Renowned race-bait pimp “Reverend” Al Sharpton has thrown Hollywood actor Jussie Smollett under the proverbial bus, declaring, “If it is found that Smollett and these gentlemen did, in some way, perpetrate something that is not true, they ought to face accountability to the maximum. Let us get to the bottom of it, and let justice be done.” This would be the same Al Sharpton who spearheaded the Tawana Brawley gang-rape hoax — a fraud that he never faced “accountability” for, but one that rocketed him to political prominence even as it destroyed the lives of the accused. That hoax also became a template for America’s race-bait political hustlers.

TV show “Empire” star Smollett received wall-to-wall Leftmedia coverage after claiming he was attacked by two MAGA-hat-wearing Trump supporters. Smollett, who is black and homosexual, claims two white men beat him, tied a noose around his neck, and threw bleach in his face while shouting, “This is MAGA country, ni**er!” and calling him “Empire faggot!”

The MSM and Democrat notables immediately pounced on the story, without consideration of how unlikely it was that two Trump supporters would roam the streets of Chicago at 2:00 a.m. in sub-freezing weather, with a bottle of bleach and a noose, on the off chance that a random black actor would decide to go out in the middle of the night for a sandwich.

It now appears Smollett orchestrated the attack himself, paying two Nigerian brothers to play the role of his attackers, even scouting the area and rehearsing beforehand. Not only that, but he did so because he was supposedly upset that a racist letter he received didn’t yield more media attention — and the FBI is now investigating whether Smollett even sent the letter to himself. Smollett was not the victim of a hate crime, he perpetrated one.

Now that the hoax has been exposed, prominent Democrats like Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, who initially mugged for cameras while decrying America’s teeming racism, calling the attack a “modern-day lynching,” are notably silent.

Much like the Covington Catholic School boys story (where white teenaged boys supposedly threatened an elderly Native American man while wearing MAGA hats), this story had the perfect combination of elements to advance the narrative of virulent racism and homophobia in Trump’s America.

Now the boys are suing The Washington Post for libel and seeking $250 million in damages.

A reasonable person might ask why the media immediately validates any story that demonizes President Donald Trump or his supporters, while simultaneously warning us not to rush to judgment when the black, Democrat Lt. Governor of Virginia faces multiple credible accusations of rape. They certainly didn’t extend the same courtesy to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh when he was accused of sexual assault by a woman who could not provide even the tiniest shred of evidence for her claim.

In a moment of unusual honesty, “The View’s” Joy Behar revealed the truth when, in response to Whoopi Goldberg asking why progressive Democrats keep falling for the hoaxes, she said, “Because we’re desperate to get Trump out of office.”

Wilfred Reilly, political science professor at Kentucky State University, is the author of Hate Crime Hoax — How the Left Is Selling a Fake Race War. “Virtually all of the high profile widely-reported hate crimes over the last two years have been hoaxes,” Reilly notes. “A broader motivation for these hoaxes is that the demand for bigots in America greatly exceeds the supply. … We have a very well-funded grievance industry. … The SPLC currently has an active invested endowment of $432 million dollars.”

Indeed, the sheer number of anti-Trump hoaxes in just two years is staggering. Here are a few of the more notable examples:

A Muslim woman at the University of Michigan claimed a man threatened to set her on fire if she didn’t remove her hijab. Another Muslim woman in Louisiana claimed two white men, one wearing a Trump hat, beat and robbed her, taking her hijab and wallet while yelling racial slurs. Yet another Muslim woman in New York claimed to have been attacked by a group of Trump supporters while bystanders watched idly. Each later admitted fabricating the stories.

In Indiana, a black church was vandalized with spray-painted swastikas and the words “Heil Trump!” and “fag church.” The Washington Post claimed it was the latest in a string of such incidents since Trump’s Election Day victory. It turns out the church’s organist was the culprit.

In Mississippi, the 110-year-old Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church was burned to the ground. The words “Vote Trump” were found on the remaining brick wall. Initially investigated as a racially motivated hate crime, it turns out that, again, the black church’s own organist was the arsonist.

At the Air Force Academy, St. Olaf Academy (MN), Kansas State University, a Missouri high school, two Texas restaurants, and Drake University, among others, “victims” who claimed they received threatening racist or homophobic notes later recanted their stories; they made up everything.

These are just a few of the hundreds of such hoaxes blamed on white Trump supporters. Michelle Malkin lists even more. In each case the media immediately reported the claims as fact. The later corrections or retractions were buried deep in the newspapers or given just seconds of airtime, if the corrections came at all.

In a bitterly ironic twist, this deluge of hoaxes blamed on Trump supporters has actually incited violence against innocent Trump supporters. The Democrats, the media (but we repeat ourselves), and their social-justice-warrior allies take these hoaxes as absolute fact and feel justified in physically attacking Trump supporters (which of course creates a ratings bonanza for the press on both sides of the ledger).

Journalist Andy Ngo, who did a masterful job of cataloguing many of these hoaxes, perfectly captures the danger of what some have called “outrage porn.” He warns, “Jussie Smollett’s hoax is symptomatic of America’s illness. Because of the mainstreaming of academia’s victimhood culture, we are now in a place where we place more value on being a victim than on being heroic, charitable, or even kind. Victims or victim groups high on intersectionality points are supposed to be coveted, treated with child gloves, and believed unreservedly. Their ‘lived experience’ gives them infinite wisdom. Those who urge caution are treated as bigots.”

Decent Americans of every race, sex, religion, political leaning, or any other means by which we divide ourselves must be aware of the very real danger of these incidents turning from brushfires into uncontrollable infernos that lay waste to our nation, escalating into a full-blown civil war. Those who preach tolerance must practice it.