Panic World - The right-wing meltdown over Haitian immigrants (with Kat Abughazaleh)

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

With the second and maybe probably last 2024 presidential debate now in our rearview, we’re taking a look back at Americans’ relationship with misinformation. Ryan is joined by reporter Kat Abughazaleh to talk about the surprising origin of “fake news” and how it has only gotten more deranged since 2016. All of that brings us to where we are now, where a presidential candidate claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio are stealing and then eating cats, dogs, geese, and ducks. How did we get here? How did Trump get there? And are conservatives or liberals doing “better” at being online in this election cycle? Our guest Kat Abughazaleh is a contributor for Zateo News. You can follow her everywhere at https://linktr.ee/katmabu, and her cat’s Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/katmabu.  Want even more Panic World content? Like ad-free episodes, bonus episodes, and access to the Garbage Day Discord? Sign up for a membership at https://www.patreon.com/PanicWorld. Want to sponsor Panic World? Ad sales & marketing support by Multitude ⁠http://multitude.productions⁠. Credits - Host: Ryan Broderick - Producer: Grant Irving - Researcher: Adam Bumas - Business Manager: Josh Fjelstad Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The quote that I think, sorry, I was trying to get through a really serious thing and you just sent me a photo of Charlie Kirk smiling and the amount of gum and the gumed tooth ratio in this photo of Charlie Kirk that I'm looking at is the most horrific thing I've ever seen in my life. I know this is a really inappropriate time to send that. I didn't know this is where we were going. Please continue. This is a 2017 photo of Charlie Kirk and it looks like he's with Kelly Ann Conway who does look like a witch by the way. It looks like his teeth are too small, but also too low. All of the proportions are wrong. It looks like he's wearing a mask of his own face. That's what it looks like. It looks like he's wearing a mask of his own face.

And our producer, Grant, has chimed me in to say, it looks like an ad for smile too. Yes, this is awful. Let me read. We're going to figure out a way to use that, but let me read do this a lot. I'm Ryan Broderick. Welcome to Panic World,

a show about the various witch hunts, moral panics, and viral freakouts bubbling up out of the weirdest, most confusing corners of the internet. And today, we're talking about a little conspiracy theory about people eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, the people freaking out about it and the other people who are laughing at their freak out. But this is just the latest freak out since disinformation has dominated all of our lives. We're going to explain the whole pet thing.

But we also wanted to take a moment to talk about disinfo on a general level, you know, the chaos that's running rampant and taking over our politics for the last decade at least. And now it feels like we're in a totally new era where nothing is totally real, nothing is totally deadly, nothing is totally funny, but it's all sort of happening at the same time. It's complicated. Joining me today is Kat Abu Ghazale, former researcher for Media Matters for America and current contributor for Zateo News.

And we brought Kat on today to help us dig into this conspiracy theory. To start, how is your physical, mental, spiritual health after covering the election for the last few weeks? How are you feeling? Look, it's been a crazy, like two months. I remember the last debate, I was literally looking up, like, visas that I could get in other countries. Anything good? I mean, yeah, there are plenty of, like, great digital nomad visas you can do.

We're going to grad school abroad. That's another option. But when you have, like, multiple people that are close to Trump that, like, his son has said will be, you know, the AG that personally hate you. It's like, hmm, maybe I shouldn't live here. But then, you know, I got a bunch of Democrats mad at me. saying Joe Biden should step down. And then he did. And now everyone's super psyched up.

And then we had a very funny Tuesday. So I'm honestly thriving. It's, you know, it's been so over. We've been so back. It's been so over. We've been so back. How are you? I'm fine.

I'm used to like Republicans being insane people, but I am not used to Democrats being this schizophrenic. Blue a non. Blue a nun. And we'll be getting to Blue and on later in today's episode. But yeah, I'm not used to this idea of like, you know, I was also one of the people being like, I think Joe Biden has soup for brains. I don't think he should be president.

And people got mad at that. And then they switched in Kamala, which is fine. And then I was like, I don't like how she's talking about how our military is very powerful. And she's ignoring Palestinian activists. And I feel that's kind of strange. And then everyone got really mad at me about that. So I don't know. It's kind of a strange place to be.

It's so wild being like a Palestinian disinformation reporter and just being pointing out, like, very big. I'm personally of the belief that if you just guarantee your vote to a party and guarantee allegiance to a party rather than keeping leaders accountable, even the ones you like, I think that's dangerous. So it's been very interesting as a Palestinian woman disinformation reporter being like, hey, these are things we should pay attention to. So we don't fall into a fascist downslide on both sides. And then having people be like, you want Trump to win. You fucking want Trump to win. You love him. You think he's sexy.

You want this. There's nothing weird about a Democratic candidate being like, I own guns and I love fracking. I think that's what leftism is all about. Okay. I got to say like gunwise, if you are a license and you know how to you. I'm from Texas. That's fine. That's fine.

But to be like, I love fracking. And although if Trump was president right now, I would say like half of Congress would be in a kaffia. Yes, that is true. That is very true. We wanted to bring you on this week's show to talk about the role of misinformation in the election currently because it is sort of different than it used to be. And so before we're going to go down this road, I wanted to kind of get from you how you see the broad strokes of how misinformation and disinformation is impacting the election. Like are we in a 2016 electric boogaloo situation or is it truly different? That's a really interesting question because I think the role of misinformation has and disinformation has been different each election.

So for the Hillary Clinton Donald Trump showdown, you had, you know, 20, almost 30 years of villainizing this one candidate. So you already went in with a shit ton of misinformation. Hillary Clinton eats babies. You know, she wants to kick you in the balls, whatever. In addition to Donald Trump doing this fake news crusade. So it was like the burgeoning of misinformation as an industry plus like a generational misinformation narrative. And then 2020, there was. so much misinformation because it was COVID and all of us were losing our goddamn minds.

On top of that, you had the George Floyd protests. There was this moment where we all almost reached class consciousness, but then they opened the bars again and that stopped. Yeah, we almost got there. Yeah. So it felt more like a in addition to the presidential election rather than like a specific part of it, to me at least. Like the conditions that we were in had the misinformation.

not the people. And 2016 was about the people. And now it's like this weird alternate reality thing, which was also a part of 2020 and a part of 2016. But it's like memeified. People are kind of onto the game, especially with Project 2025. Right.

And Project 2025 is sort of like the culmination of all of this. You know, they've been writing all the crazy stuff they've been seeing online down into a big, boring policy paper, and now it looks legitimate. And that's a problem. You have stories like people eating pets.

And a lot of people are like, What the fuck are you talking about? Like that's very obviously not true. And then you have some people that are making Photoshop's of it and saying or like AI generated images and being like, it's true. See, I have a picture of a black man holding a chihuahua on a platter. So how could that not be true? With older generations, I feel like it's more, it's easier than ever, especially with

AI generated images. But at the same time, things are so unhinged from reality and off the wall that it's, we're in new territory. And in some ways that I wish. didn't exist, but since they're here, it's kind of thought. See, this is, this is the thing that, like, this is the difference that I've noticed as well, which is that I think we have, maybe it's because it's like a new generation is coming online as young adults right now. Maybe it's just sort of the, the platforms have degraded to the point

where we don't take them seriously. Yeah. But I think a lot of people think misinformation is fun. I mean, literally an hour before we started recording this, a 16 year old on Instagram was pretending to be the woman that Dave Grohl knocked up. And then TMZ reached out to her and she's Like, I was just kidding. I just wanted followers. And she, like, made up a whole rumor that Dave Grohl had impregnated a teenager. I mean, he didn't impregnate somebody. We just don't know who it is yet.

I mean, or Sabrina Carpenter last night making out with a transgender alien. Like, it's very, it's entertainment in a way. And that's so insidious and, like, so gross. But as something that monitors misinformation, you've got to, you got to find something. Otherwise, you'll go insane. Sometimes it's fun to just go online and say things that aren't true, you know. But so I was kind of curious, though, about like how our ideas of like misinformation as we currently think about it began. And so for like a recent GQ piece, I was doing this research where I sort of, I guess I hadn't really internalized the idea that like our modern idea of it, like the misinformation fact check or researcher role really didn't come around until 2014 with the first invasion of Ukraine and that it was Hillary Clinton that coined the term fake news.

I had totally missed that idea. That's so that's what the BBC credits for it. And then hilariously, this I also didn't know. She says in a speech in 2016, the epidemic of malicious fake news and false propaganda that flooded social media over the past year. But then two days later, Trump uses the term fake news to describe CNN. And that's sort of like- Give women credit. I know.

He totally stole it from her. And like that's his whole deal, which like I guess I just sort of, it had been lost a time for me. This is fascinating. So for people who don't remember this time or don't want to remember this time, I do think it's important to go back right now just so we get a sense of how different this stuff has become, how different disinformation online has become. You know, you're out of college as 2020. We're at the height of COVID fever dream nonsense. What was it like working in the content minds there? What were the bad actors doing? What were the vectors? What were they spreading online? It was so interesting, especially someone that grew up like on conservative media. I'm from Texas.

So I knew a lot of these characters, but you don't know it. I mean, I'm sure you get this, Ryan. You don't know it until you're like in it. Unless you're a diehard Fox News fan where like you are sitting in your easy boy or lazy boy all day watching it. Or you're someone that's monitoring misinformation. You'll just miss out on all this lore. So the big bad actors were, you know, Tucker Carlson, who doesn't have a show anymore. Can't remember him?

Yeah. I love forgetting about him. My favorite YouTuber. Tucker Carlson. They used to have in the 7 p.m. hour, it was Martha McCallum, who was like a straight news anchor, but she spread a lot of misinformation that way and then passed it off as straight news. And then she was demoted after that to the 3 p.m. slot, I believe. Sean Hannity, of course, saying his normal stuff.

A lot of it was just having, like, Trump spokespeople come on almost every night, especially immediately after the election. Kaley McInney would come on with a big pile of paper. It would be like we have all of these papers that show that the election was rigged. They had so many props. It was astounding. Concernives love props. They love tele-eating and they love props.

They love props. You know, they're campy. Don't forget about Hunter Biden, October's surprise. That was a whole thing. I saw his penis so many times. Yeah, he's the coolest. Sorry, I mean to interrupt you. I just, we need to talk about Hunter Biden's penis.

I'm happy to talk about Hunter Biden's penis as much as you want. That can be clipped out of context, listeners. You can go for it. Um, would you say that the like Fox News is still playing a role in in this election? Like do you feel like can you feel them as strongly as you used to? Okay. So that's a really interesting question because once Tucker left, he was kind of the ringleader. He would, you know, have these narratives that trickled from 4chan and like weird spots on the

internet and then he would amplify them. Um, even if they had been on some far right streams, they weren't in the mainstream. And so I think Fox News, it's. It is the most watch cable news channel of the country, but I think what's significant about it is that it shows what insane shit is now mainstream, is now acceptable

to talk about as a GOP congressman. And so when Fox was created, it was supposed to help the GOP, like it was there to help the Republican Party serve as an assist. And since Roger Ales died, since Tucker took the helm,

it became the GOP was fighting for, you know, five minutes on Tucker's show. Since Tucker left, it's been a lot, there's been a lot less direction and focus. Jesse Waters just doesn't have the juice, baby. He just doesn't have the juice. And he will say the most insane conspiracy theories you've ever heard. He will mention them once and then never again. And it's like things that should be the biggest story of the century and then never mention it. Tucker, he would lay groundwork like that, you know, 80,000 IRS agents are going to audit you gunpoint. He said that on a Thursday with an interview with Matt Gates, then he briefly

mentioned it that Friday. And then on Monday, he brought it back as like a shorter segment. And then by Wednesday, he had a really long, like that was his whole monologue. So Jesse just, he can't bullshit as well or he doesn't stick with it. He doesn't have the stick to it in this. That makes it work. Tucker was also good at villains. Like he was very good at, I mean, it's what lives of TikTok does now. It's the same idea. Like, but he was very good at sort of picking this like liberal that everyone had to like threaten to like blow up with bombs many of which were disinformation reporters lots of whom got you know you know so nothing ever happened to to you and your colleagues no of course not um so i have a question i've seen you uh reference the idea that perhaps

your tweets have been nerfed by elan musk talk us through that how do you know i'm curious i'm i'm also wondering if i've been nerfed so i'm curious so i used to have like exponential growth when I started doing TikToks like 20, 30. And one month I got like 50K followers in a single month. For the last year, I have been stuck between 211,000 and 217,000 after the debate. I got an extra thousand. I get about 10, five to 10 messages every single day from people being like, I don't know why I unfollowed you.

Like, I was following you and now I'm not. This is a regular occurrence. And so when you're on Twitter, especially when you're posting like live news stuff, I could see exactly a point where it just like slowed down on a tweet that should have done better. And I'm not here to bitch like, you know, conservatives where they're like, they're, you know, silencing us. They're shadow banning us. It's internet points, whatever. But I do think it's very funny. A similar thing happened to me.

I went extremely viral, like perhaps too viral with a post basically calling Elon Musk a colonizer. And that he was a colonizing Twitter. he would an apartheid state. And then all of a sudden, all my engagement disappeared. And I thought that was an interesting, uh, interesting lineup of events. Yeah. It's, um, it's interesting having the world's richest man target you personally. I mean, getting laid off and having him tweet about it is surreal, a surreal thing. Yeah, I've never had a billionaire weigh in on me being fired before, but I don't think I would like it. Uh, I don't think I would enjoy that. It'd be fine if they didn't just have like rabid fans.

But I think that makes it more fun, you know, because who doesn't love to have dick picks in their DMs? I once had a guy print out a photo of my face. He then jizzed on it and then took a photo of that and then sent it to me as a DM. That was a lot of work and I appreciate the effort. You know, I was like, you have a printer. Like that's actually kind of a novel thing there. Retro. Yeah.

Speaking of Rabbit Online fans, I wanted to circle back to this point about Project 2025, which for listeners who are not familiar, It's this big insane conservative manifesto that has Trump fingerprints all over it. And he's sort of like freaking out and sort of denying that he's ever heard of it because it accidentally says a lot of the quiet part. He doesn't even want to read it. He doesn't. He's never seen it. He doesn't want to read it. He doesn't even thought of it.

He doesn't know what the word project means. He just said the concept of the idea. If you told me, like I know he tweets. So he must be able to write. But if you told me that Trump actually can't read, I would believe you. Like, I would 100% believe. I would totally believe you. Do you feel like, like, is Project 2025, like a realistic evolution of this idea,

sort of like governing by internet brain poisoning? Or is it like a step, like an Icarus sun moment, like a step too far? Like, they sort of oversold it. Like, how do you read its importance in this election? If Trump wins, it will happen, plain and simple. It's the Icarus moment is the fact that they debuted it so early. They thought it'd be more popular. and they thought people wouldn't pay attention to it

except the people they wanted to pay attention to it or maybe even like some conservative groups would be like, oh, yes, we love this. But there's so much insane shit in there. Removing the term reproductive health from sexual education at all, like not even saying the word, making sure doctors can't learn like anything relating to abortion.

Getting rid of free weather reports. Like shit, no one. That one's my favorite. That one's like the real crazy bullshit. That one's insane. I wrote a project 2025 sleeper hits. I read through like 90% of the document and wrote this in here. Oh, Sabbath rests, like the federal government making sure that we have the Sabbath off,

which like I'm all down for an extra day off. Sounds fine. Yeah. But saying it's because God ordained it. Yeah. That's a bit much. Trying to sabotage unions. Getting rid of all sex discrimination protection.

So not just like for trans people. Right. But for anyone, for everyone. It's insane shit. And Trump is surrounded like over. 100 of his advisors and aides are in this. He has pictures with so many of them. This is a very active thing.

I honestly don't think that like Trump ordered this. But I think he's down with it if it'll get him into power. And I think he's down with it if it will get rid of, you know, the woke enemies that the thing about Trump is he doesn't really care about the culture war stuff. He cares about his own personal power. And he sees this as a vehicle. I think that's exactly right. And I think that's how he ended up in the debate with Kamala. basically sort of just like half summarizing a conspiracy theory he like sort of saw on Fox where he's you know he can't like

answer the questions he doesn't really know the details but he's like screaming the buzzwords because I think 10 years ago you know that would have worked to a degree because the mainstream media would have filled it in for him I think a lot of that and also I think a lot of the idea of like misinformation maybe not being as potent is because for a 12 years ago, people saw people running for office, like citizens saw people running for office as like having some type of authority to speak on these things. And at this point, we're like, oh, you can just say bullshit. No one will check you. So we don't necessarily inherently believe everything they say. That's interesting. Yeah. I think that's right. Like the institutional

damage is sort of spread to the point where like we don't trust anything to a degree. Exactly. So this is, this is a perfect segue into what we're going to be talking about in the next section. which is breaking down the exact sort of start and spread and hopefully some sort of like takeaway about what this conspiracy theory about people eating pets actually means because I have struggled, like in the making of this episode, we struggled with trying to figure out like will this matter? Will there be a social component to this that actually means anything? And that's the question I find myself asking about almost everything on the internet these days, which I was not asking 10 years ago.

Very good question to ask. I'd also like to say before we get into this, earlier this week, it'll come out on Saturday. I was on Crooked Media's subscriber-only podcast terminally online, and it's really a fun thing where you like bring a story or a video, whatever that made you feel too online that week. And, you know, if you get a zero from the other people there, you're totally fine, you're not too online.

If you get a five, you're terminal. I usually get a five, and I did get one this week. And so we did that, we recorded that Tuesday afternoon. And then that night, I heard Donald Trump spread this, the same conspiracy theory that got me a five terminal illness of being too online. And I was like, oh, fuck. It's just, it's so over. See, that's so funny. I went into the debate being like, he's probably going to bring it up. But like, I wonder how long it will take. Yes.

Yes. I didn't think he would say it like that rushed. He was so. I counted seven minutes. It took him seven minutes to bring this up. Like, that's genuinely crazy. That's nuts. That is nuts.

And it was just, it's so funny. We're going to get into it. And we're going to reveal that, shockingly enough, this can blow your mind, the whole thing started with a neo-Nazi. I know, surprising, right? And we're going to try to figure out if this actually matters in a bigger sense. And we're going to do all of that after the break. Ryan, all of your Patreon ideas are how... I'm going to stop you right there.

I got a good one. I got a good new one. It's not crazy this time. Not like the other ones. This is a good one. What? I'm going to make the chicken. I'm going to make NyQuil chicken.

I'm going to put it on our Patreon. No, no. We. People want to see it. People want to see it. The official position of the podcast is no one should make NyQuil chicken. All the teenagers on TikTok all, all week, they've been saying, I want to see this guy make the chicken. So I'm going to make the chicken.

At least tell me we're going to make $5 off of this. I hope so. I hope people pay to watch because if they don't, then why am I even doing this? But in theory, I think this is going to work. I think it's going to go mega viral. It's going to be big. We're going to win a Webby award. We're going to win a Webby Award for things on Patreon behind the paywall, right?

Because that's the only way they're going to see this. That's right. Patreon.com slash Panic World. If you want to see me make and possibly eat the chicken, the NyQuil Chicken. No one else should do this. No one should do this. Ryan can do this. Ryan won't sue us.

Patreon.com slash panic world. That's correct. Patreon.com slash panic world. Yeah. By oval team. Okay. Okay, so for people who may have not seen the debate, do you remember, like, how he ended up talking about people eating cats and dogs? Can you walk us through the steps there?

So I was just like a very brief explainer of what this conspiracy theory is the first place. There is. Oh, no, no, we'll get there. Don't. Oh, we'll get there. Okay. So, like, walk us through, like, how did he end up saying it? Kamala Harris did she, her, during the whole debate, she left a debate out.

there for him, but she also gave him out. Like he didn't have to take it. I think she did a really good job of like not goading him in like a arrogant way. And so what she said was she said I encourage anyone, this is unorthodox, but I encourage anyone listening to this

to go to one of Donald Trump's rallies. You'll hear him talk about a lot of fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. You'll hear him rant about his enemies. And then you'll also see about halfway through people start leaving. Because they're bored and they're tired. They're exhausted of him.

And his face while she was saying that, you could just see like the twitch in his jaw. His eyes got bigger than I've ever seen them. He was so mad at the idea that his rallies are not universally beloved. And so it just, he had done a good job of like not going too hard on anything yet in seven minutes. But after that, it was so over. So he just started ranting.

He was like, they eat the pets. They eat the cats. They're eating the dogs. They eat the pets. And Kamala Harris' face. Like I just, I can't thank ABC enough for having a split screen. Her face was incredible.

He kept ranting about it. And then I think it was David Muir who interrupted and said, there's no proof of this. We talked to the city council member or the city planner of what you're talking about. They said there's no evidence of this. And he's like, well, I saw it on TV. I saw it on TV. So it must be true. The person on TV said it.

Exactly. The person on TV said it. And then after that, once you saw it. Kamala Harris finally got to say something. She just laughed and said, wow, talk about extreme. And then went on her own talking points, which was a really great way to punctuate that. I think Democrats are usually really bad debates of like striking that balance,

but she did it. No, she was not as smart as me as I thought she was going to be. I see why she was locked up for six days. So our collective response to all of this, I think is the most interesting thing here because it's really different than it would have been. in say 2016 or even 2020. Here, let's go through the beats, right? The broad strokes of this conspiracy theory are that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio,

are cannibals, are running amok and terrorizing the city and are eating people's cats and dogs. Kidnapping them and then eating them. And also pulling ducks and geese out of like local parks and eating them. Which is offensive because I do that. And I'm not a Haitian immigrant. Well, look, I don't like geese. So, like, if I could fight a goose in a park, I would.

But like that's... They're toothy tongues, like, delicious. They're huge. Actually, I would, I mean, I would eat a duck. Yeah, I love duck. Okay. So hold on. So our fabulous researcher, Adam, put together sort of a ticking clock of where this comes from.

Thank you, Adam. And the origins, our spoiler alert, involved neo-Nazis. That's how this thing started. You never believe that Donald Trump would be accidentally saying on national TV, a thing that was dreamed up by a neo-Nazi, but here we are. And they're attacking Haitian immigrants. They've never done that before. Yeah, it's crazy.

So in the early 2020s, the town of Springfield had this boom in manufacturing jobs, and it did attract a large amount of Haitian immigrants that came to the town. In the 2020 census, the town's population was 58,000. Now there's around 12,000 to 15,000 Haitian immigrants in Springfield. Okay. in 2023 last August, so a year ago, a man drove into the path of a school bus, he caused a crash, and he killed an 11-year-old student named Aidan Clark. The driver was a Haitian immigrant. That is sort of the basic inciting incident of this anti-Hasian immigrant rhetoric based around Springfield.

And that changes. It sort of mutates online. And in July of this year, I read it user. in Columbus, Ohio posted a completely unrelated photo that you've probably seen of a, it's a black guy walking around holding a goose. That's where the goose thing comes from. And that photo was taken in Columbus, Ohio. So once again, people have never eaten geese before.

That's not something. No one eats their livers. This doesn't happen. Just by the way. Like, geese are vicious, man. Like, if a goose ran up to me, like, I would also grab it by the throat. Like, I'm just saying, I would ice a goose without being paid for it. Like, no one has to ask me.

I had a sixth grade teacher that got in a fight with a goose once. Hell yeah. In front of the whole class. Yeah, she won. She was like this little old lady and she fought this goose in front of all of us. It was sick. Did it die? If it did, I blocked that out.

But it's possible it did. Also, just to be totally clear before we move on here, this photo was taken 45 miles away from Springfield in Columbus, Ohio. And this guy was removing roadkill. The other sort of piece of media involved in this conspiracy theory that keeps getting circulated as being part of this is a police call in Canton, Ohio, which is 100 miles from Springfield. And it's a black woman, not Haitian, just another random video, another random piece of media about a black person.

And that woman was arrested for stomping on a cat and eating it. That's where the eating the pets thing starts to come from. So once again, these are just like random pieces of media that exist online of completely unrelated incidents in completely unrelated places that are slowly. sort of being pulled together over the last few weeks. Well, we only know black people eat pets. It's definitely not something that a presidential candidate has done. That's true.

We definitely haven't had a man run for president in America with worms in his brain that he got from eating like a dead dog, I think. Yes, and then also tried to eat a bear. Yes, that's right. That is totally right. So all of this starts to come together on August 27th at a Springfield City Commission meeting a self-identified influencer and mayoral candidate i love when influencers rougher office by the way that's the best i love that shit that's so good those people

anytime someone calls me an influencer i want to slap them i there's no better name but i would like i say creator which is not good but it makes you sound like it makes me sound like someone in the matrix you know like i'm a creator i'm basically god i'm basically god of my content i agree So this guy, Anthony Harris, he goes to a city commission meeting and he says, immigrants are taking ducks from parks to eat them. And at the same meeting, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, a white supremacist named Drake Berence gets up and says a bunch of racist shit. And that gets videotaped.

And that's sort of how this all gets pulled together. Is the white supremacist goes to the commission meeting and gets filmed saying stuff. and it's circulated like it's real. That's sort of the, and then by September 1st, Patriot Front is in Springfield, making like anti-immigrant speeches and marching around. Yeah, they're the best.

They're definitely the, are they the ones that wear khaki pants? Are they the ones in chinos? Yeah, they're the ones in chinos, right? If it's not by uniform, it's just by divine. Yeah, I mean, they're definitely not like off-duty police officers. They're definitely not dressed exactly like off-duty police officers. Anyways, early September, we start to see this spread online.

Here's a little, play a little game. What platform do you think that this spread on first? What huge unmoderated platform? It would be one with a lot of advertisers. Is that right? It's Facebook. That's correct. It's the, it's the same.

Oh, I thought it was Twitter. Oh, no, no, no. No, no. This is the normal one. They still have advertisers. Advertise on Facebook, guys. It won't go wrong. That's right.

If you advertise on Facebook, your content will be put next to posts from private Facebook groups like this one titled Springfield Ohio crime and information. And it reads, Warning to all our beloved pets and those around us. My neighbor informed me that her daughter's friend had lost her cat. One day she came home from work as soon as she stepped out of her car, looked towards a neighbor's house where Haitians live, and saw her cat hanging from a branch like you do for a deer for butchering.

And they were carving it up to eat. And I've been told they were doing this to dogs. They've been doing it at Snyder Park with ducks and geese. as I was told that last bit by Rangers and Police, please keep a close eye on these animals. And then from there, it was screenshot to X. So that's how it gets to Twitter. Gotcha. Well, that sounds really legitimate.

And yeah, I think listening to a child that definitely exists is the way that I get all of my crime information. I don't know, like, where you're from originally, like you said Texas. But like, so I'm from Massachusetts where we have like a public Facebook group for our small town. and also the private like off the walls one and like everyone follows both and I think that that's just like how people get information now which is really terrifying so when did you sort of start following this like how did you how did you notice it um jd vance's tweet okay so yeah so i heard like vague things but i didn't really think it i thought it was just like a like weird i mean it was a weird conspiracy theory but when i first was like oh this is something people believe jd vans tweet

Okay, so interesting. So our, once again, our researcher Adam, he figured out, so it goes on X on September 5th, gets to end wokeness on September 6th. J.D. Vance picks it up September 9th. So he's a little slow. He's a little, he's not the best content creator, JD Vance. He's too busy Oglin couches, you know. He's too busy killing cats, which is a thing that he did. Look up J.D. Vance cat. I dare you. Do you believe that conspiracy theory that he's trying to bury the Google search results for? like the fact that no but i think that would be so funny yeah he's not that smart just just so listeners are up to date on my own personal blue and non-conspiracy theories the reason jd vans keeps saying crazy cat ladies uh a rumor is that he's trying to bury some google search results but i agree he's not that bright i don't think google jd vans cat anyways yeah google jd vans cat um so in between it hitting x on uh september 5th jad vans picking it up on the ninth it makes the rounds with all the greats. You know, you got Ian Miles Chong, you got Charlie Kirk in his gigantic forehead,

you got Don Jr. You got Elon Musk. Everyone's going, everyone's going wild. And this is also that weekend is when all of those pieces of media we were talking about that were unrelated, start to get aggregated together. You have accounts like 1776 general underscore pulling in the random arresting. That's my husband. Okay, cool. Yeah, me too. We're both dating the same guy. And this is when you get like the account and wokeness. And then from J.D. Vance, that's where it makes its way up into the upper echelons of the Republican Party. So you get like Jim Jordan, Ted Cruz, the House Judiciary Committee, apparently. And I'm going to send you an image that was shared by the House Judiciary Committee for the GOP.

And it's an in line. I know what you're talking about. And I can't make to describe this. Paint a picture for people's earholes listening here. All right. So picture a pond. You know what those are. It's a It's a body of water. And in that pond is Donald Trump, our big, beautiful, perfect president. He is in the pond up to about his mid-chest. So since he's six, three, that's probably like five feet of water.

And he, in his hands, they're like in a circle, is a white duck. And then on his left arm is a little kitten. Hold on a duck-sized kitten. The duck and the kitten are the same size. The duck and the kitten are the same size. The kitten's head is almost, and it's clearly a kitten, is almost the size of Donald Trump's head. And it has that really uncanny, like, coloring to it that's almost Kincaid-esque of Donald Trump's face. It looks like a very poorly made wax figure.

And it says, protect our ducks and kittens in Ohio. Why this kitten is in the pond, I don't know. I wish the very best for it. That's all. I do love that, like, there's no attempt to explain what this is referencing. Like, it's just, it's just like, just absolute slop. And also, I enjoy the top response from a username Chuck Colestro, who wrote, this post is a total home run, ultra-based. Are we going to talk about Charlie Kirk anymore because I do have something very important to mention about him?

We can absolutely say more about Charlie Kirk. Let's go for it. Yeah. What do you got? So Charlie Kirk thinks witchcraft is real. Sure. He talked about the four woman in the Georgia case. He was like, she's literally a witch.

He has, like, expressed fear of witches before. And he specifically hates Haiti because it is a, quote, voodoo infested country where, and I'm not kidding, people do, and this is a direct quote, quasi-levitation stuff. That is a thing Charlie Kirk has said about Haiti. It's voodoo-infested where people do quasi-levitation. I don't know what that means, but I think it's important. and everyone knows that. I mean, look, I'm not a voodoo expert either, but I'd have to imagine he's thinking about that scene from the craft

where they make the girl levitate on the floor. Maybe. You know what I'm talking about? I do. I do. Really good. Okay. Well, that's great for Charlie Kirk in his gigantic forehead.

He is a clown. His hairline, by the way, is now like, what's the opposite of receiving? Like, it's wild. Every single time I see his head, it's different. It's just so discomable. inserting. I know I can all agree that the people sharing this stuff do not have normally shaped skulls. For people who are so interested in phrenology, none of their skulls are normal. And you can tell by what they're putting on X, the Everything app.

To sort of finish out our timeline here, because I think this is important. So the Springfield News Sun, shout out local news. They talk to the police. There's nothing going on. The city's manager releases statement. They're saying there's nothing going on. The mayor says the same thing. And this brings us back to the very beginning. So the little boy who had been killed in the accident, the year before, his father gets up at a city commission meeting and basically starts railing against everyone who's been using this. Let's take a listen to Aiden Clark's father. So this was recorded on September 10th, hours before Donald Trump amplified this thing in front

of the whole country. I wish that my son Aidan Clark was killed by a 60-year-old white man. I bet you never thought anyone would ever say something so blunt. but if that guy killed my 11-year-old son, the incessant group of hate spewing people would leave us alone. And speaking of morally bankrupt, politicians, Bernie Moreno, Chip Roy, J.D. Vance and Donald Trump, they have spoken my son's name and used his death for political gain.

This needs to stop now. To clear the air, my son, Aidan Clark, was not murdered. he was accidentally killed by an immigrant from Haiti, but don't spin this towards hate. So sad. And then that brings us to Trump on stage. David Muir chimes in. He says, you know, they even looked into it.

There's nothing going on. By the way, the person J.D. Vance quotes in the video that he attached saying their, like, reports say that they're eating cats and dogs. That person is a city planner. The thing that J.D. Vance was reading was at a HUD committee. And he was reading a letter from Springfield. field city planner who said, or city manager, who was talking about resources that are being stretched thin and housing, schooling, and health care. And then that city planner said, or city manager said that this

is not true, that the cats and dogs thing is not true. Here's the thing. Here's the thing that sort of has been tripping me up since we decided to sort of put this episode together. When Trump says they're eating cats and dogs, you know, like it's trending. Like people are eating cats and dogs. I was like ready to laugh this off. I was ready to be like, oh, wow, like cool. Like, Maybe misinformation is over. Like, maybe we've all just decided this doesn't matter anymore. I mean, in previous election cycles, we wouldn't, I mean, some of us would be laughing at the weird old man saying crazy stuff on TV. But there would be so much hand-wringing the next day between like, you know, important Democrats being like, we must take this seriously.

And important Republicans being like, you must take us seriously. But I do think it's fair to say that this stuff matters a lot less broadly than it used to. These lines don't really have the same power, but it does add up over time. And those crazy uncles are out there. and they've got some really dangerous ideas. And this is where I get stuck every time when I talk about this stuff. Because on Thursday, September 12th, Springfield City Hall is evacuated because of a bomb threat. On Monday of this week, two colleges were doing classes virtually because of threats.

By all accounts, the tensions in the town are getting to a dangerous level. And worst of all, Jady fucking Vance is now on cable news admitting he made the whole thing up. The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I start talking about cat memes. 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. You just said that you're creating the story. What's that, Dana? You just said that this is a story that you created. So the eating dogs for the past thing is not actually.

We are creating. We are, Dana. It comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents. And here's the most annoying thing. once the viral circus is over, the town is not going to just immediately bounce back to normal. The governor of Ohio earmarked $2.5 million over two years to basically shore up the city's health department and is sending state troopers in to deal with the situation, which is once again, not happening.

Wait, not to protectation immigrants, but to... So according to the AP, Governor Mike DeWine said that he doesn't oppose the temporary protected status program that allowed the Haitian immigrants to arrive in the city, but said that the federal government must do more to help. I do get resources being stretched thin, but if you're sending in troopers to, like, investigate or whatever, cats and dogs. They're saying that they're sending in the Ohio State Highway Patrol to deal with traffic issues that have cropped up due to the Haitian immigrants that are unfamiliar with traffic laws on the road. Now, that sounds very anodyne, but also the timing of that is fascinating. But that also sounds like you're pulling over black people based on their ratings. The whole thing just feels like it's stuck in this bizarre, uncanny valley of like this, everyone knows this is dumb and doesn't matter.

But also like these things do have real work consequences because like some weird person is going to call on a bomb threat, right? Or like, like, you know, conservative influences are going to show up and start like shoving a camera in people's faces or Patriot front is. marching through your park. Like these things do become real even if we all know they aren't real. And like it's not the way it used to be. It's not like this isn't Charlottesville. This isn't like Q and on, but it's not not that either. You know what I mean?

Yeah. And I guess like how do you, how do you as someone who has to judge the importance of these things navigate that kind of question? Like did you think this was worth debunking on Monday versus now? I mean, I would have just for the entertainment value. But like J.D. Vance amplifying it. because that's a vice presidential.

Yeah, I get it. It's being like they're believing this. But I, you know, as someone who grew up conservative, there was like this picture of me when I was 16. I had all these GOP stickers on my laptop and like blew in on people love to say, you know, oh, she's a Trump supporter because this picture of me that I'm 16. So like as someone who grew up conservative, I do, I think that people on the left or just like, you know, liberals or even centrist underestimate how. how much conditioning goes into keeping a conservative population. And so some people fall for things just because they don't know better. And you can't be ignorance if you are not given a chance to even expose yourself to things that would show you differently.

Like whether that's news stories, whether that's someone you make in real life, whether that's fiction. So like there are some things that are worth debunking because they're having such an impact. but there are also some things that are worth debunking even if you think that they're insane like no one would believe that it's really easy to underestimate how much effort goes into keeping people clueless and so i think it still has value even if it was just showing up like a one liner on fox if i were still at media matters i'd probably like want to you know write some content about that or something there's a line there you know it's hard to figure out what it is and where your priorities lie. But that one's really egregious and really weird. So it's entertaining for people that don't believe it. And also it could be enlightening for people who do. I think that's right.

I've been open about this for years. But my dad is a Trump supporter. He's not like out of control. But he did around like 2016 start saying weird stuff that didn't make any sense. And I like as a journalist was just like where are you seeing like where is this coming from? And like slowly like none of us could really understand what he was talking about. And it's gotten better as I think he.

His interest in cable news has sort of decreased, but his use of Facebook has increased. So I suspect he's just not telling me the weird stuff that he's seeing as much. Or it's like changing shape. You know, he's seeing like more anti-VAC stuff rather than whatever. But, you know, talking, I used to be a lot more didactic about it, being like, that's crazy. How could you believe that? And now, like, I don't know if it's because I'm older or if just because like it doesn't feel like there's so much pressure about this stuff. like our conversations are a lot more slow, like a lot more sort of like, okay, like, how did you see this?

Why do you think that? Like, and talking it through. And I do think some of these kinds of stories are helpful for those conversations because like, even if my dad thinks Trump is like a captive-vitting political figure, he probably doesn't believe this. Like this is wackiness, you know? And it's like, it's one of those things where, you know, I think about extremism and there's nothing better than when someone DMs me and they're like, oh, I was about to follow down like this red pill rabbit hole and your content kind of helped me. jerk out of that. But you can only de-radicalize people at a certain level and also at a certain level they need to realize that like they're being insane or they're being hateful. And so there's only so far you can go with debunking. When you have people that are more rational like your dad where you can

have conversations like this, I don't think ridicule helps at all. But if you have someone that's saying, you know, we should execute all Jews or Palestinians, it's like, you know, you got to figure that one out on your own buddy. I'm fascinated to hear more about this. Can you just walk us through like the DMs you're getting from people and like how that process works. How can I use this for my own family? It's, uh, it's really nice. I think having that conservative upbringing helps because I understand why people think the way they do.

I think the most rewarding ones I get are from like younger people, especially like late high school, going into college or late college where it's really easy to fall down these rabbit holes as you're trying to find yourself. And so those DMs, especially from like young men that could easily become insest and just messaging me and saying, hey, your content was fun to watch. And then it also made me realize how ridiculous these people I was listening to were. It's nice that they reached out. At the same time, I have had multiple, like, former Nazis essentially message me that they were masturbating to my videos as like a derogatory thing.

But the information seeped in. So I guess whatever gets you there. But when you have. They like, they de-radicalized while gooning? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just that powerful. But on a much happier note, especially like hearing from younger people before they

fall down this path that they'll probably see as wasted time later, approaching it with empathy and in good faith, there are plenty of people that want to listen. So I can't recommend that enough. I do sort of believe in my heart that we will look back on this period of American politics and sort of maybe not feel ashamed, but like definitely question the assumption I think Trump kind of created that America is inherently a conservative country. We're not. Every power structure is created to keep us conservative.

And people are still waking up despite that. And I also think that people underestimate how hard it is to admit you're wrong. You know, I was like 16, 17 when I finally said, you know, I don't want to be associated with this. anymore. And that was hard for me then being like, oh my God, I believed all of this bullshit. Sure, I was a child. Sure, I'm a teenager. But that was what I thought about certain groups or certain ideas. And so when you have people that are like 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 that are having to admit so much of their life was a lie in their most deeply held beliefs. It's not easy. And I think the amount of people that are waking up to that that had changed positions is really heartening because America isn't

an inherently conservative country it's the power structures that are and i think the people have a lot more room to grow i think that's exactly right um and before we go to our last section before the break i wanted to match your voodoo uh quote with a with a new one that has been recently posted by a little figure named Marianne Williamson. Oh my God. Oh my fucking God. Can you read this out loud for our listeners, please? Yes. This is what Marianne had to say about this entire fiasco in Ohio.

This was, okay, before I even read it, this is so disappointing. I love Marianne Williamson's bird tweets. Like you can send her any, I love bird watching. So you can just tag her in any bird photo and she'll like say nice things about the bird. And this made me never want to see one of those birds again. Continuing to dump on Trump because of the eating, Katz issue will create blowback on November 5th.

Haitian voodoo is in fact real and to dismiss the story out of hand rather than listen to the citizens of Springfield. Ohio confirms in the minds of many voters the stereotype of Democrats as smug elite jerks who think they're too smart to listen to anyone outside their own silo. Ah, yes. Thank you very much, Marianne. Great stuff as always. Totally coherent.

That's fucking insane. Like I just said, there's a certain level where ridicule is, you know, I like to clown on institutional. figures. I have a lot of power. I don't have any interest on dunking on like someone that just read too much Facebook. It's minding their own business. Me neither. No, yeah. But like this is just clearly a not true story. And also you have, you know, people, the police even in Springfield are like this isn't true. And J.D. Vance's response to that was, well, people are calling my campaign and telling me this, which is what you do when there's a crime, obviously, is you call J.D. Vance's campaign.

So this is just like, this is not fucking true. And to say, Boodoo, is real. It's real in the way that it's a cultural practice. It's not real in the way that they're eating cats and dogs to give them some mystical power. It's racist. It's gross. Marian, you're better than this. Or you should be, at least.

What I was reading this to me for the first time, I thought she was going to say, Haitian voodoo is real and like, you shouldn't mess with those people because they'll put a spell on you. Because it's Marianne Williamson. And like, I do believe that she thinks voodoo is real and is like terrified of it. You know, because she

lives in the spirit realm, which like we're not a part. We're not a part of. I am. I don't know about you. I'm not. No, I'm my my I'm not. I wish I was a skill issue. Yeah, it is a skill issue. My chakras are not powerful enough to communicate with Mary Ann Williams in on the astral plane. And we're going to talk about that and much more right after the break. We can all agree. This story isn't real. There may be some more real life ramifications of it, which is unfortunate and like very troubling. But right now we're sort of in this weird spot where Trump is at least as of this morning. saying on true social that he's not going to do another debate. He's having his little tantrum about it as we speak. He did say that like a month ago too. Yeah, he's been he's been going back and forth. It depends on what like what he's loaded on at the moment, I think. But right now it's seeming me like there's possibly not going to be another debate. But I am sort of curious to hear how you're seeing the next few weeks as this in theory gets more intense because it is yes, the right wing is like totally incomprehensible. They're out of their mind. They're sharing all kinds of crazy stuff. But then we also do have this, as we said, the top of the show, like this blue and on

contingent that believes that Trump is about to die. They believe that Biden was set up with like a bad debate performance on purpose that Trump was never shot at. Like it does feel like both I don't want to say both sides. Because that's like annoying. Yeah. No, I get you. There's incomprehensibility on both sides of the aisle that is I think going to have interesting impacts on on the election. I think. What do you? I mean, I don't think it will have the same impact like Republic like I don't think Democrats will blow January. six because they're Biden dead enders. What a curse sentence. But I do

I think... They're going to take over an air won and they're going to burn that thing to their ground because Biden didn't get to run. Let's fucking go. I think going this way of like insane, just being insane

is so American. Specifically American, like at this point, so many Americans want a fascist despite the fact that they say that they're not like they don't it's if you're on the right you want a big strong man to tell you that your enemies are going to take you down and if you're a democrat that's in that contingent that's like blind party loyalty essentially you're electing a despot if you're like this person deserves to run

and it's one of the most common like attacks i get from democrats is when i'll be like hey this person needs to answer for this or they should change their policies, well, you can't attack them because then we won't win. And if that's the case, then you don't deserve to win. If you can't stand up to criticism within your own party, you don't deserve to win. And that's Trump's whole thing is no one can criticize him. So I think that it's really important for Democrats to make sure that there is room for dissent in the party. And to Kamala Harris's credit, despite some concerning hawkish language that, you know, it might be a Jimmy Carter thing of like, let's get some Nikki Haley Republicans on board because they know that we're going to bomb the

world with our lethal military. Or she could just really feel that way. It's America. Who's to say? Yeah. But she has been making an effort to say like there is room in the party to dissent. There is room for conversation rather than like, you know, booing or straight out ignoring protesters for the ceasefire.

She has, you know, paused and said, you know, there's time. to speak and we do want to hear these things. And even if it's just symbolic, I think that is healthy. I think it puts that in the mind of Democrats at the forefront. Focusing on the blind loyalty aspect, I think could get us into a lot of trouble. If you're not questioning candidates, then they have no reason to change their policies to get more voters. I am curious how the sort of like, let's call it like radical, like the sort of like radicalization. It's horsey theory. Yeah. Yeah, but let's say like, both sides are like there are their extremities on both sides that are very strange and like thinking very strange things and are like super horny for fascism but like in their own different sort of shade and shape but I do think it's in it will be interesting to see like how those forces interact going into this election because to me this is the first time we're really voting post the invention of Facebook in a lands in an information landscape that is not centralized like it has been like this is not This is not the, the, the era of everyone is seeing Gangham style simultaneously.

This is the era of everyone is doing their own version of Gangam style simultaneously and we're never going to see them. I think that sort of does explain a bit of the fracturing here, which is that like, we're not all just, we're not looking at the same stuff. Like if you and I compare TikTok feeds right now, they would probably contain maybe. I don't use TikTok. Me neither. So this is a dumb idea anyways.

But if you want to compare whatever feeds of whatever we're using, I guarantee you there would probably be like one to two videos that were. both seeing and 98% of it, neither of us are seeing the other one of, you know? The really confusing part of this is the nut jobs on the right. And I'm just going to say nut jobs, I don't care. Like the nut jobs on the right that are like so unhinged from reality. This is a right wing podcast, though. I should, I should probably made that clear at the top.

Okay. Awesome. So the nut jobs on the right. And like the similar like detached from reality people, the Democratic Party on the right, it's extreme. It's like, let's put people in camps. Let's execute our enemies. Let's create this white Christian nationalist vision of the country. And then the counterparts are like avowed centrist. It's not some revolutionary thing of like far right and far left. It's not people saying, you know, we should do Stalin-esque policies, which, you know, prioritize background over actual qualifications or

saying that we should, you know, execute landowners. It's people that. being like, oh, no, we need to give the 80-year-old man a chance to run because he's been doing such a great job by not codifying abortion. It's like, and then progressives, which are accused of tanking this election, when we're the only reason, or at least one of the big reasons that Kamala Harris is in the position she's in in the first place, are being very pragmatic. And it's so it's these two very unhinged from reality parties. And one is very extreme policy and vision-wise. And the other is just like, let's keep the status quo at all costs. Yes. And it's bizarre. It's the, the Democratic urge to manage. Like, whatever's like,

they just love to manage. Yes. It's a very fascinating. My old boss, Andrew Lawrence, said the Republicans want to take down the country and the Democrats want to manage that take down. Exactly. They want to just make sure it's safe and slow. Very orderly decorum, decorum, decorum. Yeah. So, you know, I think one of the most interesting sort of switches in kind of how internet discourse is impacting American politics is that for a decade, the right had a monopoly on internet dog whistling. They could basically reference this thing they saw on 4chan and then everyone would be like, yeah, I love Pepe the Frog. And if I had to really sort of like put any sort of descriptor on the importance of like Kamala's Brat Summer, it would be that the Democrats kind of figured out how to do that. Do you feel like that's the correct read here that like the Democrats are kind of getting a little better at using the internet like in in like a more mainstream way? I mean, for sure.

Like conservatives are bad at culture. They're bad at enjoying it. They're bad at interpreting it. And so when it comes like you look at right wing memes like the Wojack faces and Pepe the frog, although that wasn't originally like a right wing meme. They're like poorly drawn. They evoke these visceral feelings. And so the pipeline, they have infrastructure on the right to get there because they need it, because they can't interpret culture and they don't have different coalitions except like getting more and more extreme. So you have fortune, you have, you know, streamers like Nick Fuentes and those filter into Fox News and people can wink and not because they know where that infrastructure is.

And then for Democrats, I think also like Biden didn't have as many young people working for him because they didn't want to be associated with his campaign. Kamala Harris definitely has that now. And so because there are so many, like, coalitions and different people of different stripes voting for Democrats, you don't really, you can't really have that infrastructure. You can't have the Fox News. You can't have, like, a 4chan. But I do appreciate that they're using, like, pop culture and doing less of, like, the decorum. When they go low, we go high stuff on the Internet.

I think they're doing a better job of it. Kamala Harris has this quality where she, it's, it's. doesn't seem cringe. Like even when she leans really hard into it, like ironically almost, at that point, she, it goes to camp rather than cringe. So I think that's a real big asset. I also, I, I'll admit, like, I sort of assume they would run all this shit into the ground. And I was like, I like, I like pre took them down being like, here we go.

It's going to get bad. And they kind of, they kind of figured out. They kind of got it. Like they were like, rat summer's over. We're good. And like they've moved on. And even the Tim Wall's like cutesy. America dad thing, like didn't last that long.

Like it was like just enough. And I think that's kind of half the battle for Democrats is like not Pokemon going to the polls. Exactly. And you have like Biden, who his whole thing was like spamming dark Brandon every time, you know, 100 Palestinians die. And so it's nice. It's refreshing to have something that's like not reliant even on like dunking on the other

side, even though there are so many opportunities for it. And I'm glad people are taking them, but also making it about Harris. I think that's a real big strength. Yes, I would agree with that. So like right now with the way our information spaces are fractured and sort of no one is talking to each other or seeing the same stuff, it does seem to be impacting both sides to a degree in different ways and causing different things to happen. But do you feel like you think there's one side of the political spectrum in America that's having a worse time with this current formation of the internet? Like one side that's less organized because of it. I mean, I think the right is like there's specific.

factions are more organized because they all have a singular goal. But I think they're struggling because it's harder to get new converts. You have plenty of women. I mean, I know two of my mom's friends who are for sure going to vote for Trump aren't because of that meme that he made about blowjobs in Kamala Harris. And so I think they're struggling with internet culture, with having eyes on them all the time, with being able to fuck up with just a simple tweet because they can't really afford to lose more people.

and Democrats only have room to gain more. Okay, last question for you. Looking, looking towards the future here. What crazy bit of misinformation have, are you expecting? Like, is there a genre? Because I think we can both agree. There are genres of this stuff. Like, what haven't we seen that, like, could definitely appear over the next month or two?

Do you have a fun one? I want to hear your answer first. So on the left side, I think the Trump was not actually shot at thing is like not going go away. I think it's like it's so annoying, but his ear looks fine. And like, that's weird. That's weird. That is weird. His ear, because he's an old man. He shouldn't heal it laugh fast, you know? And I mean, like, granted, if there is a candidate that would stage, like, a false flag, like, he would probably love that. But I genuinely think he is traumatized. Like, did you read that he's, like, watching the video over and over again and, like an empty room? I read that right before I saw the video of that kick streamer showing him the cyber truck of the photo of him being shot at all over the side of the side of the side of the. cyber truck. And if you watch it, you can watch Trump's brain melt. It's, it's incredible. Which is understandable. I mean, he was shot. Yeah. I would be, I would, I would also put myself in the cube. The cube that speaks in and now. I would also go in the cube. Yes. Okay. So that's what I think is, I think the Trump was not shot thing is not going away. And I think that the Republicans are

actually getting frustrated with sort of like how ineffectual misinformation is for them. It's like not really working. I sort of think this Haitian immigrant story is. essentially their Hail Mary pass. This is this was like their big as stupid as it sounds like it's their big political project of the election. It's like we're going to make everyone have to talk about this insane thing that we've inserted into the national discourse and take it really seriously. And I think if this had happened in 2020, it would have probably worked a little better. Maybe it is the most like outrageously racist thing I've seen Trump's team try to do. It didn't work this time. Not in the way that I think they thought it would. And now I think

they're probably going to give up on this for the most part and just pivot to their final form, which is if we lose the election, we're going to kill you. That's kind of my grand theory of Republican political strategy right now. I think those are good theories. I'd say on the left, and I'm using that big quotation marks. Yeah, the other side. Yeah, it's America. Yeah, everything's great. I think that there will definitely, like the conspiracy theories about Trump not being shot are really concerning but i also think there will be a lot of like those really stupid um jabs at him that don't get you anywhere like the drum thing or talking about him wearing diapers i'm really sick of that and i think you'll see a lot more of that shit and i do think he were diaper though i think

his butt's big like he's got a big it's he has a big butt but frankly it's none of my goddamn business it's like i have this might be a very controversial opinion i don't give a fuck if public figures have affairs as long as like it's consensual. Well, yeah, sure. I really don't. And it's just, also none of my body is this.

Hey, if Trump's wearing a diaper, no shade. It happens to all of us. Not me. I'm both different. I'm wearing a diaper not for medical reasons, but for recreational purposes. Okay. Okay. Fine.

And then on the right? On the right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, I think the violence thing is big. I think that there's going to be a lot of focus on Russia, like from far right figures. Like, I think they're going to amp up the Ukraine stuff.

And, you know, I thought it was really interesting how David Muir asked Trump at the debate, do you want Ukraine to win this war? And he refused to say yes. Yeah. And so I think trying to frame that and like the strongman thing where he was like, oh, yes, Victor Orban loves me. So a lot of stuff about like how we need a strong man, just really overt fascist rhetoric, which is cool. I like that.

And then, of course, after the election, no matter the results, it's going to get ugly. Yeah, I think so. Although, like, it makes me sad for lots of reasons. But I think also Trump doesn't want to be president. Like, he clearly doesn't want to do it. But he can't admit that he doesn't want to do it. So he's just got to do it and, like, destroy America in the process. Right.

I don't want to be president. I would love to be a vice president, though. Just like, be hot, do vibes. Just support your buddy. That sounds really fun. That's like most of my life anyways. So if you're looking for a 25-year-old vice president, Tim Walz, if you need a second, I'm here. Where can people follow you on the internet?

Wait, before we get there, I have a question for you. Yeah, tell me. I heard this question at little dinner parties and friends, and I thought it was genius. What are your three favorite preparations of potatoes? Oh, easy. Crave fries is number one. Tater tots is number two. And crinkle fries would probably be.

number three. Wow, very fry focus. I respect it. Yeah, I mean, I like a good mashed potato but I think it's got to go four. I mean, like salt and vinegar chips is probably my number one. Oh, I wasn't thinking about potato chips. Yeah. I totally forgot about potato chips. Okay, wait, what are yours? What are yours? Okay, like a really good

like roasted potatoes with lemon or oregano and garlic and shit. Salt and vinegar chips. Okay. And then either like scalloped potatoes or noki or waffle fries. I can't decide. Oh, I forgot about waffle fries too.

Have you ever had gunpowder potatoes? Because those things are paying. What is that? You can get them at an Indian restaurant usually and it's sort of like a, it's like a spicy. Potato Samosa. Well, also potato samosa. Yeah, those are good too. Oh, that's a good question.

I was so focused on the fries that I didn't see the larger potato. It's so embarrassing for you. Where can people follow you on the internet? You can find me on YouTube where I do longer-form content and TikTok. where I do shorter TikTok from content at Cat M. Aboo. I'm also on Twitter, threads, Instagram, all those sites. You can find those in my link tree on those sites. I have really long last name, so don't try to spell it.

I also recently started a Patreon if you want to financially support my work. And I don't have any subscribers-only content on there. It's just daily pictures of my cat. She's really cute. And we have a chat in the Patreon where you can send pictures of your pets. And then we get really excited about them. So it's a dollar a month, and you can find that, patreon.com slash cat, M. Aboo. Thank you so much, going on.

Thanks for having me. This is a great conversation. It was great, great having it. Panic World is a Garbage Day production. It's written and produced by Grant Irving, hosted by myself with research from the always fantastic Adam Bumus. A huge thanks to Gabby Cash for designing the incredibly deranged art for this show. And a huge thank you to Kat Rajesk, our lovely video editor. And if you'd like to sponsor an episode, you can reach out to Multitude, our wonderful partner.

multitude. productions slash ads. We have a Patreon, which you can find at patreon.com slash panic world. And I'd like to end this episode with an important reminder. Log off and touch grass. While you still can.