America: Our Pets Are Safe - Rob Horowitz
Rób Horowitz, MINDSETTER™
America: Our Pets Are Safe - Rob Horowitz
In doing so, the Republican standard-bearers are rejecting the pleas of fellow Republicans, Mayor of Springfield Rob Rue and Governor of Ohio Mike DeWine, to cut it out. “All these federal politicians that have negatively spun our city, they need to know they’re hurting our city, and it was their words that did it,” the mayor told an Ohio local news station. The governor told Martha Raddatz on ABC’s This Week that these claims were “a piece of garbage that was simply not true. There is no evidence for it at all.”
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As part of his ongoing effort to “other” and demonize immigrants-- to say they are not like you and me, and that we should fear them--Donald Trump highlighted this false claim at last week’s debate. "In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in," the former president exclaimed. "They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people that live there. This is what's happening in our country, and it's a shame."
The former president and his running mate doubled down on this canard, emphasizing it post-debate at rallies and in media interviews. In the wake of their insistence on these untruths, bomb threats accompanied by anti-Haitian slurs forced the closing of Springfield schools and City Hall as well as lockdowns at local hospitals. None of these developments, however, deterred either Mr. Trump or Mr. Vance. On the Sunday shows, JD Vance refused to accept any responsibility for the dangerous situation that has emerged in Springfield, standing by his false claims without providing any evidence of their validity.
Trump and Vance also continue to call the Haitians who have settled in Springfield illegal immigrants, though they are in our nation legally. While acknowledging that the large influx of immigrants posed some challenges, Governor DeWine pointed out both their legal status and their positive contributions to the Springfield community on ABC’s This Week. “What we know is that the Haitians who are in Springfield are legal. They came to Springfield to work. Ohio is on the move, and Springfield has really made a great resurgence with a lot of companies coming in,” said the governor. “These Haitians came in to work for these companies What the companies tell us is that they are very good workers. They're very happy to have them there, and frankly, that's helped the economy.”
In a contentious interview that did not serve the Trump campaign well, JD Vance said ‘the quiet part out loud," telling Dana Bash on CNN’s State of the Union that, “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.” Vance confirmed that the strategic goal driving these disgraceful and dangerous lies is keeping the issue of illegal immigration front and center.
This is not only reprehensible; it's dumb politics. There are many factual ways to highlight the issue of illegal immigration and keep it in the news. Doing it this way reminds the swing voters and undecideds---nearly all of whom already have a negative view of Donald Trump--of exactly why they dislike him. And JD Vance’s effectiveness as an attack dog is in large measure a function of maintaining some credibility. His interviews this past weekend provide a case study in how to erode voters’ trust.
Trump has followed-up his drubbing by Kamala Harris in the debate last week by going back to his old, odious and mainly failed playbook of demonizing immigrants of color through a “firehose of falsehoods.” He appears determined to convince Americans against the evidence of their own eyes that they live in a dystopian hellscape—not the greatest nation on Earth. Contrary to the former president’s doomsaying, violent crime is lower today than it was when Donald Trump was president. In fact, it’s at a nearly 50-year low.
One thing we can say for sure though. Here in the United States, no matter what Donald Trump and JD Vance tell us, our cats and dogs are safe.