Republican vice-presidential candidate Senator JD Vance continues to stoke outrage against foreign-born members of his own constituency, sharing video footage with his 1.9 million social media followers that he claimed showed African migrants in Dayton, Ohio “eating cats” — but instead appears to show nothing more than poultry cooking on an outdoor grill.
“Kamala Harris and her media apparatchiks should be ashamed of themselves,” Vance posted Saturday on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter. “Another ‘debunked’ story that turned out to have merit.”
Vance has claimed, falsely, in recent days that Haitians — who are not Africans — living in Springfield — a town of 58,000 which is not Dayton — were stealing, killing, and consuming their neighbors’ pets.
Offering a $5000 bounty for video proof is the same as paying $5000 for someone to manufacture the proof. This is like a Cobra bounty in India only results in Cobra farms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_terrorism
Stochastic terrorism is political violence that has been instigated by hostile public rhetoric which is directed at a group or an individual. Unlike incitement to terrorism, stochastic terrorism is accomplished by using indirect, vague, or coded language that allows the instigator to plausibly disclaim responsibility for the resulting violence.[1] A key element is the use of social media and other distributed forms of communications where the person who carries out the violence has no direct connection to the users of violent rhetoric.[2]
They’re also purposefully leaning into this to keep the conversation about immigration, because it’s pretty much the only issue they have had an advantage on. Without Trump talking about eating pets, we’d all be talking about his abortion stance right now, which is deeply unpopular.
Democrats need to respond by making the story about why Trump killed the bipartisan immigration bill.
That bill was a super republican bill, I honestly do not know why the Democrats keep bragging about this as if every “bipartisan” bill has merit. The Overton Window continues to shift right. Just because the vociferous Republicans spouted incorrect information about the bill, that doesn’t make the quality of actual bill have any merit. I’m ashamed that any democrat thought this"immigration" reform bill was something worth fighting for. It is an anti immigration package that gives significantly more money and power to homeland security. It focused on funding border walls, detention centers, increasing the burden of proof required for asylum seekers, among others. It is a horrendous bill that cares little for immigrants.
That only underscores the point of advertising their refusal to pass it: it should have fully satisfied Republicans and given them most of what they want, but the Orange Shit Stain said not to pass it so they could complain about immigration during the election.
Democrats should use it as a loud and constant example of how Republicans are not leaders and have no solutions for America.
Yeah, you shouldn’t work with them on such heinous human rights abusing packages. That is what it underscores to me. If anyone actually read the bill, we might critically push back on the Democrats and make positive change instead of this bipartisan rivalry nonsense. It serves the status quo, not any of us. If the bill had any merit , I’d be totally with you on that point.
You’re not understanding me. Yes, the bill was awful and should not have had their support.
So given that, what exactly is the Republican justification for not supporting it? That needs to be highlighted so that perhaps enough GOP voters just stay home on election day - especially in swing states.
Like it or not, Republicans must not win this election so that our democracy survives. We will have lots of work to do after the election to push the Democrats back to supporting the average person and not the rich, but that’s the next fight and not this one!
Hold your nose and vote for democracy.
Oh I understand you. I don’t think you understand that voting for Democratics and criticizing them is more than OK, it is necessary.
Yeah, because advertising that you used a social murder bill to bluff with makes you sound SUPER sympathetic to the people who would have died if fascists had called your bluff 🙄
I don’t think it was a bluff, unfortunately. Neither do I think they should not criticize the Republicans for their behavior.
The point is that it was agreed to by both parties and Trump still had it killed so the mere concept of cooperatively working with the other party got thrown out the window.
It is important to keep reminding people that Trump refuses to do anything (or even allow things to be done) that doesn’t serve his own personal goals . He will actively prevent things from happening if that serves him better, regardless of the consequences to anyone else.
I honestly do not know why the Democrats keep bragging about this as if every “bipartisan” bill has merit
Because it’s what they do. To the Dem leadership, bipartisanship is the highest achievement in politics, no matter how awful the actual content.
If you could demonstrate bipartisan backing, they’d gladly declare this flag from Community the new national flag of the United States:
In fact, both that flag and the “Human Being” mascot (pictured below, middle) of the school’s football team are parodies of the way Dem leadership operates.
“Another ‘debunked’ story that turned out to have merit.”
This is the most infuriating thing they do. They assume that any developing story is actually the most extreme version that favors their side. Then they ignore all evidence to the contrary and fish for any evidence that they can claim as confirmation, even if it doesn’t pass the laugh test. But they assert “It was confirmed!” with such confidence and shamelessness that it becomes easier for people to believe them, and eventually the media stops trying to debunk them.
Definitely not the first time this happened. If you wanna find other examples, look at anything where experts on the topic believe one thing but a majority of the American people believe the other. It’s pretty much guaranteed that the thing the American people believe originated as GOP propaganda.
A nutjob conservative on Lemmy has been telling me that babies are being executed in post-birth abortions using these same tactics.
I wish I had told myself that from 25 years ago before I went online and was exposed to these people with all the naivety of the socially underdeveloped autistic 17 year old that I was at the time. I often have to learn things in the hardest way imaginable.
JD has a really weird fixation on cats. Cat ladies, grilling cats, cats cats cats. Has JD ever bummed a cat? We’ll never know but it makes me wonder
No, it isn’t a couch.
They are often found residing on or near couches though
Cats have been known to scratch up a couch. Hummmm.
O my god, it all cums full circle
JD Vance said he was Making the Story up so as a Free Thinking Republican I need to wait until Fox News tells me what to think!
JFC, the person who started all this on Facebook says it’s false and these freaks are like “NOPE, THIS IS ALL WE CARE ABOUT NOW”
That person deserves some jail time
That person har indirectly gotten someone murdered.
Wow. They are really going over the deep end on this. How could this possibly help them win votes?
Backtracking equals flip-flopping, and then it’s a slippery slope to learning and growing and admitting you were wrong.
You’re probably right. And if they’re going to keep swimming towards the bottom of the pool, I really want journalists to start asking them why Haitians are eating pets. Because that’s the part that they haven’t actually made clear.
Haitians don’t eat dogs and cats in Haiti. The Haitians in Springfield aren’t starving, most of them have jobs. So why are they eating them, JD?
JD isn’t talking to people who think stuff through like that, he’s talking to racists and they don’t care if it’s true or not, it gives them an excuse to feel that way.
It’s a distraction, classic Trump move to get you to look at something else
A distraction from what? What is overt, disgusting racism distract from in any helpful way?
The topic does not matter.
The assertion at hand does not matter.
Whether anyone believes the assertion does not matter.
The only thing that matters is: Are you playing offense or defense?
Cuz attacking looks like winning. And explaining looks like losing.
Okay? Well they’re being attacked. Massively. So I guess this distraction isn’t working out for them.
Who is defending? Not them, they are doubling down. Everyone else is calling the mayor and asking for a statement, or doing some vox pop with Haitians on the ground.
Yes, and all of those statements essentially are “Donald Trump and JD Vance are racist liars.”
Which you seem to think people shouldn’t say.
It “seems” you are wrong. I think they should go on the attack, and do that.
Overt, disgusting racism is what his voters support, so it is a good distraction if there was news about something they don’t support. They support everything, as long as it is evil, though, so do not ask me what that could be.
People, remember how Trump presidency went! Bad news for Trump? Float a batshiit crazy thing to get the media to play with that shiny ball instead. This is a fucking distraction, Trump lost the debate, he is courting fascists, he is old and weird and people leave his rallys bored, he had to throw a stink bomb
*courting other fascists
I see no way in which this benefits him
The topic does not matter.
The assertion at hand does not matter.
Whether anyone believes the assertion does not matter.
The only thing that matters is: Are you playing offense or defense?
Cuz attacking looks like winning. And explaining looks like losing.
That is a great series!
There is no such thing as an “honest conservative”. No such thing.
Given most of the stuff right wingers complain about is projection, maybe we need to check this guy’s myfitnesspal
I don’t know about JD, but RFK, Jr. once literally got accused of eating a dog, so you think he at least would be out there calling them on this bullshit.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4753486-rfk-jr-vanity-fair-article/
Apparently not though. Guess it’s okay when the accusation is against black immigrants.
We are a handful of days away from some right wing weirdo showing a video of a non-white person sneezing and captioning it with “wtf they firing guns in the street”. And that will become a popular talking point, and people will demand the death penalty.
JDV is like a toddler trying to trick you by hiding behind the curtains, but you can still see his Scooby Doo Velcro shoes and he’s back there giggling.
I was thinking more like an Ivy League graduate from a Lawyering the Dark Arts School of Deceptive Loopholes and Twisting, but I see your point.
Edit: added a word
Where’s dave chappelle in all of this? Isnt this in his backyard? Isnt he a trump supporter now?
I guess this will be the new birth certificate thing for them.
That, at least, had a vague air of plausibility. People do come to the U.S. illegally and people do have faked identification documents. It also only attacked one person. This is attacking a whole group of people with a ludicrous (and very obviously racist) charge. I realize there are a lot of idiots in this country, but I have a feeling this is going beyond the pale for some people who were going to vote for Trump. I don’t know that they’ll vote for Harris, but they might sit this one out.
Liberals likes to eat baby cats. Prove me wrong. See I won you lose, end of the story.
