It beggars belief that anyone would be confused, least of all the news media, as to why Jussie Smollett might fake a hate crime and attempt to frame Trump supporters for it.

When Democrats, liberals, and the national media day in and day out, year after year, cast conservatives, and Trump supporters in particular, as intolerant, racist, homophobic, sexist monsters, why wouldn’t Smollett or anyone else believe they could get away with falsely claiming to have been brutally assaulted by two white men screaming, “This is MAGA country!”?

But after it was reported Wednesday night that Chicago police are charging Smollett for filing a false police report, journalists and fans of the actor were filled with existential questions about life.

“The question that every single person asks,” said anchor Don Lemon on CNN, “is why? Why?”

Popular journalist Yashar Ali wrote on Twitter, "People who are asking why he would do this. No answer to that question will make sense."

Lemon's colleague Alisyn Camerota pondered the same thought Thursday morning. “There is that appetite for why would a successful actor on a great trajectory, talented guy, need to do something like this, that will eat at us,” she said.

On Twitter, Smollett’s believers and fans were in despair.

“Help me to make this make sense. Why? Why would he do this?”

“I am so disappointed. Why would he do this?”

“I’m hoping those guys are trying to frame @JussieSmollett for his own attack cause I’m so confused as to why he would do this? Just doesn’t make sense.”

If the worst version of what Smollett reportedly did is true, it would mean he and two others conspired to make it appear that he had been the victim of a violent racially, sexually, and politically motivated attack, inspired directly by the president.

The Smollett story was likely a hoax, but it’s the very stereotypical type of story that liberals, Democrats, and the media have been insisting we should expect and believe for more than three years, despite all evidence to the contrary.

In November, amid expectation that Trump might declare a national emergency at the southern border, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said the threat was “not about anything other than scaring Americans and actually appealing to their most racist, base instincts.”

That same month, CNN commentator Kirsten Powers said of Trump supporters, “It actually makes you racist. If you support somebody who does racist things, that makes you racist.”

In October, when a Trump-hating lunatic shot up a synagogue in Pittsburgh, leaving 11 dead, journalists nonetheless immediately traced the massacre to the president.

In May, CNN guest Michaela Angela Davis said all Trump supporters are racist.

In August, New York Times columnist Charles Blow wrote, “Trump’s base itself [is] the enemy of the Republic.”

During his interview on ABC last week to defend himself, Smollett angrily blurted, “Who the fuck would make something up like this?!”

We may now know the answer and it should confuse no one as to why.

[Related: Jussie Smollett case the latest in long line of hoax racist attacks]