The Oct. 1 New York Times Magazine ran a troubling story about how right-wing media and anti-immigrant forces turned an unfortunate incident involving three children into a fictional gang rape that has no relationship with the truth.

The story began at a Twin Falls, Idaho, apartment building laundry room, where two refugee boys, 10 and 7, were caught in a compromising situation partially dressed with a 5-year-old girl last year.

The incident was publicly cited in a Twin Falls City Council meeting by a man who has led anti-refugee efforts in the past, and it eventually became a national story in the right-wing media.

The Drudge Report and Breitbart News reported it as a gang rape by Syrian refugees and that the victim was held at knifepoint. Some reports said the rape was celebrated by adult refugees who high-fived the boys after the incident.

None of that was true, according to Twin Falls police. There was no knife, the rape allegations were false, and there are no Syrian refugees in Twin Falls.

But the followers of the right-wing publications and social media outlets wouldn’t buy it. They insisted, despite evidence to the contrary, that the police, government officials and the local newspaper, the Times-News, which covered the story honestly, were all involved in a cover-up to protect refugees who provide cheap labor for the area’s agribusinesses.

In Utah’s right-wing blogosphere, Utah County Republican activist Julie Blaney posted a conspiracy theory that the CIA was behind the mass shooting in Las Vegas, and the government was attempting to cover up involvement by the Islamic State group, while the shooter, Stephen Paddock, was a mere patsy in a CIA gun-running operation out of Mandalay Bay.

Blaney also shared a piece by Michael Snyder, a conservative blogger who is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho, that made basically the same assertions.

Another Utah County activist, Melanie Ogden Sorensen of the Utah County Republican Assembly, put this on Facebook:

“I plan to fast and pray tomorrow, and I’m going to be praying that the caucus system can be preserved in a way that doesn’t hand over the control of every election to the highest bidder and/or the most famous candidate. And that the intentions of Count My Vote will be seen for what they truly are. Would anyone like to join me?”

Several posters indicated they would.

To me, the Twin Falls debacle, the Blaney/Snyder conspiracy theories and the “let-us-pray” post are all interconnected.

The right-wing media, particularly Breitbart News, seized on the Twin Falls incident as a way to bolster Donald Trump’s campaign that focused on keeping all those immigrants and refugees out of the country.

The Utah bloggers and the Republican congressional candidate from Idaho see a government conspiracy that aids and abets Islamic terrorists. The “fasting and praying” declaration exemplifies the right-wing base of the Utah Republican Party trying to keep a grip on the GOP’s power structure by keeping a candidate- nominating system that enables small groups of extremists to pick their party’s nominees.

And they are convinced that they are doing God’s work by battling the scourge of moderates who want to dilute the party’s purity.

Many of those folks posted on social media their support of the anti-government armed protesters who seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.

The common theme is anti-immigrant, nationalistic distrust of the federal government.

And no matter how many times stories like the one in Twin Falls or the conspiracy theory about the CIA and Mandalay Bay get debunked, the true believers shrug it off as “fake news” because the “mainstream media,” as opposed to the right-wing propaganda they have become accustomed to reading, are part of the conspiracy.