If the latest apparent hate-crime hoax of the the Trump era is what it looks like, it isn’t merely a story of a desperate actor doing something insane. It’s a story of today’s progressive identity politics and how it elevates group victimhood to the highest of virtues.

In the early morning of Jan. 29, actor Jussie Smollett of the Fox series “Empire” claimed that he was ambushed outside a restaurant in Chicago. According to the police, Smollett claimed “two unknown offenders approached him and gained his attention by yelling out racial and homophobic slurs towards him. The offenders began to batter the victim with their hands about the face and poured an unknown chemical substance on the victim. At some point during the incident, one of the offenders wrapped a rope around the victim’s neck.”