{"id":22727,"date":"2024-09-10T17:06:36","date_gmt":"2024-09-11T00:06:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=22727"},"modified":"2024-09-11T10:29:08","modified_gmt":"2024-09-11T17:29:08","slug":"lies-absurd-and-telling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2024\/09\/10\/lies-absurd-and-telling\/","title":{"rendered":"Lies Absurd, and Telling"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>The latest absurd Republican lie is about cat-eating Haitians, and they don&#8217;t care whether it&#8217;s true or not, they know it will rile up their base;<\/li>\n<li>A Republican suggests that the Great Depression was planned;<\/li>\n<li>An article that quotes Republican politicians about Trump, then and now, reveals cognitive dissonance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Today&#8217;s Republican lie is surely one of the most absurd yet.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.vox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/09\/gettyimages-2170555922.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;crop=0%2C1.8441814595661%2C100%2C96.311637080868&amp;w=750\" width=\"200\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Vox, Ian Millhiser, 9 Sep 2024<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2024-elections\/370760\/jd-vance-racist-cat-eating-haitian-immigrants\">JD Vance\u2019s racist, cat-eating conspiracy theory, explained as best we can<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Apparently, when you are a Republican political candidate you can say literally anything.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Republicans at the highest levels of government are pushing a bizarre message: that Haitian immigrants are killing and eating pets.<\/p>\n<p>One of the most high-profile spreaders of this strange claim is JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee. On Monday morning, Vance <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JDVance\/status\/1833148904864465117\">posted<\/a> on X the false claim that \u201creports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn\u2019t be in this country.\u201d In the same tweet, he claimed that \u201cHaitian illegal immigrants\u201d are \u201ccausing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1agbrixh lg8ac51 lg8ac50 xkp0cg0\">For the record, there is no evidence that any Haitian immigrant ate a cat in Springfield, Ohio, or anywhere else in the United States, for that matter. But the lack of factual evidence hasn\u2019t stopped the GOP from pushing the nativist narrative, which seems designed to play off bigotry and suspicion against the mostly Black population of Haitian immigrants.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Presumably because Republicans know they can always count on the racism and xenophobia of their base.<\/p>\n<p>Other headlines:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>NPR,<\/strong> &#8220;All Things Considered&#8221;: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2024\/09\/10\/nx-s1-5107320\/jd-vance-springfield-ohio-haitians-pets\">JD Vance spreads debunked claims about Haitian immigrants eating pets<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2024\/09\/florida-haitians-condemn-vance-for-pet-eating-lies\/\">Florida Haitians Condemn Vance For \u201cPet Eating\u201d Lies<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lgbtqnation.com\/2024\/09\/the-trump-campaign-is-making-up-absurd-lies-because-theyre-desperate\/\">Donald Trump is getting so desperate his campaign is spreading racist lies about cats<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Yesterday it was schools operating on students, today it&#8217;s Haitian immigrants eating cats. They just can&#8217;t win with the truth.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s not just Vance and Trump. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediamatters.org\/fox-news\/fox-anchor-pushes-debunked-racist-claim-about-haitian-migrants-eating-pets\">Fox anchor pushes debunked racist claim about Haitian migrants \u201ceating\u201d pets<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Hours after the social media rumor had been debunked, Fox&#8217;s &#8216;news side&#8217; pushed it&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>NYT,<\/strong> Jamelle Bouie: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/live\/2024\/09\/03\/opinion\/thepoint#vance-smear-haitians-pets\">JD Vance\u2019s Outrageous Smear of Haitian Immigrants<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And this round-up this afternoon. The homepage title is &#8220;God, These People Have No Shame.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/compote.slate.com\/images\/ac00ffab-9c2e-42dd-9849-1c51d53f575a.jpeg?crop=1560%2C1040%2Cx0%2Cy0&amp;width=1280\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Slate, Molly Oldstead, 10 Sep 2024<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/news-and-politics\/2024\/09\/haitians-eating-cats-and-birds-rumor-immigration-trump-musk-cruz-ohio-springfield.html\">Yes, They\u2019re Really Claiming Immigrants Eat Cats and Geese Now. You Can Guess Why.<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;A racist GOP scare tactic has taken over the internet.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As we get closer to the election, the Republican Party is finding it increasingly politically useful to fix the public\u2019s attention on the supposed dangers of immigrant populations. The Trump campaign keeps calling Vice President Kamala Harris the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/17\/us\/politics\/kamala-harris-border-czar.html\">border czar<\/a>\u201d in its attacks. (In actuality, Harris was tasked by the Biden administration with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/us\/republicans-call-harris-failed-border-czar-truth-is-more-complicated-2024-07-30\/\">addressing the root causes<\/a> of migration from Central America in 2021.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"slate-paragraph slate-graf\" data-word-count=\"91\" data-uri=\"slate.com\/_components\/slate-paragraph\/instances\/cm0wxzmtl001h3b70z1dnlcif@published\">Conservative media have <a href=\"https:\/\/gazette.com\/news\/hells-angels-responds-to-claim-theyre-headed-to-aurora-to-fight-venezuelan-gang\/article_8d011c79-04d9-5a15-a7f2-2fd0a6ddcca4.html\">played up<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2024\/08\/25\/us-news\/denver-tren-de-aragua-gang-violence-spills-over-into-aurora-colorado\/\">stories<\/a> of an <a href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/post\/185731\/lauren-boebert-donald-trumps-gangs-apartments\">apartment complex<\/a> in Aurora, Colorado, that was supposedly taken over by a Venezuelan gang (<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/venezuela-immigrants-aurora-colorado-police-37acd4e064347d51808cb244117ac21e\">it wasn\u2019t<\/a>), and the Heritage Foundation has pushed the idea that noncitizen voters pose a serious threat to the legitimacy of the upcoming presidential election (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/09\/07\/us\/politics\/heritage-foundation-2024-campaign-immigration.html\">they don\u2019t<\/a>). On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/judiciary.house.gov\/committee-activity\/hearings\/biden-harris-border-crisis-victim-perspectives-0\">The Biden-Harris Border Crisis: Victim Perspectives<\/a>,\u201d exploring \u201cthe effects of the Biden-Harris Administration\u2019s open borders policies on American families and communities\u201d through testimony from \u201cvictims of fentanyl poisoning\u201d and \u201ccriminal illegal aliens.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"slate-paragraph slate-graf\" data-word-count=\"17\" data-uri=\"slate.com\/_components\/slate-paragraph\/instances\/cm0wxzmvt001i3b70zqr9lm28@published\">But no anti-immigrant scare tactic has captured the troll internet space quite like the Haitian pet-eating panic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"slate-paragraph slate-graf\" data-word-count=\"62\" data-uri=\"slate.com\/_components\/slate-paragraph\/instances\/cm0wxzmxo001j3b70r9c627ar@published\">On Monday, social media was flooded with A.I.-generated images of Donald Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/EndWokeness\/status\/1832998305288114588\">holding<\/a> kittens and ducks\u2014and sometimes <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JackPosobiec\/status\/1832997026717483511\">carrying<\/a> them away from Black people giving them chase. The images, which as memes are meant to convey an own-the-libs kind of dark humor, are based on a false claim that has bounced around the conservative internet\u2014that Haitian immigrants are stealing and eating Americans\u2019 pets.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In the first place, the claim is based on a single, fictitious, Facebook post. &#8220;Neighbor&#8217;s daughter&#8217;s friend&#8217;s cat&#8221; indeed. How much more dubious source could you imagine?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As racist misinformation goes, this instance of fake news is particularly vile and dehumanizing, in a kind of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/media\/2003\/dec\/10\/sun.pressandpublishing\">classically<\/a> nativist way. There\u2019s no dog whistle here\u2014the bigotry is open and gleeful. The claim originated with a fictitious Facebook post about Springfield, Ohio, in which the user said that their neighbor\u2019s daughter\u2019s friend\u2019s cat was cooked and eaten by Haitians. The post also said that Haitians were cooking ducks and geese in a local park. These claims were utterly false, but some people on social media conflated it with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/nation\/2024\/08\/22\/ohio-woman-ate-cat\/74902749007\/\">an unrelated story<\/a> from Canton, Ohio, in which a woman killed and ate a neighborhood cat. The woman does not appear to be an immigrant.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In the second place, it doesn&#8217;t matter to Republican politicians, who are confidant their base consists of 1) people who shrug this sort of thing off as meaningless politics, and 2) people who really will be riled up to more evidence of the threat of immigrant hordes. Republicans count on them. And so, as this piece ends:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It was a tirade meant to stir up the fears that Trump loves to provoke. There was a political argument here\u2014even if it\u2019s a xenophobic one\u2014based on the idea that migrant populations are straining public resources. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/09\/03\/us\/springfield-ohio-school-bus-crash-haiti-immigrants.html\">The New York Times reported<\/a> that in Springfield, the Haitian population has taxed certain institutions, such as the health care and educational systems, but that it simultaneously rescued the town\u2019s flagging local economy. That kind of nuance is seemingly uninteresting to Vance, who indicated he cared less about the truth of the situation than in stoking hate. \u201cDon\u2019t let the crybabies in the media dissuade you, fellow patriots,\u201d he wrote. \u201cKeep the cat memes <span class=\"slate-paragraph--tombstone\">flowing.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So why should anyone count on JD Vance to be honest about anything?<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Yet another.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/compote.slate.com\/images\/436a8c43-4fc6-499f-bab1-42805f3871a4.jpeg?crop=1560%2C1040%2Cx0%2Cy0&amp;width=1280\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Slate, Molly Olmstead, 9 Sep 2024<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/news-and-politics\/2024\/09\/ron-johnson-great-depression-conspiracy-theory-creature-jekyll-island.html\">This May Be the Kookiest Conspiracy Theory We\u2019ve Heard All Year<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;And that\u2019s saying something.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>At this point, with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/news-and-politics\/2021\/01\/marjorie-taylor-greene-kevin-mcarthy-jewish-space-lasers.html\">Jewish space lasers<\/a>, Rep. Lauren Boebert\u2019s assertion that Joe Biden got dementia <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/laurenboebert\/status\/1811344461022073236\">from the COVID vaccine<\/a>, and Donald Trump\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/wireStory\/trump-shares-social-media-posts-qanon-phrases-calls-113221197\">careless promotion<\/a> of QAnon, it\u2019s tempting to think that many of our government officials have had their brains completely addled by internet conspiracy theories. But every once in a while, a politician comes along to remind us that our representatives don\u2019t always need the internet\u2019s help\u2014they are totally capable of latching on to nonsensical beliefs the old-fashioned way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"slate-paragraph slate-graf\" data-word-count=\"21\" data-uri=\"slate.com\/_components\/slate-paragraph\/instances\/cm0vcxoku001o3b6zlf62nf68@published\">Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, did just that in an appearance on a radio show that surfaced last week.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>He refers to some book published in 1994 and mentions that &#8220;the Great Depression was pretty well planned.&#8221; And &#8220;I know it really sounds like a conspiracy theory. I don\u2019t completely understand it. But it sure seems\u2014it just, in my bones, I just feel there\u2019s a great deal of corruption and control there that the vast majority of people do not understand.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>(Again, boys and girls: beware gut feelings, intuition, and feelings in your bones; they are not reliable guides to the truth.)<\/p>\n<p>The rest of this article tries to unpack what he might have meant by that.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If that answer makes no sense to you, that\u2019s because it\u2019s incomprehensible even to people who study conspiracy theories. It <em>seems<\/em> that Johnson is implying that a sinister cabal of \u201cbig money men\u201d planned the Great Depression for their own personal gain, but it\u2019s not entirely clear.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There&#8217;s something here that I alluded to yesterday, when I said &#8220;bureaucracy inevitably implies some kind of coordinated purpose among many people.&#8221; Which conservatives distrust, being independent rugged individualists, as we know. Which suggests&#8230; that any major event in history&#8230; must have been plotted out? And coordinated? In some kind of conspiracy?<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, conservatives who blame major historical events on conspiracy theories have a charming, if naive, trust in the ability of large numbers of people to coordinate and cooperate. We&#8217;ve thought about this many times before. No one who believes in such schemes has ever been a project manager. No major industrial project has ever come in on time and on budget. And so on. How can these conspiracies have succeeded &#8212; without any snitch blowing the whistle &#8212; while all these real-world coordinated efforts have not? And yet, conservatives think bureaucracies inefficient and wasteful. Think about it.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>One more piece that I just saw late today, and haven&#8217;t fully read. But the sidebars make a crucial point.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.theatlantic.com\/thumbor\/ZaKXyHOyjVp_cv-2HOrutb5qkR0=\/0x0:1200x1500\/665x831\/media\/img\/2024\/08\/28\/WEL_Leibovich_GOPopenerArticle\/original.png\" width=\"200\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Atlantic, Mark Leibovich, 9 Sep 2024<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2024\/10\/trump-gop-support-jd-vance-2024\/679564\/\">Hypocrisy, Spinelessness, and the Triumph of Donald Trump<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;He said Republican politicians would be easy to break. He was right.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m going to pass over the theme of the essay itself, and note for now the various sidebars about what Republican politicians said about Trump back when, and what they&#8217;ve said recently. I&#8217;ll quote three.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>MARCO RUBIO<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>2016:<\/strong> \u201cDonald Trump is a con artist.\u201d He is \u201cthe most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency.\u201d<br \/>\n<strong>2024:<\/strong> \u201cThe only way to make America wealthy and safe and strong again is to make Donald J. Trump our president again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>TED CRUZ<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>2016<\/strong>: Calls Trump a \u201cpathological liar\u201d and \u201ca narcissist at a level I don\u2019t think this country has ever seen.\u201d Also says, \u201cDonald, you are a sniveling coward.\u201d<br \/>\n<strong>2024:<\/strong> \u201cGod Bless Donald J. Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>J. D. VANCE<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>2016\u201317:<\/strong> Trump is \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2016\/07\/opioid-of-the-masses\/489911\/\">cultural heroin<\/a>\u201d \u2026 \u201cNever liked him\u201d \u2026 \u201cI\u2019m a \u2018Never Trump\u2019 guy\u201d \u2026 \u201cMr. Trump is unfit for our nation\u2019s highest office\u201d \u2026 \u201ca moral disaster\u201d \u2026 \u201cAmerica\u2019s Hitler.\u201d<br \/>\n<strong>2024:<\/strong> Named Donald Trump\u2019s running mate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Skimming the article, and term &#8220;cognitive dissonance&#8221; comes up several times. And that&#8217;s what this is all about: how the mind, at least these particular Republican minds, tries to resolve conflicting beliefs. And what we see here is how pursuit of tribal solidarity overrides all sense of actual moral standards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The latest absurd Republican lie is about cat-eating Haitians, and they don&#8217;t care whether it&#8217;s true or not, they know it will rile up their base; A Republican suggests that the Great Depression was planned; An article that quotes Republican &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2024\/09\/10\/lies-absurd-and-telling\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,18,41,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatives","category-lunacy","category-morality","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22727"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22733,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22727\/revisions\/22733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}