#Springfield Cat Eating Hoax

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Michael Tomasky at The New Republic:

I’ve had a lot of conversations since Tuesday revolving around the question of why Donald Trump won. The economy and inflation. Kamala Harris didn’t do this or that. Sexism and racism. The border. That trans-inmate ad that ran a jillion times. And so on. These conversations have usually proceeded along lines where people ask incredulously how a majority of voters could have believed this or that. Weren’t they bothered that Trump is a convicted felon? An adjudicated rapist? Didn’t his invocation of violence against Liz Cheney, or 50 other examples of his disgusting imprecations, obviously disqualify him? And couldn’t they see that Harris, whatever her shortcomings, was a fundamentally smart, honest, well-meaning person who would show basic respect for the Constitution and wouldn’t do anything weird as president?

The answer is obviously no—not enough people were able to see any of those things. At which point people throw up their hands and say, “I give up.” But this line of analysis requires that we ask one more question. And it’s the crucial one: Why didn’t a majority of voters see these things? And understanding the answer to that question is how we start to dig out of this tragic mess.

The answer is the right-wing media. Today, the right-wing media—Fox News (and the entire News Corp.), Newsmax, One America News Network, the Sinclair network of radio and TV stations and newspapers, iHeart Media (formerly Clear Channel), the Bott Radio Network (Christian radio), Elon Musk’s X, the huge podcasts like Joe Rogan’s, and much more—sets the news agenda in this country. And they fed their audiences a diet of slanted and distorted information that made it possible for Trump to win. Let me say that again, in case it got lost: Today, the right-wing media sets the news agenda in this country. Not The New York Times. Not The Washington Post (which bent over backwards to exert no influence when Jeff Bezos pulled the paper’s Harris endorsement). Not CBS, NBC, and ABC. The agenda is set by all the outlets I listed in the above paragraph. Even the mighty New York Times follows in its wake, aping the tone they set disturbingly often. If you read me regularly, you know that I’ve written this before, but I’m going to keep writing it until people—specifically, rich liberals, who are the only people in the world who have the power to do something about this state of affairs—take some action.

[...]

This is the year in which it became obvious that the right-wing media has more power than the mainstream media. It’s not just that it’s bigger. It’s that it speaks with one voice, and that voice says Democrats and liberals are treasonous elitists who hate you, and Republicans and conservatives love God and country and are your last line of defense against your son coming home from school your daughter. And that is why Donald Trump won. Indeed, the right-wing media is why he exists in our political lives in the first place. Don’t believe me? Try this thought experiment. Imagine Trump coming down that escalator in 2015 with no right-wing media; no Fox News; an agenda still set, and mores still established, by staid old CBS News, the House of Murrow, and The New York Times.

That atmosphere would have denied an outrageous figure like Trump the oxygen he needed to survive and flourish. He just would not have been taken seriously at all. In that world, ruled by a traditional mainstream media, Trump would have been seen by Republicans as a liability, and they would have done what they failed to do in real life—banded together to marginalize him. But the existence of Fox changed everything. Fox hosted the early debates, which Trump won not with intelligence, but outrageousness. He tapped into the grievance culture Fox had nursed among conservatives for years. He had (most of the time) Rupert Murdoch’s personal blessing. In 2015-16, Fox made Trump possible. [...]

The fake story about Haitian residents of Springfield, Ohio eating cats and dogs, for example, started with a Facebook post citing second- and third-hand sources, Gertz told me; it then “circulated on X and was picked up by all the major right-wing influencers.” Only then did Vance, a very online dude, notice it and decide to run with it. And then Trump said it himself at the debate. But it started in the right-wing media. Likewise with the post-debate ABC “whistleblower” claims, which Gertz wrote about at the time. This was the story that ABC, which hosted the only presidential debate this election, fed Team Harris the questions in advance. This started, Gertz wrote, as a “wildly flimsy internet rumor launched by a random pro-Trump X poster.” Soon enough, the right-wing media was all over it.

Maybe that one didn’t make a huge difference (although who knows?), but this one, I believe, absolutely did: the idea that Harris and Joe Biden swiped emergency aid away from the victims of Hurricane Helene (in mostly Southern, red states) and gave it all to undocumented migrants. It did not start with Trump or his campaign or Vance or the Republican National Committee or Lindsey Graham. It started on Fox. Only then did the others pick it up. And it was key, since this was a moment when Harris’s momentum in the polling averages began to flag.

[...]

To much of America, by the way, this is not understood as one side’s view of things. It’s simply “the news.” This is what people—white people, chiefly—watch in about two-thirds of the country. I trust that you’ve seen in your travels, as I have in mine, that in red or even some purple parts of the country, when you walk into a hotel lobby or a hospital waiting room or even a bar, where the TVs ought to be offering us some peace and just showing ESPN, at least one television is tuned to Fox. That’s reach, and that’s power. And then people get in their cars to drive home and listen to an iHeart, right-wing talk radio station. And then they get home and watch their local news and it’s owned by Sinclair, and it, too, has a clear right-wing slant. And then they pick up their local paper, if it still exists, and the oped page features Cal Thomas and Ben Shapiro. Liberals, rich and otherwise, live in a bubble where they never see this stuff. I would beg them to see it. Watch some Fox. Listen to some Christian radio. Experience the news that millions of Americans are getting on a daily basis. You’ll pretty quickly come to understand what I’m saying here.

[...] The reason? The right-wing media. And it’s only growing and growing. And I haven’t even gotten to social media and Tik Tok and the other platforms from which far more people are getting their news these days. The right is way ahead on those fronts too. Liberals must wake up and understand this and do something about it before it’s too late, which it almost is.

Michael Tomasky of TNR explains it perfectly: Donald Trump won due to the right-wing media apparatus feeding lies to the voters.

[meret118]

Someone official finally used the term!

According to the report, Erika Lee, a resident of Springfield, posted to Facebook commenting on a neighbor's cat who had gone missing — and mentioned that the neighbor had been suspicious the cat might have been attacked by Haitians who lived in the neighborhood.

There was no evidence to support the claim. Moreover, cats often go missing for various reasons, especially those allowed to wander outside.

Lee, for her part, feels terrible that her post exploded into a xenophobic panic against the Haitian community, and for the confusion and fear the post caused.

“It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen,” she told NBC News.

------

But she still posted the racist shit that started this.

[nedsecondline]

'It just exploded': Woman who sparked Trump's migrant pet-eating hoax comes forward - Raw Story

According to the report, Erika Lee, a resident of Springfield, posted to Facebook commenting on a neighbor’s cat who had gone missing — and mentioned that the neighbor had been suspicious the cat might have been attacked by Haitians who lived in the neighborhood. There was no evidence to support the claim. Moreover, cats often go missing for various reasons, especially those allowed to wander…

[bllsbailey]

JD Vance Delivered Another Masterclass in Obliterating the Media

Photo of a typical Lying Commie Democrat

It got buried because Donald Trump was the victim of another attempted assassination on the same day. Still, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH)

took CNN’s Dana Bash to the cleaners about the situation in Springfield, Ohio. He took the liberal narrative about the town and ran it over with a tank. He knows the game—and executed another masterclass in outmaneuvering the establishment press. Bash was clearly irritated that she couldn’t land any punches, and it was becoming clear that Vance might be entering an area where his invitation to this network might be cut down significantly or outright rejected if he kept embarrassing the network’s hosts in this manner.

 Bash tried to suggest Vance and Donald Trump were responsible for the bomb threats against the town. We now know that these threats were hoaxes sent by unhinged jokers overseas, though the media was sure it was the fault of the 2024 Republican ticket. At the time and during this interview, Vance denounced the violence. Still, the Ohio Republican said, rightly, that we can do both things: reject the violence being directed at the town and talk about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ failed immigration policies, specifically the abuse in issuing temporary protected status.

The CNN host interrupted Vance, who took the combative interview in stride. You know that Bash was cornered when she pressed Vance, a US Senator from Ohio, on whether he visited Springfield. When Vance said yes, he’d been there more than 100 times and knew the community. Bash wondered if he had recently as if that mattered. We know one thing is true: Bash and CNN probably never set foot within 1000 miles of Springfield until they thought they could use it to attack the Republicans.

The fact that memes and now remixed songs are coming from Trump’s remarks about “eating the dogs” and “eating the cats” shows the media cannot control this story. They cannot weaponize it, and it drives them nuts. A lot of it has to do with the fact that everyone knows the media has no integrity. They lie—and we know CNN is unabashedly anti-Trump.

Cope and seethe, CNN.

All Vance did was bring up concerns from his constituents. He admitted that he'd ignore it if it were one or two people. It’s not that, though—and now it seems to be spreading to nearby Columbus and Dayton.

With the media taking buckshot to the face on that narrative, why should we discount the Springfield city manager who made the allegations about pets being eaten back in March or the numerous eyewitness accounts?

Trending on Townhall Videos

[sovchron]

Tennesseans speak out in defense of cat eating tradition

Rel Gumson ate a cat and skinned her dog SPRINGFIELD — National media reports have citizens worried that Haitian migrants are prowling the streets, kidnapping family pets and grilling them in voodoo rituals. Local police are yet to file any charges, and have made an official statement that the story is a hoax. However, some Americans are now emboldened to speak out about the benefits to eating…

[justiceheartwatcher]

Let’s do a REAL fact-check on Trump. Are Haitians killing, eating animals in Springfield, Ohio?

Last night, Vice President Kamala Harris and the ABC “moderators” put the “bait” into “debate,” ganging up on Trump to bait him into losing his cool. Unfortunately, too often, he went for it, allowing himself to get distracted, angry and defensive and missing many opportunities to turn the focus back where it belonged, on issues of most concern to voters like the economy. 

Meanwhile, Harris was thoroughly prepped and rehearsed for Tuesday’s debate, by a partner in one of the top Democrat law firms no less, and the long hours of preparation showed.  What we’re saying is, she had been carefully coached to lie.

In fact, just as President Biden had done in his debate with former President Donald Trump, she lied throughout the evening, building a straw man out of views Trump doesn’t even hold so she could set fire to it, and furthering the most outrageous and conclusively debunked hoaxes against him.  Project 2025, a national abortion ban, the “bloodbath” hoax, even the Charlottesville “fine people hoax” --- really??  Some of these lies are so long-debunked that they actually have names with the word “hoax” in them. How ignorant must one have to be to find this impressive? Well, at least we know the Democrats’ target audience.

Biden at least had senility as an excuse for repeating all that slander; Kamala must own the label of serial liar.  Last night, there was a whole lotta lyin’ goin’ on. Democrats do this because, as Harry Reid once gloated, it works. Feeling guilty for repeating known lies that get you votes from the gullible is apparently for “suckers and losers.”

Recall that when Kamala was called out once before for lying in a previous debate, she ended up tacitly admitting it, offering the justification that “it was just a debate.”  So, she went onstage last night already on record as believing it’s fine to lie in a debate if that’s how you can win.  She showed us she still believes that.

ABC NEWS, rather than pin her down on issues and call out her many lies, actively helped her get away with her deceptions, never once correcting her while frequently interjecting “fact”-checks on Trump (seven by one media count), many of which turned out to be wrong.  The debate really did turn out to be three-against-one, just as we’d anticipated it would.  (NOTE:  Still, that’s all the more reason for the scattershot Trump we saw last night to have been more focused and better prepared and rested, instead of winging it.  He had to know they’d all be aligned against him.)

Numerous instances of ABC’s shameful behavior are detailed elsewhere in today’s newsletter, but here we’d like to focus on Trump’s allegation that Haitian immigrants had overwhelmed the small town of Springfield, Ohio, to such an extent that they were stealing residents’ pets and tame ducks in the park to use as food.

“In Springfield,” Trump said, “they’re eating the dogs --- the people that came in, they’re eating the cats.  They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”  (Kamala is laughing at this.)  “And this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”

https://rumble.com/v5egx2r-donald-trump-in-springfield-theyre-eating-the-dogs-the-people-that-came-in.html

The debate threatened to go off the rails when Trump brought this up.  The moderators’ (and Kamala’s) over-the-top reaction suggested that only a crackpot would actually “go there.”  Why, the story is so wild, it couldn’t possibly be true!

But, sadly, life in 2024 is so increasingly bizarre that this is not at all hard to believe.  When moderator David Muir --- whose own “ABC World News Tonight” news stories on Trump run 93 percent negative --- jumped in quickly to “fact”-check President Trump on this, it didn’t go well.  “...You bring up Springfield, Ohio,” Muir said to Trump.  “And ABC NEWS did reach out to the city manager there.  He told us, ‘There have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”  Trump said he’d seen people on television claiming their pets had been taken and used for food.  (And, yes, they have claimed this.)

“So, maybe [the city manager] said that, and maybe that’s a good thing to say for a city manager,” Trump responded.  This makes sense, as what city manager would WANT to admit such a horrifying thing about his town?

“I’m not taking this from television,” Muir said.  “I’m taking it from the city manager.”  But Trump remained insistent.  Kamala, in the split screen, was wearing an amused, faux-bewildered face intended to communicate that Trump must be nuts.

https://rumble.com/v5egwhd-moderator-tries-to-fact-check-trump-and-it-instantly-blows-up-in-his-face.html?e9s=src_v1_upp

Side note:  the one who really might be crazy is California Rep. Eric Swalwell, who had already tried to make fun of this story and ended up just looking stupid.

https://rumble.com/v5efb9h-eric-swalwell-has-a-full-blown-meltdown-about-cat-memes...what-in-the-hell-.html

And as long as we’re having a little fun, here’s an example of that great American entrepreneurial spirit…

https://shop.thelibertydaily.com/products/make-cats-safe-again-t-shirt

Springfield, Ohio, is a “bedroom community,” quite blue politically, of 60,000 inhabitants located on the outskirts of Dayton and Columbus.  For the past few years, it has done its best to absorb about 20,000 Haitian immigrants and somehow handle the resulting chaos.  Police and city leaders have denied the recent wild stories coming out of Springfield, notably the reports that immigrants are catching and killing pets and tame ducks for food.  But from THE FEDERALIST, here’s a two-week-old police report with audio from a witness saying, “They all had geese in their hands.”

https://thefederalist.com/2024/09/10/exclusive-police-audio-report-confirm-haitian-goose-hunting-in-ohio-they-all-had-geese-in-their-hands/

There were two men and two women, each carrying a single goose.  As Tristan Justice writes, “Testimonies from Springfield residents at a recent city commission meeting record neighbors reporting shocking details of migrant behavior, from outright harassment to allegedly gruesome executions of local wildlife in public spaces.”  A Springfield resident named Anthony Harris complained to city officials that “they’re in the park, grabbing up ducks by the neck, and cutting their head off and walking off with them.  They’re eating them.”

The local police have said it’s incorrect to claim Haitians are “catching, killing, and eating house pets.”  But it’s hard to believe them when they’re also denying emphatic reports from residents of immigrants engaging in other illegal activities on their property such as squatting and littering.  Springfield Deputy Director of Public Safety and Operations Jason Via told NPR, “I think it’s sad that some people are using this as an opportunity to spread hate or spread fear.”  Sounds like a reason to deny the scary truth.

Trump running mate Sen. J. D. Vance, who grew up about 50 miles away from Springfield, says he posted on X that Haitians in the town were eating pets after “a high volume of complaints” from residents came to his office.  Oh, and PJ MEDIA has a picture posted on X of an alleged Haitian immigrant walking down a Springfield residential street, holding a big dead goose.  That might not be enough evidence for ABC NEWS debate moderators, but it seems pretty persuasive to us.

https://pjmedia.com/rick-moran/2024/09/10/haitians-are-not-killing-pets-in-springfield-ohio-its-what-else-theyre-doing-thats-the-problem-n4932390

Of course, lost in this discussion during the debate was the real issue: the impact this influx of immigrants is having on the people who live in Springfield and the enormous strain on city services, a problem cities across America are suffering because of the Biden-Harris open border.  People are confronted with threatening behavior on their own property, they see and hear about what’s happening to the geese in the park, perhaps their dogs and cats go missing, and they feel just as unsafe as the animals are.  Some are quite frightened. 

“Look at me,” said one fragile, 95-pound woman who was complaining of daily threats and harassment by Haitian men squatting on her own property.  “I couldn’t defend myself if I had to.  I don’t understand what you expect of us as citizens.  Who’s protecting us if we’re protecting them?  Who’s protecting me?”

The phone call about the geese was placed on August 26, which was before Springfield suddenly became nationally known as a center of the immigration crisis.

As Becca Lower at REDSTATE put it, both Kamala and the ABC moderators “tried to wave it away as unserious and unconfirmed information.”  But “it’s happening and very real,” Lower said, “for people in Springfield and across the country placed in danger by this administration’s dangerous border policies.”

https://redstate.com/beccalower/2024/09/11/the-federalist-report-man-in-springfield-oh-calls-police-dispatcher-about-4-haitians-carrying-geese-n2179171

Kamala can laugh about people’s pets being killed if she thinks that will help her win, but her time as Border Czar has been cat-astrophic.  Not to sound dog-matic...

https://x.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1833674943491395712

Here’s some must-read background if you’re wondering how Springfield got into this mess.  The Haitians were flown in by the federal government, but it’s what the city asked for...

https://instapundit.com/671649/

https://theothermccain.com/2024/09/10/springfield-gets-what-it-deserves/

Mike Huckabee

[thesiouxzy]

Dummy!

[aestariiwilderness]

Um, I think the point of all of that was "hi, all of this has been happening" (and there is a LOT coming out about Springfield, Ohio, from the inhabitants of Springfield, Ohio, and other towns like it -- just look it up) "and gee, I wonder who has been in charge the last four years while things kept getting worse and worse. Do you really want more of all of this?" And the idea is Trump is going to do what he did his first term: enforce the law. Immigrants are fine. It's illegal (or sometimes "magically amnestified" by Kamala) immigrants from countries where things like cat/dog/duck eating and animal sacrifice are things that happen (see: Haiti) getting imported en masse and subsidized by Democrats at the expense of the legal citizen that's the problem. Sources (these are just a few!): https://nypost.com/2024/09/12/media/cnns-jake-tapper-calls-out-kamala-harris-over-debate/

https://x.com/catturd2/status/1834581110388371622 (Texas) 

https://x.com/stillgray/status/1834350768343625895 (geese, police report)

https://x.com/GrahamAllen_1/status/1833931909447008746 

if there’s one thing i gotta credit republicans on it’s the ability to completely miss the point.

i thought our economy was in shambles and nobody can afford a house or food etc etc? we have to elect trump because the haitians are eating our cats now? what does that have to do with anything? how’s he going to prevent it? it’s already animal cruelty and would probably be considered poaching in most towns, also causing a public disturbance?

[justinspoliticalcorner]

This evening, racist cat-eating hoax-pusher Donald Trump told NewsNation reporter Ali Bradley in an exclusive interview for the network that he would revoke the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio if he is elected “President” again. The cat-eating hoax was started by Trump’s ticketmate and Ohio Senator JD Vance. Dear Mr. Trump, the folks that are on TPS status are here legally, despite your feverish insinuations otherwise. 

Read the full story at Daily Kos.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Olivia Little at MMFA:

Months after the Trump campaign’s flagrant lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, went viral, right-wing media continue to fuel fear of Haitian migration. In Indiana, a small city was the focus of a misinformation-fueled migrant witch hunt led by right-wing media that emboldened hate groups and is now being used as a case study to justify anti-immigrant policies. Logansport is a rural city with a population of about 18,000 residents. In mid-September, Kayla Blakeslee, a right-wing talk radio host based out of Fort Wayne, Indiana, posted on Facebook screenshots of emails that claimed “20,000 plus Haitian immigrants” were “dropped off” in Logansport over the last six months. Blakeslee wrote, “Is Logansport, IN the new Springfield, OH???” Blakeslee’s factually inaccurate post — the mayor said the numbers originated from a social media satire page — was the first snowball in an avalanche of misinformation and hate that spread about Haitian migrants in Logansport.  Logansport's mayor acknowledged that there is an increased immigrant population, but noted that the community has been diverse for “a very long time.” According to census data, Logansport has about a 30 percent Latino population. 

Story spreads through the right-wing ecosystem

Central Indiana’s Fox affiliate picked up the story on October 10, with the headline “Logansport officials say immigrant population growth is unsustainable.”  The report pointed to “strain on schools,” first quoting a county health department administrator who said she didn’t “think our school system can sustain what they are doing right now.” The district’s superintendent, the actual authority on the district’s capacity to handle new immigrant students, was optimistic, saying, “We can handle it.”  The report also pointed to strain on a local hospital because of increased births and emergency room visits, but the hospital responded by issuing a statement pointing in part to shuttered obstetrics departments at other area hospitals as a cause of increased births at Logansport Memorial Hospital.

[...] President-elect Donald Trump has been emboldened by anti-migrant misinformation, threatening mass deportation and promising to end Temporary Protective Status, a program that allows people from select countries, including Haiti, to live and work in the United States. Ending TPS would likely force family separations and negatively impact communities, like Logansport, where TPS holders have lived and been employed for years.

Right-wing media outlets conduct a Springfield, Ohio-style witch hunt in Logansport, Indiana.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Spencer Sunshine at The New Republic:

Presidents don’t just wield power directly; they set the mood for the country. It’s not uncommon for their grassroots base to flourish under their administration, as the far right did during Donald Trump’s first term in office. It is less common, however, for that base to remain strong after defeat. But, defying the odds, the MAGA movement continued to flourish under Joe Biden. Now, with Trump returning to the White House, the far right grassroots is barreling into 2025 with plenty of momentum, while their leader both helps set their agenda while sustaining it by crowd-sourcing their conspiracies and lies for his own use.

Issues and Themes

The far right is currently animated by several themes, many of them interrelated. For several years, demonizing “DEI” (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) frameworks—which focus on identities, racial and otherwise—was an obsession. But the far right has gradually replaced DEI with “woke,” a vaguer and broader idea which can refer to the vast majority of left-leaning positions and be applied to any number of hot button, culture war topics.

The backlash over gender, sexuality, and reproductive rights continues, with trans issues front-and-center. After Roe v Wade was struck down in 2022, attacks on abortion rights increased. And when Trump was reelected, the slogan “Your Body, My Choice” spread like wildfire after being embraced by far right leaders like Nick Fuentes. Anti-immigrant rhetoric has also increased, particularly as Trump has promised to deport tens of millions. His racist vilification of immigrants was epitomized by his embrace of unfounded rumors that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio—who were, for what it’s worth, legal residents—were stealing and eating pets. Finally, completely discredited “race science” theories have returned, often focusing on bogus IQ studies. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has promoted them on his social media platform X, as has Trump, who has blamed violence by immigrants on “bad genes.”

Donald Trump

Donald Trump has different faces: the tax-cutting businessman, the international negotiator—and the authoritarian strongman. Sometimes he embraces different approaches at different times; mostly, though, he is everything at once: A demagogue and a xenophobe who is committing to cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy and who pitches himself as the only man who can keep the country—and the world—safe. Campaign promises have included setting up deportation camps for undocumented immigrants—in what he said would be a “bloody story”—and arresting critics and opponents including Kamala Harris, Mark Zuckerberg, and members of the January 6 House committee. Trump also said he’d consider banning vaccines and claims to have the power to halt congressional budget allocations.

His appointments have also been gifts to his far right base. The start of Trump’s first term was largely characterized by a raft of relatively moderate, establishment favorite picks, like Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and chief of staff Reince Priebus. Now, the situation is quite different. Stalwart MAGA congressman Matt Gaetz was initially tapped to be attorney general until accusations of sex with underage girls quickly sunk him. Tulsi Gabbard, a sympathizer to dictatorships in Syria and Russia, was picked as his Director of National Intelligence. Arguably the most infamous selection was the appointment of Musk to a proposed advisory commission, DOGE (a reference to a dated internet meme, it stands for the “Department of Government Efficiency”). Musk himself has repeatedly tweeted support for anti-immigrant conspiracy theories and most recently for the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far right party many consider crypto-Nazis.

The far right has two wings. One is openly white supremacist, and is vocally opposed to groups like people of color, Jews, Muslims, and LGBTQ+ people. The other is more moderate in its beliefs; people of color—themselves an increasing part of Trump’s base—are welcome, as are Jews. Both wings overlap in their hatred of “communism” (also a catch-all term for anything to the left of them), embrace of conspiracy theories, contempt for democracy, and desire for traditional social hierarchies.

The white supremacists and their moderate cousins often see-saw in popularity, one rising as the other falls. In recent years, the moderates have swung high. Moms for Liberty, which has focused on banning school library books—especially those with LGBTQ+ content but also ones with pro-diversity or antiracist messages—started 2024 with almost 300 chapters. But their influence has waned as the year went on. The notoriously violent Proud Boys, who played an important role in storming the Capitol four years ago, have faced even tougher times. With their leader Enrique Tarrio serving a twenty-two year sentence for his role in the assault on the Capitol, their scattered chapters now lack cohesion and focus.

One exception is the armed militia movement, which is having a mild revival. Hurt by a massive Facebook deplatforming in 2020, Tess Owen recently observed these groups “have been quietly reorganizing, ramping up recruitment and rhetoric” in recent months. Some groups hope to help Trump’s deportation scheme. Conversely, open white supremacists are doing quite well. Active Clubs—white supremacist MMA training gyms—are in full flourish, and have even expanded overseas. While they’ve had limited public activism, observers worry they could soon transform into a fully-fledged fighting force.

A new wave of swastika-waving neo-Nazis has emerged, too. The media-friendly Blood Tribe, who use striking aesthetics and a confrontational approach, were early promoters of the pet-eating rumor. A Columbus, Ohio march by their splinter group Hate Club 1488 grabbed so much attention that even President Biden denounced it. Blood Tribe was only one of three groups that descended on Nashville this year for public events. They were joined by the antisemitic Goyim Defense League, who spent two weeks harassing local residents, as well as Patriot Front, one of the largest U.S. fascist groups. All three groups represent a new, flourishing neo-Nazi movement—one that will likely continue to grow during Trump’s second term.

The New Republic reports on how Donald Trump is building an army of foot soldiers for his far-right agenda.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Christopher Mathias at HuffPost:

Two hours before Donald Trump was set to take the stage at Madison Square Garden in New York City, right-wing comedian Tony Hinchcliffe warmed up the crowd with a shockingly racist performance. “Where are my proud Latinos at tonight?” Hinchcliffe asked the packed arena, eliciting scattered loud cheers. “You guys see what I mean? [The border’s] wide open. There’s so many of them.” “These Latinos, they love making babies, too,” he added. “There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside just like they did to our country.” The crowd groaned and cheered as Hinchcliffe continued, saying, “Republicans are the party with a good sense of humor.” Hinchcliffe’s “joke” mirrors MAGA talking points invoking the “great replacement theory”: the white supremacist conspiracy theory that brown migrants, often at the behest of Jews, are “invading” America and Europe to “replace” white people.

Next, Hinchcliffe referenced how people are “eating the pets” in Springfield, Ohio, a reference to the Trump campaign’s racist lie about Haitian immigrants in the city. When discussing Israel’s ongoing siege of Gaza, Hinchcliffe made an antisemitic joke about Jews being cheap and obsessed with money. “Why is our money involved in these wars when it comes to Israel and Palestine?” he said. “We’re all thinking the same thing — settle your stuff already. Best out of three: rock, paper, scissors. You know, the Palestinians are going to throw rock every time. You also know the Jews have a hard time throwing that paper, you know?” Hinchcliffe also referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean” and made a remark about Black people who “carved watermelons” instead of pumpkins for Halloween.

At the MSG MAGA hatefest today, Kill Tony podcast host Tony Hinchcliffe performed a wildly racist “comedy” set that insulted Blacks, Latinos, Palestinians, and Puerto Ricans.

His diss about Puerto Rico ended up causing a mass backlash, especially among some GOPers who represent Puerto Rican-heavy districts.

See Also:

The Daily Beast: Kill Tony podcast host Tony Hinchcliffe, the opening act at Trump’s NYC rally, spews vile racism

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dean Obeidallah at The Dean's Report:

“The rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact-check,” declared an angry JD Vance during the debate. This line perfectly sums up both Vance and Donald Trump. Both want to be able to lie non-stop in the pursuit of power. Both get angry when called out for their lies because they want to create an alternative reality that helps them. And both are following the authoritarian playbook. We all know the line, “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.” That law of propaganda--often attributed to the Nazi Joseph Goebbels—is the cornerstone of Trump’s MAGA movement.  This quote instructively continues that “the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” 

Trump understands this instinctively. It’s why he dubbed any media story that criticized him “Fake news” so his supporters would believe him—and him alone—when it come to the truth. As President, Trump took it further in 2018 when he told people at event, “Don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news,” adding jaw droppingly, “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”  At the time the NY Times reported about these comments, “Trump is doubling down in his efforts to tell supporters to trust him over the words of critics and news reports.” This also explains why Trump supporters believe his “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was stolen. After four years of Trump telling them what was reality, they were primed to accept his lie that 2020 election was filled with fraud. And we are currently seeing Trump prepare his base for the same type of reaction after the 2024 election with his recent pronouncements “the only way we’re gonna lose” is “because they cheat.” This is also why Vance was angry after he spewed lies about Black immigrants in Springfield, Ohio that prompted CBS debate co-moderator to slightly push back. This exchange came when Vance peddled the lie that, “In Springfield, Ohio…we’ve brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes.”

He then added, “The people that I'm most worried about in Springfield, Ohio, are the American citizens who have had their lives destroyed by Kamala Harris's open border.” After Tim Walz responded slamming Trump for submarining the bipartisan border security bill that would have addressed the issue and more, that is when co-moderator Margaret Brennan stated, “And just to clarify for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status.” Brennan did not fact check the litany of other lies in Vance’s statement such as Harris had created “open borders” or that Harris “brought in millions of illegal immigrants,” etc. Brennan simply stated the truth that the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio have legally entered the United States. Yet that comment angered Vance who believed that like at the CNN presidential debate, he should be able to use a national debate watched by millions to mislead the America public. At that point, Vance raised his voice to interrupt the co-moderators to bellow, “Margaret. The rules were that you guys were going to fact check.”  From there Vance tried to bully the two female co-moderators by speaking over them to the point the microphones were shut off for a moment. That angered Trump and MAGA world. They understand that having a fellow candidate fact check Vance or Trump will be meaningless for many viewers because it appears to be just political rancor. But when a moderator of a respected network calls out a candidate’s lie in real time, it actually is effective at destroying the lie. [...] There should never be a presidential or vice-presidential debate in the future that does not feature real time fact checking. The candidates are not there to be journalists, but to share their vision for the nation. Fact checking after the debate is just about meaningless. But as we saw with the Harris-Trump debate, fact checking in real time flags to the viewers that a candidate is lying about basic facts. This is how we protect our Republic from people like Trump--who attempted a coup, incited the Jan 6 attack and was convicted of 34 felonies for cheating in the 2016 campaign—from ever being elected President.

JD Vance acted like an unhinged sexist bore last night when he got mad at the CBS moderators fact-checking him for spewing lies about the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio.

This also serves as to why moderators should fact-check candidates at the debates.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Parker Molloy at The Present Age:

It’s not every day that a political figure openly admits to fabricating stories to get media attention. But that’s precisely what Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance did during a Sunday appearance on CNN’s State of the Union. Vance acknowledged that he “create[d] stories” about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, supposedly stealing and eating people’s pets. “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,” Vance said. This isn’t just reckless political theater. It’s a dangerous tactic that bears the hallmarks of fascist propaganda. Vance isn’t simply stretching the truth or engaging in hyperbole to score points with voters. He’s admitting, proudly, that he’s willing to lie in ways that actively harm immigrant communities and incite fear and violence. And we’ve seen the effects already. Since Vance’s story began circulating, Springfield has become ground zero for a wave of hate-fueled chaos. Bomb threats have been called into local schools, city hall, and hospitals, and the Ku Klux Klan is reportedly distributing flyers demanding that immigrants leave town. [...]

But here’s the thing: it doesn’t matter that Vance’s claims were quickly debunked. Springfield’s police department confirmed that there have been zero reports of pets being stolen or eaten. It doesn’t matter. The lie is already out there, and it’s doing its intended damage. This is a textbook example of how misinformation spreads and leads to real-world harm. Vance’s fabrication is part of a broader pattern of right-wing politicians using misinformation as a political weapon. Just two years ago, Republicans were circulating the bizarre, completely false claim that schools were installing litter boxes in bathrooms for students who identified as cats. That lie, too, spread like wildfire, despite being thoroughly debunked. These kinds of stories aren’t just silly or outlandish — they’re dangerous. They target specific communities, stoke fear and hatred, and lead to real-world violence. As we saw with the false claims about trans youth being subjected to surgeries without parental consent, these lies serve a political purpose, even after they’ve been debunked. They plant seeds of doubt, stir up fear, and shift the conversation away from real issues.

Appearing on CNN’s State Of The Union and NBC’s Meet The Press today, Trump VP pick and Ohio Senator JD Vance admitted that he created fake stories such as the Springfield Cat-Eating Hoax just “to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people.”

This clown is unfit to be the nation’s No. #2 in charge (aka 101st Senator).

See Also:

HuffPost: JD Vance Justifies Spreading Debunked Conspiracy Against Haitians In Ohio

The Guardian: JD Vance admits he is willing to ‘create stories’ to get media attention

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Walter Einenkel at Daily Kos:

Anti-immigrant lies and rhetoric spewed by Donald Trump and his party have caused real and terrifying results. On Thursday, several city, county, and school buildings in Springfield, Ohio, were targeted by a bomb threat. On Friday, a Springfield middle school was closed and two elementary schools were evacuated. ABC News originally reported that there was no direct connection made between the threats and the GOP's repeated racist lies about Haitian immigrants abducting and eating pets. Additionally, ABC reported it was not “immediately clear if Friday's evacuations were from a new threat or linked to bomb threats sent via email Thursday morning.” But in an interview with The Washington Post, Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said that Thursday’s bomb threat “used hateful language towards immigrants and Haitians in our community.”

During Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Trump erroneously claimed, “In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating—they're eating the pets of the people that live there.” This lie has also been pushed by his running mate Sen. JD Vance a number of times. And Trump continued to perpetuate the lie, adding geese this time, in a campaign rally Thursday in Arizona.

The Haitian Times reported that some of Springfield’s Haitian community has felt so threatened during this barrage of right-wing hate-propaganda that they chose to keep their children home from school following the debate. “We’re all victims this morning,” one woman, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, told the outlet. “They’re attacking us in every way.”  The same kind of racist rhetoric has also besieged Venezuelan immigrants in Colorado. Trump has repeatedly pushed bullshit crime numbers (which he did once again during the debate), targeting Venezuelan communities in the Centennial State as filled with “gangs,” and saying they were “taking over” Colorado cities. 

[...] This is sadly par for the course during a time of fascistic and hateful rhetoric. We saw it with Asian hate crimes rising during COVID-19 pandemic, when Trump and others would frequently use derogatory terms for the coronavirus such as “Kung Flu,” and the “Chinese Virus.” We've seen it in the rise of antisemitism connected to the rise of MAGA extremist rhetoric and conspiracy theory as well as the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. The consequences of the Republican Party’s need to target, isolate, and divide various groups of people, are that innocent, hardworking people suffer. At the same time, without any meaningful policies, the fear and economic uncertainty that the GOP repeats remains the same.  Trump said Tuesday during the debate that the Haitian immigrants in Springfield were “destroying” the residents’ “entire way of life.” That divisiveness, despite the fact that these Haitian Americans are part of that community, is the Trump way. And in a country made up almost entirely of immigrants, there’s always someone to blame.

Aurora, CO and Springfield, OH are two communities in the news recently as a result of right-wing hate mobs targeting the cities to push their anti-immigrant BS.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Myah Ward at Politico:

Donald Trump vowed to “rescue” the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado, from the rapists, “blood thirsty criminals,” and “most violent people on earth” he insists are ruining the “fabric” of the country and its culture: immigrants. Trump’s message in Aurora, a city that has become a central part of his campaign speeches in the final stretch to Election Day, marks another example of how the former president has escalated his xenophobic and racist rhetoric against migrants and minority groups he says are genetically predisposed to commit crimes. The supposed threat migrants pose is the core part of the former president’s closing argument, as he promises his base that he’s the one who can save the country from a group of people he calls “animals,” “stone cold killers,” the “worst people,” and the “enemy from within.” He is no longer just talking about keeping immigrants out of the country, building a wall and banning Muslims from entering the United States. Trump now warns that migrants have already invaded, destroying the country from inside its borders, which he uses as a means to justify a second-term policy agenda that includes building massive detention camps and conducting mass deportations.

In his lengthy speech Friday, Trump delivered a broadside against the thousands of Venezuelan migrants in Aurora. And he declared that he would use the Alien Enemies Act, which allows a president to authorize rounding up or removing people who are from enemy countries in times of war, to pursue migrant gangs and criminal networks. “Kamala [Harris] has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world … from prisons and jails and insane asylums and mental institutions, and she has had them resettled beautifully into your community to prey upon innocent American citizens,” he said.

His rhetoric has veered more than ever into conspiracy theories and rumors, like when he amplified false claims about Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating pets. And Trump has demonized minority groups and used increasingly dark, graphic imagery to talk about migrants in every one of his speeches since the Sept. 10 presidential debate, according to a POLITICO review of more than 20 campaign events. It’s a stark escalation over the last month of what some experts in political rhetoric, fascism, and immigration say is a strong echo of authoritarians and Nazi ideology. “He’s been taking Americans and his followers on a journey since really 2015 conditioning them … step by step instilling hatred in a group, and then escalating,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University who writes about authoritarianism and fascism and has been outspoken about the dangers of a second Trump administration.

“So immigrants are crime. Immigrants are anarchy. They’re taking their jobs, but now they’re also animals who are going to kill us or eat our pets or eat us,” she continued. “That’s how you get people to feel that whatever is done to them, as in mass deportation, rounding them up, putting them in camps, is OK.” The Trump campaign said while the “media obsesses over rhetoric,” the former president is responding to voters’ concerns. [...]

Trump has long deployed racist attacks for political gain, including spreading conspiracy theories about whether former President Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president, was born in the United States. And when he launched his first campaign in 2015, Trump said Mexico was “not sending its best,” calling immigrants from the country “rapists” who are bringing in crime and drugs. He also promised that day to build a “great big wall.”

But times have changed, and so has he. The country has moved to the right on immigration — including the Democratic Party and Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants. Trump repeatedly bashed Harris as “dumb,” questioned her racial identity and has called her a “DEI” candidate — perpetuating the idea that women and people of color can only be in positions of power because of quotas and preferential treatment. Harris has touted her record prosecuting transnational gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers and has promised strict enforcement at the Southern border — an effort to appease Americans’ concern about illegal migration. The vice president has vowed to go even further than the Biden administration’s crackdown on asylum. As the political conversation around immigration has shifted, Trump has not only intensified his rhetoric, but his policy plans.

He has increasingly targeted specific communities, including Springfield, Ohio, Charleroi, Pennsylvania and Aurora, arguing that immigrants are destroying American towns and cities across the country and using those examples to call for large-scale federal response. Trump has spent the last month on the trail elevating the claims about those communities — even as local officials have been denying these allegations and asking the Republican nominee to stand down. Trump on Friday used false stories about gang takeovers in Aurora as he announced he would remove migrants connected to gangs under an “Operation Aurora” based on presidential wartime powers under the Alien Enemies Act. (While police in Aurora have encountered some gang activity tied to a Venezuelan group, there has been no gang takeover in Colorado.)

Politico takes a look at how Donald Trump’s racist and anti-immigrant hatred-fueled messaging has gotten more dark, authoritarian, and apocalyptic in tone.