USA Today Writer Says Doubting Duke Volleyball Player is 'Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory'

You know you're losing an argument when you have to resort to name-calling and suggesting people are conspiracy theorists as opposed to making legitimate arguments.

One USA Today writer conclusively had no argument in a recent opinion piece, considering how hard he tried to combine multiple types of name calling.

The desperation to defend the rapidly disintegrating story of Rachel Richardson has led to far left virtue signalers cancelling events with BYU and other teams pledging their allegiance to the entirely unsubstantiated allegations.

Rachel Richardson at BYU

But that's not far enough for Mike Freeman, who, in classic activist fashion, compared questioning Robinson's story to a ”Right-wing conspiracy theory” and QAnon.

Freeman claimed he would "break down the absurdity of it all," but his first example of why to believe her is possibly the most absurd thing you'll read all day.

According to him, one of the main reasons why she couldn't be wrong about what she heard is that she called her father in tears after the match.

The interview with her father, on CNN naturally, says that the call with Rachel wasn't normal:

"After the game, she called," he said, "and this was a different call."

This is supposedly part of the "proof" that it happened.

But if she thought she heard racist slurs at the game that never actually happened, of course she would be upset and in tears. It's certainly possible that she thought she heard something during the game. And it's also possible that she made it up. There’s simply no evidence that the incident occurred exactly as she described.

Freeman continues with a list explaining why it's just impossible to believe she'd make it up. It is not a good list:

"1. Say, just for argument's sake, that Rachel Richardson made up this story. You have to believe that she did knowing she was putting not just her volleyball future at risk but her college future as a student at Duke. She'd be forever tarnished as a liar. One of the worst liars.

2. You have to believe she then lied to her dad. Which is possible. Kids lie to their parents, but about this? But also...

3. You'd have to believe she would then let her father go on CNN and repeat that lie."

Except, of course, that Richardson would absolutely not putting her future at risk by making up a story alleging racism.

Is Bubba Wallace banned from NASCAR? Obviously these are slightly different situations, but outside of Jussie Smollett, who actually planned a fake hate crime, what consequences have there ever been for incorrect allegations?

It’s also obvious that if she did make it up, she’d have to lie to her parents. One lie begets another, especially if the story isn’t immediately retracted.

Freeman also completely ignores that one of the underlying motivations for making up a story, if it was in fact made up, would be to get national media attention.

She absolutely would let friends or family go on national television and tell the story, because that's the whole point.

But it's abundantly clear that Freeman isn't particularly good at making arguments, only defending what he wants to believe.

Writer claims that if you don't believe a slur occurred, you believe a conspiracy theory.

It gets worse.

After his absurd "defense" of her story, he claims that the fact that no one heard any racial slurs yelled at Richardson doesn't matter:

"What the conspiracy theories essentially all come down to is one thing: no one heard Richardson being called the slur. The belief, suddenly, is that microphones pick up every word in the arena or student section. Or that cameras are all-seeing and knowing, like mini one-eyed gods."

But Freeman ignores that it's not simply microphones or cameras, there hasn't been a single eyewitness that's come forward from the event to corroborate her story. Not one.

The police have confirmed they didn't hear anything. Local newspapers have conducted independent investigations asking countless attendees if they heard anything. No one did.

Not to mention that if someone was yelling racist words at a young black woman every time she served, as the story goes, how would there not be a single person in an arena of thousands willing to pull out their phone and record a 10-second video?

It strains credulity past the breaking point to believe that it happened as she claims without a single person coming forward to confirm it on the record or with a recording.

But Freeman has no credulity, because he wants to believe it.

Yet somehow in the very next sentence, he says that he'd be the first to admit he was wrong if it comes out that she did lie about the incident:

"If I'm proven wrong, I'll be first in line to say so, and write that, but I've seen nothing to show she made it up."

Except admitting that there is the possibility that she did lie, or at least made a mistake, means it cannot be a conspiracy theory.

But that requires logic, reasoning and critical thinking skills, all three of which Freeman unfortunately does not possess.

Unsurprisingly, he tries to tie the entire episode in to racism, JFK and COVID, because he knows how flimsy his argument is. You can really feel the desperation when calling OutKick founder Clay Travis a "right wing extremist:"

Finally, he gets to the heart of his own incompetence, by suggesting that it's a conspiracy theory to believe she lied because she's lied to so many people:

"So at this point, according to the conspiracy theorists, she's lied to her teammates. Her coaches. The BYU coaches. The BYU athletic director. The police. Her godmother. Her father. The world because of her statement. ESPN. Then allowed her father to lie to a CNN audience. What's more likely? All of that? Or that she's telling the truth?"

On the one hand, Freeman claims that millions of MAGA Republicans believe conspiracy theories due to institutional lying, while stating that it's impossible to believe that someone would lie about something to gain attention and help promote her godmother's political campaign.

Only someone with his remarkable disconnect to reality would not see the absurd lack of logic on display here.

But Freeman's lack of logic is just part of his offensive intellectual dishonesty, incompetence, hypocrisy and bewilderingly thin arguments.

Quite simply, despite all of the available facts, he wants her story to be true because it confirms his biases against anyone who disagrees with his political ideology. So he accuses others of what he's guilty of; believing something to be true without any supporting evidence to back it up.

Classic left-wing insanity.