group is. Twenty MAGA dudes walking inside of 100s of cops, 100s of media, and 1000s of counter demonstrators down F street pic.twitter.com/BQZBpn9oME — Scott Heins (@scottheins) August 12, 2018

Notice that according to this guy, who does photos for the Washington Post, there were more reporters than participants at this wildly hyped white supremacist rally. It is also worth noting that he rather casually conflates white supremacists with Trump supporters as if there is no difference between them. Let’s break that down because it’s very significant.

First of all, the white supremacist movement in America is tiny. Even the habitually dishonest Southern Poverty Law Center, which works incessantly to hype up the threat of hate groups, admits that there are only 5,000-8,000 Klansmen in America. It doesn’t even take a crack at estimating the number of Nazis, which tells you there are even fewer of them. This is out of a nation of 328 million people. So, if you’re talking about the actual percentage of Americans who believe white people are superior to other races based on the color of their skin and feel strongly enough about it to join organizations dedicated to that fact, we’re talking about an infinitesimal number of people. Just as a point of comparison, the anti-white, anti-Semitic Nation of Islam is estimated to have somewhere between 20,000-50,000 members and its leader Louis Farrakhan has appeared on stage with numerous Democrats in Congress. He even posed for a picture with future President Barack Obama.

If you want to know why only a small number of people attend white supremacist rallies, the obvious answer would seem to be that there aren’t very many white supremacists. Would even that many show up if the liberal media didn’t give them breathless coverage and treat them like political rockstars? On a similar note, would there be violent counter-protesters showing up if the media wasn’t going to give blanket coverage to the event?

When I was in college there was a KKK rally nearby. The media ignored it. Hate groups aren’t emboldened because of President Trump, they are emboldened because now the media gives them a platform to vocalize their hate. — Molly Prince (@mollyfprince) August 12, 2018

Imagine what would happen if showing up at a crocheting event anywhere in America meant you’d be covered by ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, and CNN and you’d have articles written about how important you are, and your “leaders” would end up as household names? Suddenly, you’d have thousands of people showing up at crocheting events. Maybe tens of thousands. Because human beings respond to rewards and in 2018 America, there are few rewards as loved as fame and attention. In fact, if you took the media oxygen away from these groups, it’s doubtful that they could even maintain their paltry membership numbers.

Of course, the liberal media won’t do this because the truth is secondary to the narrative it’s trying to push. That goes right back to the comment about “Twenty MAGA dudes.” You see, their goal is to take events like this sparsely attended white supremacist rally and tie it to every Trump supporter, every Republican, and every white American. The goal is to falsely paint America as this racist hellscape where black Americans are in terrible danger all the time. That does three things that liberals in the mainstream media consider good:

It gets black Americans to go to the polls to “fight back” against the racism. It gives them a handy excuse to ignore every conservative argument. “They’re racist. Who cares what they say?” It paints decent people who happen to be on the other side politically as evil bigots who shouldn’t be talked to, bargained with, or even treated as human beings.

Obviously, these disgusting tactics are horrible for America. They create racial tension that otherwise wouldn’t exist. They pit ordinary Americans against each other based on the color of their skin. They make it considerably harder for both sides to have any goodwill toward each other. They even encourage racism by turning racist dirtbags with no influence into media stars. Additionally, if you incessantly paint people who hate minorities based on the color of their skin with exactly the same brush that you do Trump supporters or immigration restrictionists, you create a situation where your words are meaningless. Quite frankly, nobody on the Right cares who the Left thinks is racist because liberals seem to think ALL OF US are racist.

This sort of media narrative is like a beautiful dream for groups like the KKK and the Nazi Party. Not only do they get unjustifiably treated as important media figures, but they also get a ready-made recruiting pitch. “The media hates you and they’re going to treat you like one of us, whether you are or not. Meanwhile, we’re fighting with you while they’re telling the world you’re like Hitler because you want to deport illegal aliens or support the police.” I hope groups like the KKK never get a significant foothold in America again like they once had in the bad old days (4 million+ members), but any ground they gain will be because of their best pals in the liberal media who are working non-stop to promote them.