There were at least two great laugh lines in the debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice-President Kamala Harris last week.
The first — my personal favorite — was when Trump said, “I got involved with the Taliban,” which is a combination of words that you really don’t want to have exit your mouth while you’re in the middle of a presidential debate on the eve of 9/11.
You don’t even need me to tell you the second great laugh line; you know it by heart.
“In Springfield, they are eating the dogs,” Trump said. “The people who came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
That’s a statement that would sound wild coming from your least favorite, most drunken uncle at Thanksgiving dinner. It’s absolutely insane coming from a former President during the middle of a Presidential debate.
Since then, Trump and his Vice-Presidential pick JD Vance have doubled down on the claims that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio —the state where JD Vance is a Senator, by the way — have been eating people’s pets. Here are a few facts:
- This whole rumor started when a Springfield resident named Erika Lee posted on Facebook that a cat owned by her neighbor had gone missing and the neighbor said she suspected the Haitian migrants next door were responsible. Lee has since said that she got the story wrong, she has no evidence that the cat met with foul play, and she’s filled with regret since seeing what her baseless rumor has done to the city of Springfield. We’ll come back to that.
- Springfield has a large population of Haitian migrants who began arriving in 2018. They’re in this country legally under temporary protective status, and they largely moved to Springfield because of job opportunities and affordable housing. By most accounts, they’ve helped fuel Springfield’s once-stagnant economic growth, although not without some growing pains.
- There is absolutely no evidence that any of these Haitian migrants have eaten anyone’s pets. There is also no evidence that they are eating Canada geese, which is another baseless claim that’s been shared.
The situation we have here is that the Right has latched onto a harmful, baseless rumor at the expense of a group of people living in this country completely legally, and whenever they’re reminded that there’s no evidence, they double down.
How harmful has this rumor been? Since the debate, hospitals, schools, and government buildings in Springfield have been evacuated due to multiple days of bomb threats. Students have missed multiple days of school. Additionally, many of the Haitians living in Springfield are terrified.
Vilbrun Dorsainvil, who fled Haiti after someone attempted to kidnap him, said in an interview that he’s become afraid of living in the U.S.
“Before I was not, but right now I can say I am afraid,” he was quoted as saying. “Right now, I’m afraid there may be a mass shooting on us.”
He’s right to be afraid. That strikes me as a pretty legitimate concern given the fear and hatred that’s being stoked against Springfield’s Haitian community.
Accusing a community of people who are different of eating cats and dogs or worse is an age-old tradition. How many times have you heard that a local Chinese restaurant serves cat meat? Regardless of what your sister’s husband’s landlord’s aunt may have heard, it’s never been documented once in this country. Not one single time. The urban legend actually dates back to the 1850s and was likely a rumor started by a restaurant owner to discourage people from dining at his competitor’s Chinese restaurant.
Really, you could even draw a straight line from this new outrage all the way back to the ancient tradition of blood libel, in which antisemites accused Jews of killing Christians in order to use their blood in secret rituals. Blood libel myths are still spread today and have also mutated into various new forms, like QAnon claims that Hollywood elites are harvesting adrenochrome from children in order to gain immortality. The hallmark of blood libel is the accusation that a group of people are such dangerous outsiders that they kill us/our children/our pets in order to perform their secret shadowy business. It’s part of a long, time-honored tradition of hatred and bigotry.
And just what is JD Vance doing to tamp down this fire and ease the fears of the Ohio residents that he represents?
Well, he went on CNN, and when he was asked if he would acknowledge that there was no basis to the pet-eating rumor, he had this to say:
“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.”
Back in high school, I read the William Faulkner short story “Dry September.” There’s a line in it that has always stuck with me.
The short story centers around a lynching that’s about to take place in a small Southern town. A black man has been accused of assaulting a white woman, and the town is up in arms. Sure, the woman isn’t exactly known for being truthful, and sure, the accused is known to be a good man, but no one wants to let the truth get in the way of justice.
In a scene set in a barbershop, one man dares to raise the question of whether the assault even happened at all.
“Happen?” another man replies. “What the hell difference does it make? Are you going to let the black sons get away with it until one really does it?”
Well JD, are you?
