Race-Baiting Goes Green

Most Big Journalism readers are probably already familiar with Tyler Collins. Tyler is the man who walked through the Fancy Farms picnic in Kentucky a few days ago pretending to be a Rand Paul supporter. He was carrying a sign with racial overtones and, when interviewed by a local TV news crew, made some racial statements, e.g. “that fence [the one on the border] better be electrified.”

Well as you’ve probably heard by now, Tyler is not a Rand Paul supporter at all. In fact he’s a liberal columnist for a local newspaper who is supporting Rand Paul’s opponent, Jack Conway (he was later filmed marching for Conway, minus the costume). Tyler is also a big supporter of Barack Obama.

Having been caught in the act, Tyler now claims he was just performing some kind of “satire.” Here is where I’m going to surprise a few people. I actually sort of believe him. Look at how he was dressed (pic after jump). He’s literally wearing a tin foil hat. And when asked his name by a local network affiliate, he replies “Tyler ImaRandFan.” Obviously no one was going to believe that, at least no one with any sense. The reporter on the scene turned skeptical about 30 seconds into his interview.

I’m not saying Tyler should be given a pass. As Spinal Tap might say, there’s a fine line between clever and really, really stupid. But for the sake of argument let’s assume this really was intended as some kind of performance art. Here’s why I’m not particularly amused by it.

Four days ago, Markos Moulitsas, influential founder of Daily Kos, sent out a tweet to his 22 thousand followers which said “Rand Paul supporters go after noted immigration activist Dora.” He included a link to this photo of Tyler from the event:

The photo, which was hosted on Daily Kos, was titled “Dora_Hate_Rand_Paul2.jpg.” Obviously, Markos and his 22k followers were not in on the big lie/satire. For them, this was further proof of something they already believe about conservatives, i.e. they attract hate-filled, racist supporters. So he typed in 100 or so characters and, just like that, Markos had turned Tyler’s satirical whopper into real racist whine.

The most telling response came from a sympathetic liberal who was actually at Fancy Farms that day. He retweeted Markos adding, “Probably the most racist thing I saw there…” Think about that for a moment. The most racist thing he saw was another liberal pretending to be a racist. On the one hand, this is obviously bad news for honesty in politics. On the other hand, race-baiting has become so efficient it can now officially be classified as part of the green economy.

Since splashing this photo and the implication surrounding it out on Twitter, Markos has had plenty of things to say about Rand Paul, but hasn’t acknowledged his error as of yet. So what’s it going to be, Markos? How about letting your 22k Twitter followers know the truth about Tyler ImaRandFan.