{"id":14690,"date":"2024-09-11T18:43:17","date_gmt":"2024-09-11T18:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=14690"},"modified":"2024-09-11T18:43:17","modified_gmt":"2024-09-11T18:43:17","slug":"republicans-racist-cat-eating-conspiracy-theory-briefly-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=14690","title":{"rendered":"Republicans\u2019 racist, cat-eating conspiracy theory, briefly explained"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“The claim is false, but that didn\u2019t stop Trump from spreading it during Tuesday evening\u2019s presidential debate<\/a>, declaring that \u201cthe people that came in\u201d are \u201ceating the pets of the people that live\u201d in Springfield, Ohio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strange idea that Ohio is home to pet kidnappers and eaters was popularized in part by that state\u2019s senator, JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee. On Monday morning, Vance 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\n\n\n

The claim has caught fire among the GOP and has now made it all the way to the party\u2019s leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n\n\n

More than 300,000 previously unauthorized migrants from Haiti received temporary protected status in June<\/a>, which means these Haitian immigrants are now \u2014 despite Vance\u2019s Monday suggestion otherwise \u2014 legally present in the United States. Still, Trump and other Republicans\u2019 attacks on these immigrants come at a moment when more Americans have grown skeptical of immigration<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly after President Joe Biden took office, the United States experienced a surge of migrants at its southern border \u2014 much of it fueled by unrest<\/a> in several Caribbean and Latin American nations following the Covid-19 pandemic. Republicans used this wave of migration to attack Biden\u2019s border policies, and to claim there was a crisis at the border<\/a>. Meanwhile, busing efforts<\/a> by Republican leaders in border states sent large groups of migrants to cities and towns across the country, putting many Americans face to face with migrants for the first time<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of this comes amid a competitive 2024 presidential race, where both candidates have rushed to frame themselves as tough on immigration<\/a>. Trump has long campaigned on restricting immigration<\/a>, while Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has touted a strict border security bill<\/a> that she supports \u2014 and which Trump pushed his fellow Republicans to kill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These factors \u2014 perhaps most of all the rise in anti-immigrant sentiment \u2014 probably explain why a sitting senator felt it was wise to share a meme claiming that if Americans don\u2019t vote for former President Donald Trump, immigrants will eat your cats, and why a former president repeated the vile claim during a national debate.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2024-elections\/370760\/jd-vance-racist-cat-eating-haitian-immigrants<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The claim is false, but that didn\u2019t stop Trump from spreading it during Tuesday evening\u2019s presidential debate, declaring that \u201cthe people that came in\u201d are \u201ceating the pets of the people that live\u201d in Springfield, Ohio.
\nThe strange idea that Ohio is home to pet kidnappers and eaters was popularized in part by that state\u2019s senator, JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee. On Monday morning, Vance posted 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

The claim has caught fire among the GOP and has now made it all the way to the party\u2019s leader.<\/p>\n

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

More than 300,000 previously unauthorized migrants from Haiti received temporary protected status in June, which means these Haitian immigrants are now \u2014 despite Vance\u2019s Monday suggestion otherwise \u2014 legally present in the United States. Still, Trump and other Republicans\u2019 attacks on these immigrants come at a moment when more Americans have grown skeptical of immigration.<\/p>\n

Shortly after President Joe Biden took office, the United States experienced a surge of migrants at its southern border \u2014 much of it fueled by unrest in several Caribbean and Latin American nations following the Covid-19 pandemic. Republicans used this wave of migration to attack Biden\u2019s border policies, and to claim there was a crisis at the border. Meanwhile, busing efforts by Republican leaders in border states sent large groups of migrants to cities and towns across the country, putting many Americans face to face with migrants for the first time.<\/p>\n

All of this comes amid a competitive 2024 presidential race, where both candidates have rushed to frame themselves as tough on immigration. Trump has long campaigned on restricting immigration, while Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has touted a strict border security bill that she supports \u2014 and which Trump pushed his fellow Republicans to kill.<\/p>\n

These factors \u2014 perhaps most of all the rise in anti-immigrant sentiment \u2014 probably explain why a sitting senator felt it was wise to share a meme claiming that if Americans don\u2019t vote for former President Donald Trump, immigrants will eat your cats, and why a former president repeated the vile claim during a national debate.”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2024-elections\/370760\/jd-vance-racist-cat-eating-haitian-immigrants<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1020,221,1327,493,25,1029,170],"class_list":["post-14690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-debate","tag-donald-trump","tag-haiti","tag-immigrants","tag-immigration","tag-misinformation","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14690"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14691,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14690\/revisions\/14691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}