219) "They're eating the cats..."
So, think about this for a second. It’s obviously batshit crazy. It’s obviously racist. It’s obviously hilarious. But we overlook, this rhetoric is also, literally, from the Nazi playbook. Not to evoke Hitler willy-nilly, but here, we should be talking about Hitler. Because this kind of super-racist, “how can this be true” rhetoric, IS Nazi propaganda strategy. And people BELIEVE IT!!!!
In the Bizarro world of MAGA, white supremacists and anti-immigrant racism, this absurdity is having an effect.
The following was reported by Robert Reich — “Over the weekend, two hospitals in Springfield were locked down after bomb threats.”
“After JD Vance first began spreading baseless rumors about Haitians in Springfield, members of the neo-Nazi group “Blood Tribe” marched into the city carrying guns, wearing body armor, and carrying Neo-Nazi flags. At an August 27 town hall meeting, one claimed that the city had been taken over by “degenerate third worlders,” blamed Jews for the influx, and warned that “crime and savagery will only increase with every Haitian you allow in.”
“Springfield’s Haitian immigrants say they are afraid. Some have kept their children home from school, fearing violence. Others have reported harassment on the street, in their cars, and at stores. A Springfield family whose son died last year when the bus in which he was riding accidentally collided with a car driven by a Haitian immigrant has pleaded for Trump and Vance to stop using their deceased son for political purposes.”
“Yet Trump and JD Vance are doubling down. Yesterday, before the attempt on Trump’s life, Vance said on CNN that the claims about Haitians eating the pets of Springfield residents came from “firsthand accounts from my constituents.” When interviewer Dana Bash suggested that the claims had caused bomb threats, Vance called her a “Democratic propagandist.”
“Rather than offhand comments, Trump’s and Vance’s claims are calculated. Trump’s last two posts on Truth Social before the debate were AI images of cats and ducks — one depicting cats in military fatigues carrying assault rifles and wearing MAGA hats, the other showing the candidate himself sitting on a plane amid a crowd of ducks and cats.”
“Trump is now talking about holding a rally in Springfield. “We’re going to get these people out,” Trump said in a Friday news conference. Although Springfield’s Haitian immigrants are in the United States legally, he promised to stage “the largest deportation in the history of our country” if reelected.”
“Another of Trump’s bogus claims is now threatening legal immigrants in Aurora, Colorado, a Denver suburb that Trump has repeatedly asserted is being “taken over” by Venezuelan criminals. “Simply not true,” Aurora’s Republican mayor and city council member wrote in a joint statement.”
“As in Springfield, Trump’s baseless claims are harming innocent people in Aurora. Immigrants there say they have been told their nationality makes them ineligible for jobs or housing. Trump’s claims have led to threats and drawn armed groups to the city, claiming to offer vigilante-style protection.”
“Trump and Vance are using the oldest of tyrannical ploys — fueling deep-seated fears by creating an “other” — depicted as subhuman — who “take over” towns and “devour” loved ones.”
“In Springfield, the loved ones are peoples’ pets. But how far is this bogus claim from vicious Nazi claims of Jews devouring children? Substitute “Jew” for “Haitian” in Springfield or for “Venezuelan” in Aurora, and you’re back to the Nazis of the 1930s.”
““They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” Trump said of immigrants at a rally in New Hampshire eight months ago, virtually quoting Adolf Hitler (who wrote in Mein Kampf that “All great cultures of the past perished only because the originally creative race died out from blood poisoning.”)”
“In a last-ditch effort to prevail in their campaign, Trump and Vance are encouraging the haters. On September 10, Vance told his followers to “keep the cat memes flowing,” notwithstanding that they were endangering people in his own state.”
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So this is the world we live in. Remember, there are no small number of people in the United States, even members of Congress, who believe in the QAnon fantasy-world. They believe that the Democrats are controlled by a Satanic cabal, who kidnap and torture babies in order to extract a chemical from their brains while they are tortured, which gives immortality.
So voting Democrat = voting for Satan.
Yes. Satan. Torturing babies. Immortality. It sounds fucking insane to most of us. But not to the world of conspiracy theorists. And…they have guns.
Remember “PizzaGate” from the time of the first Trump election? An armed gunman went into a pizza parlour to wage holy war, because he became convinced that the basement of the pizza place was part of this Satanic, pedophilia and baby-torturing operation, linked to the Democrats. So he went in there, fully armed and ready to kill, in order to “save the children!” (Unfortunately for him, the pizza parlour didn’t have a basement. Or a Satanic-Democrat pedophilia operation….)
So the notion that Haitian immigrants are eating cats, etc., is not only BELIEVABLE to people who live in such an alternate version of reality, it reinforces severe racist extremism, and it leads to real violence against real people.
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As a final note, as Canadians, let’s be VERY aware of some of our own politicians going down similar paths.
I mean, it’s not hard to think of who in current Canadian politics spreads a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment and other “Republican talking points”. I see some people I grew up with and went to high school with, posting racist, “white pride”, anti-immigrant memes quite often and brazenly. (Or its barely-disguised facade of “Ontario Proud” and “Canada Proud”, using “patriotism” and “Freedom!” as a smokescreen to make the racism a little harder to spot.)
And I think, what the fuck dude? We read 1984 together! What the hell????
We are on a very, very slippery slope. And Trumpism, MAGA, QAnon, and armed vigilantes marching into towns, is where it takes us.
