🧩 BND Motif Index · M105
Fallen idol
A beloved hero is revealed to have had a dark side, and their legend falls.
- 4claims filed under it
- 4right shows it came up on
- 2claims retold online
⚠️ A story people tell, not a claim that it's true.
A motif is the shape of a story as its tellers tell it, named the way a folklorist names a tale type, so the same story told about other people, by the other side or in another year lands in the same place. Some of the claims below are true, many are false. Arguing against a story is often a story of its own, its answer (Voter fraud is answered by Voter suppression, Lawfare by No one is above the law), and we file it there; where no answer has a motif yet, the arguments against a story sit with its tellings.
🪜 Its family
what it rests on, what rests on it, and the motifs that answer it
🔗 goes with: 🧩 Racist history
🎙️ Who it came up with
the shows we follow where its claims came up (0 left-leaning, 0 center, 4 right-leaning so far), colored by the show's lean; the bar is how many of its claims each one heard
- right-leaning
"Came up on" means one of its claims was heard on the show: told, reported or argued against. We don't yet mark which. Show leans are our own grouping of the shows we transcribe.
🗣️ In so many words
the words that carry it
💬 the tellers' own words: “And they take his name off the Princeton Woodrow Wilson School” “has clouded his legacy imo” “I haven't supported him in the past nor will I now I know he's a rapist” “on the surface lovely guy with some absolute dog shit views and behaviours” “remove him from public life, obviously” “The irony is he was ranked in the top eight to 10 presidents” “the man doesn't live up to the myth” “we've always had a soft spot for President Wilson ... I've never heard him being described as a bad person" ... "to watch this very sweet person just deflate in front of my eyes ... this family pride”
🧶 Its claims
what's been told in this shape, in our words, by who told it: newest first in each; a claim's dots are the shows it came up on, in their lean's color (point at them for their names)
Told on the left 0
claims heard on left-leaning shows, and no right-leaning one
🦗 No claim heard only on the left so far.
Told on the right 2
claims heard on right-leaning shows, and no left-leaning one
- 2026-11-02 “Woodrow Wilson resegregated the federal government and jailed his political opponents.” 2
- 2026-10-31 “Woodrow Wilson was an overt racist who reinstituted segregated bureaucracies and refused to see Black leaders.” 2
Retold online 2
claims many people posted in their own words
- 2026-10-06 “After a prominent YouTuber admitted to a past sexual assault, critics say he is dodging accountability and still profiting.”
- 2026-10-05 “Vince McMahon has blackmail material on John Cena, and Cena is either unaware or chooses to ignore it.”
M105 · first seen 2026-10-05 · last 2026-11-02 · what this is · how the index works