Trump:
"In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats . . . The people on television say, my dog was taken and used for food.”
Trump's attack is vile, dishonest, racist, defamatory, and bad for America.
It may well win him votes.
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| Trump: hero and savior of cats |
At first glance Donald Trump appears to have sabotaged his debate performance by making crazy accusations. The most memorable of them was that Haitian immigrants are killing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.
There was early blowback.
Debate moderators did a real-time fact-check, and said it was not true. Democrats scoffed at it. Even conservative media said that Trump embarrassed himself. Karl Rove called it "probably Team Trump’s lowest moment.” The Wall Street Journal ran a headline about the "False Claim That Immigrants Are Eating Pets."
Conservative pundit Erick Erickson used blunt language:
But wait.
Maybe this serves Trump's purpose.
Underlying Trump’s popularity is his overarching idea that American identity -- its culture, its economy, its blood, and the safety of its native-born citizens -- is under economic and physical attack from foreigners, especially dark-skinned ones, many from "s-hole countries." He is playing to a perennial theme in American culture, the fear and distrust of immigrants from new places. In prior generations it was the Irish in the 1840s, the Italians, Greeks and Chinese in the 1880s, and Germans during World War I. Always, sometimes in the foreground, sometimes in the background, there is fear of Jews. Always, less now but still present, is racial prejudice against Blacks. Trump turned the focus to Muslims and people from Latin America. Both Bush presidents said we were not at war with Islam. Trump said yes we are. And Trump's campaign in 2015 started by saying that Mexico isn't sending its best. "They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists."
Trump is playing the race card more bluntly than did Richard Nixon, with his "southern strategy," or Ronald Reagan, who kicked off his presidential campaign in, of all places, tiny Philadelphia, Mississippi. That's a place distinguished in American history as the town whose leaders conspired to cover up the investigation of the murder of three civil rights workers. There is always reason to be afraid of strangers, crime, and disorder. Trump is unusually direct in appealing to that fear and putting a dark face on it.
Trump says that Haitian immigrants eat dogs and cats. Yuck. It's vivid and mentally sticky. Trump's Republican allies are looking to see if somebody, somewhere in America -- maybe an immigrant, ideally a dark-skinned one -- killed and ate a dog or cat. See! It might be true! The very search for it keeps the idea bubbling at the top of the public mind. Focus:
Immigrant. Kill and eat cats and dogs. Haitians. S-hole countries.
Trump is not recoiling in the face of the blowback. He is doing the opposite. His Truth Social posts perpetuate the story. Laugh about it. Scoff. But keep in mind the idea, here again:
Immigrant. Kill and eat cats and dogs. Haitians. S-hole countries.
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| One of many posted on Truth Social by Trump |
13 comments:
Yes, Trump is a vile, racist pathological liar, not to mention convicted criminal, but that’s what his supporters love about him. He’s made white supremacy respectable again. The poll averages haven’t budged, not in spite of his madness and criminality but because of it. The race remains a dead heat. Insanity must be contagious.
“Yuck”.
Just make sure not to judge some folks from certain Far Eastern nations, say Laos! That might be racist…..
LD, I don't judge it. I have been around enough to accept that other people have different cultures and different senses of disgust. My Chinese in-laws eat part of animals (bird heads, e.g.) that I find disgusting, but objectively there is no reason why breast meat is good and heads are not. Trump's gambit here, as I put it, leans on the less-educated, less cosmopolitan, less worldly instincts of the base that he has done very well with. Everyone has some sense of "yuck" depending on what we learned early on. My guess is that hyou have had exposure to people in Laos, saw them eat or do something you found disgusting. Based on the sophistication of your comments here, I assume you are well educated and well travelled. So, I am guessing you saw the yuck but realized it was really a matter of different cultures, not different virtue or something objectively "evil" in a Judea-Christian sense. Trump is not appealing to people who are "deplorable." He is appealing to the the moral sense of disgust of people. Personally, I eat pigs, lamb, and goats. I don't eat frogs and cattle guts, unless in fact I am eating both when they are disguised inside hot dogs. I cut off the heads of fish and discard them. I don't eat them. I saw a huge display table of a pyramid of lamb heads in a bazaar in Istanbul. I felt the gag reflex. I averted my eyes. Trump is not stupid here. He is telling Americans that Haitians do disgusting, revolting, things, whether he can prove it or not. Therefore, we should feel fear and contempt for them.
The point isn't what people eat. The point is that Haitian refugees eating people's pets is a racist lie that Trump supporters gobble up. It's their taste for bullshit that's disgusting.
The thing is Peter, we are not laughing about it, we are laughing at him. It belittles him and makes him look weak. Even Fox News joked about it, so it may be a racist play, but it’s a play that I’m okay with him continuing with. It’s one more extreme push that the country is tired of seeing. David Brooks wrote today about a culture change happening today and I think, more and more, Trump is old news.
People are either racist or they are not, sexist or not. When they hear ridiculous stories they just use them to justify what they already think. They will believe anything if it justifies their belief system.
Emphasis on less-educated. Dumb people support Don Old.
We're seeing the newish GOPee melting down.
Look for Vance to be dumped, given Don Old's fixation on how President Biden rope-a-doped him.
Buyer's remorse for Vance is huge.
Speaking of eating, future President Harris is eating Don Old's lunch on a regular basis.
The racist canard about pets being eaten has been around forever, at least during my 8 decades. I remember my Aunt in Sacramento repeating the same tired old lies, about Vietnamese refugees in the early 70s, while the viet's were busy starting businesses, paying taxes and beginning to earn Citizenship.
Not only Trump, but the Attorney General of Ohio and other white-wing whackos have amplified the crackpot conspiracy theory about pet-eating migrants. There’s obviously nothing too stupid or racist for Trump supporters to believe, but what takes this beyond stupid is that it’s resulted in bomb threats shutting down Springfield schools for two days now. Those who deliberately spread such potentially deadly, toxic bullshit should be made to pay for the damage they cause.
I’m waiting for the post-debate polls next week. The American people are going to decide whether they want Harris or Trump. We don’t know exactly what they find important or relevant. We’ll find out in a few months.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that turns out to be February, what with recounts, legal cases, hanging chads, etc.
According to Trump (and Hitler), immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” But fear not. The White Nationalist Party’s great white hope promises to put them all in concentration camps and deport over 20 million of them, starting in Springfield. Meanwhile, heed the billboards put up by the Arizona GOP: EAT LESS KITTENS; VOTE REPUBLICAN
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