David Marcus of the Federalist ponders mainstream media outlets’ large-scale coverage of a rally commemorating the one-year anniversary of a fatal protest in Charlottesville, Va.

I’ve spent most of my adult life producing theater in New York City. In that time, on more occasions than I care to remember, only 20 people showed up in the audience when I’d hoped for hundreds. I thought of that with a smile [Sunday] watching the maybe two dozen sad white nationalists hold their “rally” in Washington. I know how bad that feels, the Public Address system and stage you paid for mocking you.

Jason Kessler and his gang more than deserved it, but you can see why they assumed they were going to sell out. The going narrative in our newspapers and cable news shows is that the Trump presidency has emboldened white supremacists, that they are no longer ashamed. After all, the president is winking at them. There were probably 20 journalists for every white nationalist at yesterday’s event precisely because the news media was testing its hypothesis. …

… The going wisdom since Charlottesville is that Donald Trump has been blowing a dog trumpet to all the racists in America. The accusation is that he plays footsie with a dark, racist underbelly of our country. It is not a hypothesis without support. …

… The thing about a hypothesis is that when evidence pokes a hole in it, the hole has to be addressed and patched. A hole in a hypothesis doesn’t mean the whole thing is wrong. In fact, most discoveries require constant adjustment to the hypothesis. [Sun]day’s sad display from the alt-right doesn’t prove that the president isn’t influenced by people who share some of their views (which he may amplify), but it does utterly degrade the argument that he is normalizing or allowing for outward displays of racism.