Trump’s Greatest Hate – The New European

But it struck me that Trump’s campaign didn’t see his absurd claim as a gaffe, an embarrassing outburst from a candidate who has sometimes lost control in his exchanges with Kamala Harris. Far from it: His strategists filled official social media feeds with AI-generated images of Trump protecting cats, dogs and the occasional duck.

On Friday, he posted a photo on Instagram of a ginger tomcat holding a sign in his paws that read, “KAMALA HATES ME.” The Arizona Republican Party put up billboards urging voters to “eat less kittens.” On Saturday, Tucker Carlson said, “If PETA (the animal welfare campaign) doesn’t endorse Trump after this, they’re being completely fraudulent.”

Why do the forces of MAGA continue to cling to a fictitious claim that, you might think, will only remind voters of their candidate’s disastrous debate? Lift the lid on the farce—and behold a deep well of poison.

For starters, Trump’s lie has already had real consequences in Springfield, where the city, county, and school buildings were shut down Thursday because of a bomb threat; two hospitals were forced to go on lockdown Saturday; and Haitian citizens are living in fear as their windows are smashed, their cars vandalized, and acid is thrown on their property. Suddenly, the city is the front line in America’s culture wars.

It’s also important to realize that this storm has been brewing for more than two months. On July 9, six days before his selection as Trump’s running mate was announced, J.D. Vance claimed at a Senate Banking Committee hearing that the influx of 15,000 Haitian migrants to Springfield in recent years had created a housing crisis.

“In my conversations with people in Springfield, it’s not just about housing,” the Ohio senator said. “There are a lot of ways in which this immigration issue, I think, has very real human consequences.”

At a National Conservatism conference the next day, he continued his attack on the Haitian community. “Look, the point about immigration that no one can get around is that it has made our societies poorer, less safe, less prosperous, less advanced,” Vance said. He was testing his now-famous claim that America is not an “idea” but a “nation”: code for white and Christian, rather than multicultural.

What Vance fails to mention is that the vast majority of Haitians in Springfield are in the city legally through the Temporary Protected Status program. They have been encouraged to settle in the city by authorities and employers, eager to fill jobs at an Amazon warehouse and a metalworking factory. What’s more, the strain on housing and public services is offset by the property, sales and income taxes the newcomers pay.

But why let facts get in the way of a xenophobic campaign? In August, neo-Nazi gangs like Blood Tribe and Patriot Group ramped up their activities in Springfield.

At a rally, as white supremacists waved swastika flags and chanted racist slogans, Drake Berentz, a leading member of the Blood Tribe, declared that the city had been taken over by “Third World degenerates.” He claimed that Jews were behind the influx of migrants (the so-called “Great Replacement Theory”) and insisted that “you don’t have to endure the abuse of subhumans anymore.”

On August 27, Berentz appeared at a city council meeting but was removed for using threatening language. At the same meeting, Anthony Harris, a local black resident who is running for mayor of Clark County, alleged that Haitian migrants were stealing animals. “They’re in the park, grabbing ducks by the neck, chopping their heads off and walking away with them, eating them,” he said.

This claim quickly merged in the digital hivemind with other allegations and gossip. On August 16, a visibly disturbed woman, Allexis Telia Ferrell, was arrested for allegedly killing and eating a cat: she is not Haitian, and the incident occurred in Canton, 170 miles from Springfield.

A photo of a man holding a dead goose went viral online: once again, the photo was not taken in Springfield, but in Columbus, Ohio. Meanwhile, Erika Lee, a resident of the ravaged city, posted on Facebook that a neighbor had seen her daughter’s boyfriend’s cat hanging from a tree in a Haitian’s yard.

“I’ve been told they do this with dogs, they’ve done it in Snyder Park with the ducks and geese,” Lee wrote. The neighbor in question has since explained that Lee’s story was not true.

How could such nonsense be repeated in a presidential debate watched by 67 million Americans? In his book, About rumorsCass Sunstein argues that fictional stories spread because of “social cascades” (the groups we rely on for our information) and polarization. “When like-minded people get together,” he writes, “they often think a more extreme version of what they were thinking before they started talking to each other.”

Disgust is also a powerful driver: “When rumors evoke strong emotions—disgust, anger, outrage—people are much more likely to spread them.” This has proven most strikingly true in the case of conspiracy theories about satanic child sexual abuse. Allegations of animal cruelty have also spread like wildfire.

And here is Sunstein’s main point: “Quality, judged in terms of correspondence to the truth, may not matter very much, if at all.” What matters, all too often, is not the evidence, but the extent to which a claim supports a pre-existing belief or prejudice.

As Vance told CNN on Sunday, “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

In this case, he and Trump used a lie to put the spotlight firmly on migration. Harris certainly won the debate and showed herself to be presidential. But how many people are talking about her plans for an “opportunity economy” or her call for a “ceasefire deal” in the Israel-Gaza conflict?

According to a YouGov/Times poll from last week, 55% of Americans think Harris defeated Trump in Philadelphia. But voters still see the Republican as better positioned to manage the economy, crime, veterans affairs, inflation, taxes, national defense, foreign policy – ​​and immigration.

In Los Angeles on Friday, Trump turned the Springfield riot into a case study to justify his plan to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants — ignoring the fact that the vast majority of Haitians in the city are legal. “We’re going to do major deportations from Springfield, Ohio,” he said. “Major deportations. We’re going to get these people out.”

At the heart of MAGA culture is a sense of siege, horrifically dramatized by the two assassination attempts on the former president. The country is supposedly invaded by migrants; American values ​​are being overturned; schools and universities are factories of far-left propaganda; the family home is surrounded by danger.

Children are being targeted by the sex traffickers at the heart of the QAnon conspiracy theory, indoctrinated by “ultra-woke” classroom teachers, manipulated by drag queens. And if children are at risk, surely pets are too? The cats and dogs who are beloved members of the family? What if the invaders are coming for them, too?

This is a story that has everything to do with ancient emotion—the protective reflex—and nothing to do with the truth. Vance explained it in a September 10 tweet: “Over the past few weeks, my office has fielded many inquiries from actual Springfield residents claiming that their neighbors’ pets or local wildlife have been kidnapped by Haitian migrants. It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors turn out to be untrue. You know what has been confirmed? That a child was murdered by an undeserving Haitian migrant.”

Infamously, the vice president-elect connected the unsubstantiated pet-eating stories to a real-life tragedy last August, when Aiden Clark, an 11-year-old Springfield boy, was killed when his school bus collided with a minivan driven without a license by an unlicensed Haitian migrant, Hermanio Joseph. In May, Joseph, who (contrary to Vance’s claims) had an Ohio ID and Temporary Protected Legal status, was sentenced to at least nine to 13 and a half years in prison for involuntary manslaughter and motor vehicle manslaughter.

For Trump and his running mate, this is all a game played in the pursuit of power. For Aiden Clark’s parents, it’s an unbearable reminder and exploitation of the worst day of their lives. On Tuesday, his father, Nathan, railed against the “morally bankrupt” politicians who have trampled on their pain. “I wish my son, Aiden Clark, had been murdered by a 60-year-old white man,” he said. “I bet you never thought someone would say something so crass, but if that guy murdered my 11-year-old son, the incessant mob of hateful people would leave us alone.”

Through his tears, this grieving parent displayed a dignity and moral courage that puts the entire MAGA movement to shame. “This tragedy is felt across this community, across the state, and even across the nation,” he said, “but don’t turn it into hate.”

This is the choice the republic now faces. As the presidential race enters its final weeks, decency itself is on the agenda.