The Far Right Twitter Tizzy Over a Priebus Misquote
Do you think they might be overly sensitive to charges of racism because they are racists? Remember that the truth cuts the deepest.
Twitter is a fantastic medium for breaking news, but as we learned during virtually every major breaking news event in the past year, it can also turn into a veritable aviary of users parroting each other’s falsehoods. Just that happened today, when a Business Insider story mistakenly quoted Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, as saying self-deportation is “racist” during the RNC’s summer meeting in Boston. The misquote in question comes in around the 30-second mark here:
You can hear Priebus say, “Obviously, it hurts us,” which could be misheard as “Obviously, it’s racist.” It’s telling that that was more than enough to set off Drudge-sirens in conservative talking heads’ brains—so paranoid are they about RNC leadership that they believed Priebus would say something so stupid:
More: Self-Deportation: Reince Priebus’ ‘Racist’ Misquote.
Punch out to Slate to see the frothing Tweets.
