Don't Forget: Kamala Harris Believed--Or Pretended To Believe--The Jussie Smollett Hate-Crime Hoax

Many or most false beliefs are excusable because based on honest error.

Believing the Jussie Smollett hate-crime hoax is/was not such a belief.

It was an obvious lie. 

There was basically no chance it was true.

And, as for harm: it was yet another outrageous lie that aimed, inter alia, to instill fear, anxiety, anger and hatred in black Americans. 

Mostly, though, it was just goddamn stupid.

Anyone who couldn't see through it basically immediately probably isn't epistemically fit to be President. Anyone who did see through it but lied about it isn't morally fit to be president. 

The only third option is: could have seen through it, but didn't exercise the epistemic will to do so, probably due to being averse to the obvious conclusion. I don't have to tell you what I think about somebody who did that.

Birthergate was some stupid. Ass. Bullshit. But at least there was some small chance that the nutty hypothesis was true. So Trump investigated it. Ok. Waste of money. But knock yourself out. And he gave it up when when the evidence wasn't there. Furthermore, it wasn't racist--it was just stupid. It had nothing to do with race; it had to do with country of (alleged) origin. The Smollett hoax was overtly racial.