Before Tuesday night's election, the worry among many in the media was how Donald Trump supporters would respond once Hillary Clinton's victory was official. This wasn't necessarily a hollow concern; in the election aftermath some Trump supporters had vowed to protest and a handful had even suggested the need to resort to violence if the election was "stolen."

Now that Trump has emerged victorious, all the worries about his right-wing supporters have been fulfilled by Clinton's left-wing acolytes. I'm sure you've seen the video of an elderly white man beaten in Chicago by thugs who say they're doing it because he voted for Trump.

In the Bay Area, a high school student was beaten after a fellow student accused her of hating Mexicans because she supported Trump.

At San Jose State and San Diego State Universities, women wearing hijabs have reportedly been attacked while their attackers allegedly spouted pro-Trump comments. A similar attack in Louisiana has been revealed to be a hoax.

I don't doubt that there are bad actors on both sides of this political debate. However, just because some hate crimes are happening it doesn't mean that there aren't also people making up stories; or that I have a duty to somehow believe every story.

Bad fiction

Which brings us to this:

A friend of mine posted this to Facebook yesterday morning. By about 2 hours later he'd deleted all the comments on it, largely because I expressed skepticism that this actually occurred.

First, this allegedly happened in Davis, Calif., not exactly a hotbed of white nationalism or Trump support. Here's the presidential election results precinct-by-precinct in Davis.

Second, let's think about the kid described in the post. I don't imagine that the child could be any older than 10 years old based upon the parent's alleged reaction to the throwing of items by the child. I'd guess that the child would be younger.

Let's also talk about the type of environment this child would have to be raised in (in Davis!) that would prompt him to lash out like this at the mere sight of an African-American woman. I mean, they've got to be pretty crazy alt-right white-nationalists, right? So, is a child raised in that environment going to yell "She's not white!"? Or is the child going to yell: "Look! A n-word!"

Has this child never seen a black woman before? In Davis?

And this child is a very rare one. I can't recall a time that I've ever seen a young child start yelling at a complete stranger in a store.

And then the child is going to follow up with "That's not an American flag!" and the rest of it. Really?

Then the kid starts throwing things and at this point the mother—who has raised a child who acts out like this doesn't join in with her child in attacking this young woman (which might be what you expect based on how she has apparently raised the child), but tells him to stop throwing things and that "Trump will take care of her?"

Then some unnamed black woman grabs her, takes her outside with her son and holds her while she cries so much that she eventually throws up.

If this were true, I think the local media there in Davis would eat this up. So, I suggested that the girl take her story to the local TV station and together they go to WalMart and get the video.

It's at this point that the comment thread started to devolve. People who wanted it to be true couldn't actually be bothered to think. And I was accused of using my "privilege" to deny this young woman's fiction-writing experience.

I think I'm pretty safe in saying that this incident, as described, never happened. It doesn't matter that this woman has a tight personal relationship with friends of yours. What matters is the truth.

This story is a cry for attention and dismay that one's preferred candidate didn't win on Tuesday.

And, most importantly, it just ain't true.