QAA Podcast - Racist Migrant Voodoo Panic (E294)

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

A false smear about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio killing pets made its way from a fourth-hand Facebook rumor to Donald Trump’s lips during his televised debate with Kamala Harris. Despite the fact that there is no evidence for this claim and local authorities have explicitly denied that it’s true, Republicans have enthusiastically promoted the libel in order to demonize Haitians who are legally living and working in the town. This promotion includes AI generated images of anthropomorphic cats in tactical gear.  We discuss how this false claim spread, the background of recent anti-immigrant sentiment in JD Vance’s home state, a historical example of how American anti-immigrant conspiracy theories inspired deadly violence, and how the current smears are leading to innocent people being threatened right now. Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: http://www.patreon.com/QAA Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe and Nick Sena. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com) https://qaapodcast.com QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.SOURCES Bloody Mondayhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Monday Harper, Leslie Ann. "Lethal Language: The Rhetoric of George Prentice and Louisville’s Bloody Monday." Ohio Valley History 11, no. 3 (2011): 24-43. The Louisville Journal Thu, Jul 26, 1855https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-courier-journal/47743585/ Orozco, Jessica. County: No evidence of August claim that Haitians took geese at Springfield park, Springfield News-Sun.https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/county-no-evidence-of-august-claim-that-haitians-took-geese-at-springfield-park/NFRGJNURHREGHB32HBC6UKZJWQ/ Jordan, Miriam. How an Ohio town landed in the middle of the immigration debate, The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/03/us/springfield-ohio-school-bus-crash-haiti-immigrants.html Thalen, Mikael.  Redditor dragged into migrant pet-eating fears thanks to photo of a man with a goose lashes out at JD Vance, The Daily Dot.https://www.dailydot.com/debug/redditor-migrant-pet-eating-fears-goose-photo-jd-vance/ D’Angelo, Alec. The origins of Trump’s Ohio Pets Conspiracy, New Lines Magazine.https://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/the-origins-of-trumps-ohio-pets-conspiracy/Caputo, M.A. ‘Trump blew it’: Cat scratch fever on the debate stage, The Bulwark.https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-blew-it-cat-scratch-fever-on

Thank you. If you're hearing this, well done. You've found a way to connect to the internet. Welcome to the QAA podcast, episode 294, racist migrant voodoo panic. As always, we are your host, Julian Field, Liv Ecker, and Travis View. On September 10th, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump met for a presidential candidate debate moderated and broadcast by ABC News.

During the debate, Trump said something that may have sounded odd to, members of the audience that were not familiar with online right-wing rhetoric. He claimed falsely that immigrants living in Springfield, Ohio, were eating cats and dogs. And worse than that, Trump said, they weren't just eating stray animals. They were eating people's pets. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people that live there.

And this is what's happening in our country. They're eating the dogs. They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets. Yeah. It's like a very racist, Dr. Zeus phone. There's no way to satirize this country anymore.

I mean, it is beyond a joke. So the first thing I feel like I need to get out of the way is that there's no evidence. This is true. And the police department of Springfield issued a statement, which explicitly denied. that is true. In response to recent rumors, alleging criminal activity by the immigrant population in our city, we wish to clarify that there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured, or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.

God, it's like, we really are just, nothing's changed. Yeah, it's like Der Sturmur-level, like absurd racism. Absolutely the dregs. But now we have AI to generate pictures of the little imaginary pets that are. being eaten by these demonized immigrants who, it's like, what a fucking nightmare. What a fucking nightmare we live in. Yeah. Yeah.

So on this episode, I'm going to unpack how this false claim went from a Facebook rumor to millions of television screens via Donald Trump's lips. But before I do that, I want to acknowledge that, like, part of the function of these falsehoods is to stimulate more discourse about immigration generally. This is subject matter that the right believes that they have advantage on. So they would rather talk about this than other issues like, for example, abortion rights. You know, if they approach issues related to immigration on a purely policy or factual level, then far fewer people would be talking about it.

We wouldn't be talking about it on this episode. So I guess we're taking the bait. But, you know, since the bait in this instance is a kind of smear that can lead to mob violence against innocent people, I guess, you know, I don't think I have much. a choice given the you know the general subject matter of this podcast yeah we lose and also let's go let's do this yeah i also want to talk about a significant event in the history of american anti-immigrant rhetoric from the from the 19th century because while i find like debunkings or like tracing the route of these kinds of rumors you know that's valuable that also kind of misses the point because people who

are saying that Haitian migrants are eating cats aren't really attempting to communicate factual information as much as they're trying to convey a particular sense of hatred and fear or rejection of the migrants. There's a long history of conspiracy theories about immigration, which I think help put these kinds of recent events into context. The charge that immigrants introduce an undesirable criminal element to communities, corrupt elections, and have weird religious beliefs is an enduring trope of American political rhetoric. You can see this kind of rhetoric in the 19th century with the rise of the nativist American Party in the 1840s and 1850s. So they were more popularly known as the No Nothing Party because they adopted the practices of a

secret society. And when asked specifics about the party, they said that they know nothing. That's great. That's just great. The tension between the no-nothings and the immigrants from Ireland and Germany came to a head most violently on an election day. That was August 6, 1850. in Louisville, Kentucky. Well, this is just so great because it's nice to go back to a time where everybody agreed that people of color were some sort of inferior animalistic type of human, but they were so racist that they were, you know, turning on fellow whites.

How quaint. The people of color in this context being Germans. Yeah, no, I mean, they all agreed, them, the Germans, you know, the Irish, they All agreed. Oh, yeah, no. Black's way, but they're so racist that they're actually attacking a level above, even. And it's great that this sort of politics have come back with J.D. Vance, talking about the negative impact of, like, the Germans and the Irish in American society. Yeah, no, we need new forms of racism. Like, we're all agreeing on the basic form of racism, which is immigrants, bad, secure the border. Now we must graduate to more ancient and refined forms. Yeah, pre-Civil War racism is what they're reaching for. On this day, no-nothings formed mobs, which intended to prevent immigrants from voting, including

naturalized citizens who have the right to vote. It ended with an event known as Bloody Monday, widespread riots which killed dozens. The no-nothings were convinced that immigrants pose a serious threat to the country and American institutions. These worries were especially pronounced in Louisville, where foreigners made up 36% of the city's population. And these foreigners weren't, you know, according to the No Nothing's good American Protestants. They were Catholics with uncertain loyalties.

In particular, No Nothings were convinced that Catholic immigrants were part of a foreign papal conspiracy to infiltrate America. Right. A local newspaper, the Louisville Journal, acted as the voice of the No Nothing cause. Louisville Journal editor George T. Prentice stoked this anti-Catholic sentiment, accusing them of being primarily loyal to the Pope and uniformly voting for the Democrats. The indefatigable perseverance with which Rome works out her dark schemes and furtherance of papal supremacy indicates with almost unquestionable certainty that the secret influence of that mysterious power that sits enthroned at Rome from whence it sends its mandates to willing subjects scattered all over the world.

We must refer this unity of political action by foreigners in this country. We must refer this unity? Yes, that's the exact phrasing in the quote. I guess it's maybe some strange 19th century phrasing, but it says we must refer. It means we discuss, we must discuss why they're so unified, basically. The German and the Irish socially hate each other. They cannot live peaceably in the same neighborhood, but if they are Catholics, they always vote alike. We ask then whether it is their nationality, their personal feeling, or their Catholicism

that causes them to coalesce at the polls. The conclusion is irresistible that those otherwise antagonist. antagonistic interests are united in a common effort to accomplish some purpose that is regarded as essential to the cause of that form of religion, which they all profess. That is an interesting conspiracy theory, that, like, all the Catholics are going to the same area at the same time to do the same thing. Like, what are they up to? They're all voting. That same area is the polling booth? What the hell?

The journal claimed that the Irish and German immigrants were stalking up on firearms and hiding them in the city's Catholic churches as part of a secret plot to take over the United States. exhorted citizens to prepare themselves to defend American democracy. On election day, members of the No Nothing Party armed and organized, gathered at the city's polling stations before sunrise with the intent to block immigrants from casting their votes. They distributed yellow tickets to fellow No Nothings and approved supporters, allowing them easy access to the polls. The idea is that they had these special tickets and they would put them in their hats

or their lapels to kind of like as a free pass, sort of a out no-no. who not to harass in the city streets on Election Day. Oh, that's great. Back when you couldn't rely on just skin color. To ask some of their opinions about the Pope before you know. In contrast, many naturalized immigrants to those who just appeared or sounded for and were stopped and forced to present their naturalization documents by No Nothing members stationed outside of the voting areas. Some were simply driven away and assaulted.

The widespread on lawful intimidation significantly reduced voter turnout and led to considerable delays in the election process. So it's just basically like poll watchers. Yeah, just basic poll watchers. Just show me your papers. And even then, it's just if they didn't seem too foreign, they were sort of pushed away. Soon, a mob of 500 no-nothing rioters rampaged through the city, targeting foreigners. When they reached the German and Irish neighborhoods, they set homes ablaze and very. vandalized German-owned businesses.

Convinced that the Catholics were stockpiling weapons in the city's two Catholic churches, the mob headed for the Cathedral of the Assumption in St. Martin's Church with plans to burn them down. The mayor intervened, searching the churches and finding no hidden weapons, which finally caused the mob to disperse. However, the mayor's intervention came too late to prevent a Catholic priest from being stoned to death. Jesus. By mid-afternoon, around 3 or 4 o'clock, a mob armed with muskets and bayonets marched up Main Street dragging a cannon along with them. They stormed an establishment called

Arm Brewster's Brewery, looting Apple in Peach Brandy before setting the building on fire and killing 10 people. Those attempting to flee the Irish tenements on an area called Quinn's Roe, owned by an Irish American named Patrick Quinn, were shot. Patrick Quinn himself was brutally beaten and shot as the mob set homes ablaze. While the exact death toll is unknown, estimates range between 22 to 100, most of them Irish and German Catholic. Catholics, countless others were injured. After the smoke cleared, the Louisville Journal blamed the immigrants for instigating the violence. Though the No Nothing Party was short-lived, in this instance, they ultimately got their way.

In the aftermath, hundreds of Catholics fled Louisville never to return. It's interesting how a lot of this, like the anti-Catholic sentiment in this period just feels like, you know, like I can't believe it's not anti-Semitism sort of thing. Like, it's just, we'll take that and then copy-paste it. Yeah, you know, there weren't. really enough Jews to hate Louisville. I had to find someone. Yeah. So, I mean, here we have an example of, like, how this kind of paranoia and conspiracy theories about migrants can serve as a pretext for violence.

And, you know, I think it's worth keeping in mind when discussing the most recent rhetoric about Haitians living in Springfield, Ohio. Right, because this was mainly around the rumor that they had guns in the church, right, which was just, like, completely made up by some insane guy. Yeah, yeah, it was based on nothing. The idea that basically there, they thought that the Catholic churches were basically satellites of papal interests as part of a grand Catholic conspiracy to take over the country. Right. Earlier this month, the New York Times published an interesting investigation into why the town of Springfield, Ohio, became so central to immigration discourse right now. I think that's worth summarizing in order to provide some background. The story of how Haitians settled in Springfield starts with an effort to revitalize the dying town.

The city started to decline economically after the car factories closed and other industries pulled out. The population fell from 80,000 in 1960 to 60,000 in 2014. In that same year, city leaders crafted a plan to start attracting new businesses and started to work in 2017 when a Japanese auto parts manufacturer set up a new plant there. Several other businesses followed suit bringing thousands of jobs. But that led to the problem of how to fill them. There weren't enough local residents interested in those positions. Haitians who were in the country legally with work permits heard about this town

with a lot of good paying entry-level jobs and a low cost of living, and so they started pouring into Springfield to fill those positions. In just a few years, 15 to 20,000 Haitian migrants moved into this community of about 60,000. This breathed new life into the once-dying town, but also put pressure on some local resources. Medical facilities and schools had to hire Creole Haitian translators to accommodate patients and students who didn't speak English well, which strained their budgets. The rapid increase in population also led to a housing crisis that increased the price of rent.

Now, you could chocolate it up to the kind of growing pains that any rapidly expanding town might experience, but people did not. Bubbling tensions overflowed after a school bus crash caused by a Haitian immigrant veering into the wrong lane killed 11-year-old Aidan Clark on August 22nd of last year. Another 20 students were injured. Police officers found no evidence of drug or alcohol consumption involved in the accident, but Joseph was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and could serve nine years in prison. This incident inflamed the suspicions of longtime residents who crowded city commission meetings and spoke of the Haitian population in terms of an invasion.

The Haitians were accused without evidence of being responsible for drug trafficking, retail theft, and disease. Among those who spoke at a city commission meeting was Drake R. Barron's, the second in command of the neo-Nazi organization Blood Tribe. On August 7th, members of Blood Tribe marched around Springfield while carrying guns and black flags bearing a white swastika. We are the ones who do automobile manslaughter. If anybody, if we even have one tiny little anecdotal story of any immigrant doing anything

accidentally, not accidentally, wrong. In our society, we will use this as an excuse to run a little pogrom. And this is normal. This is normal behavior. This is just how America works. We're doing great. During an August 26th, City Commission meeting, Barron's was removed from the hearing after stating that Haitians brought, quote, crime and savagery to the city.

And this local issue was turned into a national issue when it was highlighted by programs like Fox and Friends. And it was, of course, a talking point for the senator from Ohio, Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance. Which leads us to today where Haitian migrants are being targeted with false smears about eating cats and geese plucked from a park. The false claims about these threats to pets started as a post in a Facebook group dedicated to local crime in Springfield. Which is always like the most like fascist. Yeah, these are the most insane. I mean, next door, all these apps, sicko mode.

absolute fucking demented people on that shit like if the fourth rake happens in america these facebook groups are just going to be the ones where it's like you know like i saw my neighbor listening to like media privately that was like anti-white then the gestapo comes and yeah no it's it's amazing it's a private capitalist version of uh you know turning in your neighbor for lack of uh dedication to the revolution you know it's everything that they they think like the Soviet reign did wrong, but, like, recreated organically out of free will and individualism. It's so cool. Yeah.

Because they need that level of force to maintain their quote-unquote way of life. They're like, that's fine. That's actually the most free you can be. It's like, I see a black person in my neighborhood and I make a post about it. Yeah. Because, oh, what's going on there? They shouldn't be allowed to be in my neighborhood. Listen, I don't want to kill them myself, but I'd love to get them killed.

Yeah. I'm just talking. So this Facebook post, which was first amplified on, uh, Twitter by the account end-wokeness, claim that the author's neighbor's daughter's friend said it happened to her cat. I shit you not. It's like space balls.

Exactly. This is like fourth-hand Facebook rumor. This is how this got kicked off. Warning to all about our beloved pets and those around us. My neighbor informed me that her daughter's friend had lost her cat. She checked pages, kennels, asked around, etc. 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'd do a deer for butchering, and they were carving it up to eat. I've been told they are doing this to dogs. They have been doing it at Snyder Park with the ducks and geese, as I was told that last bit by rangers and police. Please keep a close eye on these animals. One of the interesting things here, too, is, like, they're eating ducks. Like, what savages? Like, how could you eat a day? It's like, I don't, people do that. Like, I don't, there's a really weird line. People draw a very arbitrary line between, like, pigs, which it's, like, very nonchalant, casual fine to eat, which are, like, very intelligent social animals. And then animals that are, like, generally our pets. When my husband Jed brings back a deer

and he does field dressing in the backyard, that's fun. But these people are doing it to ducks in the park. The claim was further spread on Charlie Kirk's podcast, who added the detail that local ponds were being picked clean of ducks. Now, Kirk, when he's talking about, well, telling the story, he made sure to make very liberal use of the word allegedly. I'd love to take a cheese grater and just, you know what's not, yeah. You all know, you don't need me to, I don't need to get beeped. You can just fill in the flags. Here he is.

Allegedly, Haitians are going around and taking people's pets and eating them. The duck pond in a local park is being picked clean. So allegedly, you have Haitians in this town of Springfield, Ohio, that are going by and eating ducks. I'd like to take a nice, heavy monkey wrench and, well, you know, fix his plumbing. Yeah. No. I'd like to take care of this problem. Okay, no evidence, as of this recording, that this is the case.

No fucking shit. Why do Americans need this shit fucking debugged? You fucking racist idiots! I hate you. Sorry. In that same segment shortly after he said this, Kirk dropped the allegedly to claim that the presence of the Haitian migrants is part of a high-level plot to kill and replace longtime residents. This is essentially the Great Replacement conspiracy theory.

which has already motivated multiple mass shootings. They started with the ducks, but soon they're going to eat us. Every time an American dies at the hands of an illegal immigrant, they're spiking the football in the Oval Office and in the Kamala Harris re-election campaign, one step closer to the Great Replacement. Oh, my man is just saying it. Yeah, they're just saying it out right. It's the great.

They're absolutely just fascist. And, oh, God. Oh, the things. I'm speechless. My mind is filled to the brim with violence. As this baseless claim of cat eating started to circulate, people started promoting the story of 27-year-old Alexis Telia Farrell. So this is a woman who was charged with cruelty to animals and other charges when, according to the Canton Police Department, on August 11th, she stomped on a cat's head and ate it, quote, in a residential area in front of multiple people. Now, Farrell has had multiple encounters to the law.

Her convictions include possession of drugs, theft, endangering children, and receiving stolen property. This is her first animal abuse case. Authorities told the outlet TMZ that she may suffer from mental health issues, which is unsurprising. No shit. So a very strange story. But the woman in question, not a Haitian immigrant, and the incident didn't happen in Springfield. It happened in Canton, which is a 170-mile drive from. Springfield. The spokesperson for the police department said this.

The suspect in this case is not a Haitian immigrant. She is a lifelong Canton resident. Yes, but I think we need to get to the bottom of this because is she black? That's what I want to know. So no substance to that at all, the idea that Haitians are eating cats. But this was paired with the claim that Haitian immigrants were killing it eating geese. Now, you make a good point lift. Like, like killing. and eating geese itself is not strange behavior. Every year, about 15,000 Ohio hunters attempt to bag waterfowl. Yes, but they do it widely.

When I googled the phrase, goose farm, Ohio, I even found a few places where one could purchase a live goose if they were so inclined. But I assume the accusation against these hypothetical Haitian goose hunters is that they kill these geese outside of hunting season or without a permit or at the Snyder Park, which is a public park for families. and, like, nah, the hunting grounds. And they, therefore, would be guilty of misdemeanor poaching. In Ohio, intentionally killing migratory geese is punishable by up to a $250 fine or 30 days in jail per bird. I think there's an idea that, like, these animals are kind of, like, white property, and that, like, it's annoying, it's, like, not allowed when a non-white person kills them or a non-American person. It's like there were scandals in Australia about specifically, like, Indonesian factory farmers doing animal abuse, but, not the factory farm abuse happening in Australia.

Because it's like, oh, like, it's a white property for us to slaughter. They're not allowed to do it. Like, when we do it, we do it in a civilized, controlled way in a factory farm that's industrial. But when they do it, it's because of some revealing some, like, animal, animality or, like, cruelty inherent in them. Yeah. Yeah, again, the real problem here is that there's no evidence that any Haitian illegally

killed and ate, even a single goose. Right. No, of course not. Not to mention the fact that Haiti is a wreck because ranging back to the beginning of the 1900s, American interventionism was rampant. They did multiple fucking coups. They killed the president. I mean, I hate, I hate this. I hate it all.

Yeah. Now, some people try to bolster the claim of this goose poaching by pointing to a phone call made to the Clark County Police Department from a man who claimed that he's saw four Haitians with geese, and this is part of that call, which was released by the online conservative magazine, The Federalist. I'm riding on the trail going to my orientation for my job today, and I see a group of Haitian people, there was about four of them. They all had geese in their hand. They got away.

I couldn't make out the first three of the license plate, but I got the numbers. The last numbers was nine, eight, nine. Nine, eight, and it was a gray Toyota Tacoma that took off on. There was about four of them. There was two men, two women. I couldn't tell the age, because I'm in a hurry going to this orientation, so I don't like to be late. He's calling like he saw them fucking kill someone. Like, it was like a hit and run, and he knows the license plate.

Well, I mean, I mean, the first thing actually jumps out to me is that the caller didn't even claim that he witnessed as people, kill the geese that they allegedly possessed. And as far as I'm aware, it's not illegal to simply have geese. So at no point did this caller actually describe anyone doing anything illegal. But put it aside. But there's also the issue that the caller somehow was able to clock the nationality of these individuals while hurrying to a work event in his vehicle and his sight of them. He caught sight of it was so brief that he didn't even have time to note the entire license plate number. Okay, but have you considered that I pressed down on the right side of the controller

and it did a little scan of the area. And then a little pop-up happened above the head of these people. And it said, Haitian immigrant. And as such, I knew that in the game, I was allowed to get in the bushes and whistle. And when the Haitian immigrant comes towards the bushes, I stealth kill. I do a takedown. I went into my vats and it activated. I slowed down time, and that's how I got 98, 98.

And then, of course, there's the main large issue, which is that no one has been able to substantiate the climate. claim. Clark County Commissioner Sasha Rittenhouse said during a regular meeting that the Ohio Department of Natural Resources was unable to find any merit to the claim. No videos have surfaced, no pictures of surfaced, no dead geese have surfaced. There's nothing to substantiate that it's happening. Well, people continue to attempt to bolster their claims that this is happening despite that by posting a photograph of a man walking down the street with a dead goose in his right hand. Some people who posted this photo,

even claimed falsely that the photo was taken in Springfield. Mike Phelan at the Daily Dot tracked down the source of this photo. It was originally posted on the Columbus subreddit by Reddit user, Is It Me, You're Looking for, 4X? And it was posted back on July 28th with the caption, The Things You See While Driving in Columbus. But again, one issue with the photo is that I was taken in Columbus, which is 50 miles from Springfield.

And there's no evidence at all that the person in this photograph is somehow connected to Haiti. And there's no evidence that the person in this photograph is somehow connected to Haiti. There's no evidence that the person in the photograph actually killed the goose. This is a photo of a man blackly carrying geese. You're missing the point, Travis. The person who captured and posted this original photo told the Daily dot this. I think it's awful that right-wingers, including Ohio's Republican senator, will take a random picture from the internet and use it as a weapon to further their agenda.

The garbage they are spreading has been completely debunked, yet they continue to spread it. So, like all the evidence that people have attempted to marshal in favor, the idea that Haitian migrants are killing and eating cats and geese is dog shit. It's just based on nothing. Despite that, the online right proceeded to riff off of these smears by creating AI-generated images of Donald Trump with cats and geese, implying that, you know, that Donald Trump will protect cats and geese from these invaders. One of these images was posted by Donald Trump Jr. It's an AI-generated image of Trump writing on the back of a large cat while holding a rifle and surrounded by kittens.

It's weird. Like, he looks tiny. Like, the AI didn't know whether to shrink Trump or to make the cat big. So it kind of did both. Yeah, he's looking like a funcop pop. He looks like, yeah, Funko Pop Trump. It's so grim that genuinely like modern day Dishderma is just AI generated. Like they don't even get like a comically racist, like cartoonist to do the drawings.

It's like, chat GPT, give me racism. Man, I wish them all nothing but the. worst. There was another posted by Trump himself on his platform, Truth Social, and this AI-generated photo shows a uniformed anthropomorphic cat holding a rifle and wearing a MAGA hat. Yeah, it's an operator. It's an operator cat. Looks like a scoped up version of an M4. Obviously, AI-generated, so not correct. And the hat, the ears appear to be somehow coming out the side of the hat does not make sense. It's all happening on X.

It's all happening through GROC. You know, it's like, it is very strange because the thing about these photos is that they simultaneously are designed to be, you know, like menacing and threatening. They're very frequently show people with like weapons. But there's also designed to be very cutesy and joking. They have kittens in them. So they're able to like obviously ride that line between a violent threat against migrants and like a jokey, cutsy cat meme.

Yeah, ooh, cutesy fascism. Like, this is what we're protecting with incredible violence. It's, like, my small hecking paparinos. It is, it's like soy right stuff. They're incredibly sore. They're complaining about how they're going after all the cute hecking doggos.

It's pathetic. Like, this is the thing that's undergrating, like, the justification for the insane, unimaginable violence built into your system. I mean, I guess, like, killer was a dog person, so it's, you know, history repeating itself. Yeah. And then there's also, like, a certain irony to who is the potential Trump VP pick, the lady who just, like, openly killed her dog? It was just like, yeah, he was misbehaving, so we just fucking put him down.

The dog, it was fine. Yeah, what cat turd, like, backed up over his own dog killing it? And then he posted, like, if Kamala wins, like, you know, you guys. we're going to have to protect our pets. It's like from, from you. Yeah, they don't even like, they're like posturing about pretending to think that the dog arenas are epic and cute. Like, they don't even like it. They're like, yeah, we'll kill them if we want to.

But it's we get to kill them. We appreciate how cute and epic they are. But then when we're bored of the cats, we kill them. It's not the other people. I know my heart was in a good place when I backed up over my dog. They backed up over the dog in a bad way. that's rude. But I did it. I was allowed to because it's my property. It was my dog. I did it with love. They're taking our geese with their hearts full of hate.

But of course, you know, the facts of the matter don't really matter. You know, when people start to spread these kinds of claims, like I said, they're just expressing an anti-immigrant sentiment or just outright racism. That's like unconnected to any particular fact about reality itself. And sometimes they even say this openly. One tweet which got over. 10,000 retweets expressed this idea this way. They can say technically the lady who ate a cat on camera in Ohio wasn't a Haitian migrant. They can say there are, quote, no police reports of missing pets in Springfield, Ohio. They can say the photo of the guy carrying the goose by its neck, quote, wasn't a migrant

and was in Columbus. They can debunk it all. Go ahead. Call us racist bigots. We're spreading misinformation because none of that even matters. It was never about the damn cat. Yeah, no shit. Yeah, of course.

We know, dude. You're so smart. They can say technically that I am no longer with my wife. They can say officially that she has legal custody of the kids. Yeah. It's not about that. It's about being irrationally absurdly racist. Yeah.

There's no. We know. Go ahead. Call us racist biggest. We don't care. We're going to be that and we're going to be proud. We just know. We know that the foreign other has infiltrated our ranks.

His skin is darker than ours. And he is subverting us, taking our women, killing our children, our geese, our poor kittens. J.D. Vance has also, like, basically addressed the fact that there's no real substance to these claims. He opened this tweet, this way, before, like, listing grievances relayed to immigration. In the last several weeks, my office has received many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield, who've said their neighbors' pets or local wildlife were abducted by. Haitian migrants. It's possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false. Good. That's good that you know that at least. You know, that's...

But the fact that I thought it was real says a lot about society. It does, because this stuff is kind of happening. Not really, but like, you know, in a way, in a certain way, that could get me an election, one, maybe. I was think of that Donio Sullivan clip where he's like, some Trump supporters showing him a video of, like, Biden falling asleep during a meeting. And, like, you Tony debunks it and he's like, but like it could have been true, you know, like the way that it, it seems to depict some part of reality that I agree with. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I feel like this is how honestly a lot of people approach truth claims. You know, it's just, it's really about expressing a kind of sentiment about how they feel about the world rather than any kind of the product of

any kind of like rigorous epistemological analysis. Like even very smart people, a lot of of the times. We'll look at a fact that agrees with their preconceived beliefs and not, like, spend a lot less effort checking whether it's true as opposed to one that challenges them. Yeah, there's a recent study. I'm going to bring it up in the future episode that talked about how, um, how like fact checkers are actually the least, um, well-liked kind of journalist and least trusted because they, they are responsible for essentially ru, sort of like throwing a wrench in a person's worldview, ruining people's fun. Kind of like, you know, almost kind of rude, like correcting someone that's very disagreeable behavior.

So as a consequence, they're not very well liked. Because the facts make my feelings feel good. You're making me feel bad. Well, even if I'm wrong, why are you going out of your way to point out that I'm just a jerk or something? So this JD Vance tweet, he went on to reference the fatal car crash and issues related to health care facilities and schools. Vance then said this in the follow-up tweet. In short, don't let the cry babies in the media disswain. you fellow patriots keep the cat memes flowing it's so fucking soy keep the the hecking doggirinos

going upboats to the left i mean what's amazing to me it's like i think that like trump he has kind of the the bullshitter's gift of being able to absolutely embody and believe whatever claim is coming out of his mouth at any given moment so this is why it's always always hard to figure out. It's like whether or not he's like actually lying or he has a false idea in his head. He has this, I don't know, it's a trait that like good salespeople have. The ability to say, say a thing that's beneficial to you, irrespective of truth or falsity, with perfect conviction. Like when he was talking about, you know, in Springfield, they're eating dogs. They're eating cats. He may have got himself to believe it in that moment regardless of what it is true. But J.D. Vance is different.

So, J.D. Vance, you know, he graduated from, like, Yale Law School where I assume they teach people how to make a distinction between what's verifiably true and what isn't. So he is, like, 100% aware that there's nothing that could substantiate these claims. I'm sure it's true that his office is getting calls about these kinds of things. But he knows that, like, well, there's nothing I've received that could back up these claims, but he doesn't care. This is why he's speaking to his audience. He's saying, like, don't let anyone, like, shame you. into not spreading these with cat memes just because there's no actual evidence of any Haitian migrant killing any cat.

Just do it anyway because it expresses this feeling that, you know, that's sort of beneficial to his campaign about the migrants. Which is also why he's sauceless is it's clear in the writing that he knows it's not true. Like if you want to look through it, you're able to see that he like is not in that sense a true believer. He can't really get behind it. So if you ask him to, like, really confidently repeat the lie, he's like, oh, well, you know, I mean, I guess there's maybe some reports, but like we don't know for sure. We're like, you know, which is like not, if you want to lead the base, you have to like repeat the lies with your chest completely. Yeah, you have to be like Trump. They're eating the pets.

You sir aren't even a believer. I mean, yeah, it's pathetic. This is an interesting problem with JD Vance. Like his appeal is supposed to be that he came from humble origins. and, you know, the, you know, is the author of the, you know, Hillbilly elegy. There's something that's supposed to, like, you know, teach sort of like well-to-do liberals what life in, you know, Appalachia is like. But at the same time, he's ultimately a little too well educated, you know,

a little too well connected, you know, with, you know, being funded and associated with, like, you know, Peter Thiel and stuff. And so he doesn't quite have, honestly, the, the common touch that Trump has, even though Trump himself was born into wealth and, like, has never known, like, real hardship ever. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it seems like in Vance's experiences with that, like, he has contempt for these people.

He's like, they're fucking idiots, and they'll believe this stupid wrong thing. And it'll be to my advantage. Trump is all in. Mm-hmm. You know, I thought it was interesting. I was like, I read this article in The Bullwork, which talked about how Trump's campaign advisors

had, like, a plan of, like, how Trump was supposed to talk about this issue on the debate stage, but Trump wasn't able to execute it. And I'm just going to have, you know, Julian read this here. Donald Trump had a plan for Tuesday night's presidential debate. But then the cat, neither abducted nor consumed, got his tongue and talking points. If the moderators hit him for spreading a baseless urban legend about Haitian immigrants eating cats in the small city of Springfield, Ohio, the ex-president was supposed to execute

a classic rope-a-dope strategy. He would dodge the punch and place the blame for the story on town locals. Then he'd pivot to attacking Vice President Kamala Harris and the media over the toll of rampant immigration on housing, health care, and crime in Springfield. It was all strategized in advance. There was just one problem. It required Trump to execute it. But when the topic of immigration came up, the former president got sidetracked by taking umbrage with Harris's insistence that he had uninspiring rallies. He then mentioned the possibility of World War III. Only after that did he launch into the rumors of pet eating and then without preparing viewers about the backstory the entire episode ended up being less of a rope a dope and more a dope who had hanged himself

with some rope okay what the fuck is this writing jesus christ guys this is we're fucked we're fucked and trump's team knew it privately trump confidence sensed that the ex-president had missed a real opportunity quote the former president was supposed to pivot but trump blew it side one campaign insider who had been told of the never executed debate tactic, quote, he was supposed to make her own the Biden record. That didn't really happen. He can't help it. He's like, he's like old man who sees something on the news and gets mad about it. He couldn't, he's in that mode. There's no, there's no 5D chess here. No, and there doesn't really need to be. We're in a state where this man is playing 5D chess. He, he's, this is, this, this may well work. That's where we're at. It's

pretty disastrous, right? Like most people, I mean, who knows how much the debates actually have an effect? But I think Kamala did like the best in like exit polls or whatever about the debate of like any Democrat in any modern debate. Like I mean, if if debates do matter, then he definitely fucked it up. Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, it's hilarious to see people be like, oh, man, he was really ganged up on this time. And I mean, it's so crazy because what it does is it offers this opportunity for a Democratic Party that couldn't be less left at this point. A truly Republican, hard on crime, you know, take care of the border issues, support Israel, all of these awful policies. I mean, these are ruthless Republicans in anybody's book. And yet they're allowed to come out

looking sensible because the other guy's screaming about eating pets. I mean, there couldn't be a better design for the Republican Party as an ideology to take over everything, that, you know, that there no longer be even any, any semblance of contrast. And it's the choice, the classic centrist choice of, hey, it's us or fascism, right? It's us or the guy saying that, like, immigrants are eating your pets. Like, that's, that is, that is, you know, the same thing that we saw in France with Michael, you know, is like, he wanted that to be the choice. And he called the snap election. and then, of course, the left took the lead in terms of representation, and he refused to name a prime minister that was from the left, which would have been the normal thing to do, and said he named a guy who believes there should be no immigration, because that's what they want to do, is they want to stand next to the insane right-wing person so that they can find a, quote-unquote, sensible policy between what they're presenting and them. And the result is that we're constantly sliding right into a more and more totalitarian police state into, you know, a kind of like arms deals and forever wars.

And they just don't want anyone on stage. They don't want anyone in the conversation that has any kind of actual, like, kind of moral anchor. Because otherwise, you would see how far we've come, how far we've drifted. uh absolutely despicable stuff i hated to watch it but yeah like the dem response to the trump line about Haitians eating pets is like oh you know that's crazy that's crooky that's weird they shouldn't be coming here as well you know i agree yeah they're bad obviously but not because they're getting pets you know certainly not yeah and like let's be clear like i am not soft on immigrant crime which is just seating it's like you're totally seating all of the ground like forget it we're fucked we're absolutely cooked you know so yeah it's it's it's it's

really it's really it's really fucking sad to watch the dem position is leave it to the state to ruin these people's lives like let's not do programs of like citizens it should be the government comes and deports them uh fantastic stuff i mean there are some articles as well that have been released since you covered this uh Travis about how Haitian families are you know already being harassed and uh afraid to send their kids to school some are moving away because it's just feels too dangerous at this point. There's, you know, open white supremacist, like, rallies and stuff like that in the area to protest, you know, the idea that these people are living there. Very ugly stuff. There was also some bomb threats, as reported by ABC News, multiple buildings in Springfield, Ohio

received bomb threats. So, you know, this is, it's already just so great. Like, we just have these these people in charge willing to, you know, basically incite a stochastic program to win their election. So, and, um, I don't know. I just don't, I just don't find it enough just to laugh and be like, this guy, look at this crazy guy talking about pets. Like, we need to be, we need to be realistic about how we got here as well, you know, how this conversation ended up having one side of it being they're eating pets. Like, that's, that's a conversation that we're currently having right now. And, uh, to help it all, we had Marianne Williamson step in and offer her cool. take on this. Live, could you read the tweet? Continuing to dumb on Trump because of the

quote, eating cats issue will create a blowback on November 5th. Haitian voodoo is in fact real. I like to think she's saying that it is real. Like, it's like you can hex people. Yeah, I think she does believe that. Yeah, actually you're right. You're right. I think that's actually true. And to dismiss this 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. Oh, thank you very much, you fucking idiot. Thank you for contributing this to the conversation.

Also, for putting a period between Springfield and Ohio. Like, you can't even, you boomer-ass idiot, you fucking new-age fascist. I hate, I hate her so much. Again, this is, yeah, I love this idea that it's like, well, geez, could you, like, substantiate this wild claim you're making about these people? And then your reaction is like, oh, my God, you out. of touch elitists do not understand people

from this town to even question my the things I am saying proves that you are you know don't deserve to even be involved in this conversation I don't know I feel like I feel like I'm allowed to like ask what is the basis for the wild things you're saying that I don't think

that's out of bounds we need to amplify rule voices also just stating Haitian voodoo is in fact real yeah no fucking footnotes no fucking further allowed I was like, thank you. Yeah, what do you mean by like real? It's like, are you just like basically saying like, no, these people do have very strange

foreign, exotic, religious practices, and they're right to be afraid. The locals, the longtime residents are right to be afraid. Is this what she's saying? I have no fucking clue. Honestly, I imagine it's like Haitian voodoo is real and that's fine and they should be allowed to practice their weird voodoo ritual sacrifice religion. But you know, honestly, I think that's. her position. And there should be concerns. There should be concerns because as much as they should

have the religious freedom to practice their Haitian voodoo, it shouldn't be right to get someone else's pet. You should be doing it on animals you purchase legally. We need to talk about this. We need a dialogue from both sides about voodoo and pet owners. I think that's her position. Yeah, perhaps we could get the guy who called in and claimed that people were Haitian on site, that he could detect both nationality and race on site as he's on his way to something else. we could get him at the table with like a voodoo priest and just have like a good two-sided debate about like beliefs you know you can't just dismiss this out of hand god i hope a crystal falls on her head and fucking but yeah yeah yeah this whole i mean this is this is just really

really um ugly stuff and i you know i'm not going to say it's going to get worse but i'm gonna hope it doesn't i'll guess i'll say that it's gonna get worse this country is irredeemably racist. We roundly rejected the idea that black lives even mattered. Like, we have responded. The country has spoken, Travis, and we are going back in time to ancient racism. We are digging through all of the racism archives and the anti-Semitic archives, and we're supporting Israel against these feral terrorists, the Palestinian people. We are bombing people into oblivion. We are accusing local immigrants of eating

our pets, and it's going to get worse. Okay. Yeah. This is a good time for you to maybe bring back your catchphrase. Remember what that was? What was it? Travis. Say it, Travis. Right. It's not ideal.

There we go. The whole classroom points and claps. Woo! Oh, man. That's great. Well, what an amazing episode. It gives me true hope. It's just someone said this on Twitter.

I can't remember who, but it was like, who could have predicted the October surprise would be pogroms? Fuck. I mean, I guess historians and stuff. Yeah. Dissimal stuff. Grimms stuff. Yeah, truly, truly fucking grim, man.

There's no two ways about it, folks. And the For You page on Twitter continues to be this. kind of level of discourse for me. It's like people straight up saying like blacks be like this and like just crazy racist shit or behind all of this is and just posting the happy merchant meme. So yeah. Just like pro Hitler stuff. Yeah, pro Hitler stuff. It's good. It's exactly what Elon Musk wanted right. It's a town square that makes him feel like he is a normal part of you know, polite society as they delve into like the deepest recessism of the darkest

forms of racism. I mean, man, it just makes you fucking wish you could go back to reconstruction and do things a little differently. Yeah. I'm going to become fucking bane over this shit. Anyways, don't give up hope, folks. Head to the polls. Pokemon go to the polls. Woo!

We don't mean to be. pressing either. I mean, you know, it's just difficult covering this stuff sometimes mentally, physically, spiritually, but nothing can't be fixed. You know, you can fix it by going to Patreon.com slash QAA. And for five bucks a month, clean your conscience, become a virtuous person, consume the right form of content by subscribing to our podcast, getting a second episode for every main one we're making live choke i'm dying and cough and die that's why you also need to save her life by going to live agar dot com and following all of the instructions put of my newsletter you will follow the instructions read the newsletter for everything else we've got a website

qa podcast dot com listener until next week may the pure white park geese bless you and keep you and we miss you you so much, Jake, please come back. We know you have COVID and we're praying for you. We have auto-keyed content based on your preferences. I did a small post about this before, but people, you got to understand, this Haitian stuff, they are not only taking the animals for food. A lot of this stuff goes into Haitian voodoo. Haitian voodoo is some of the strongest stuff you're going to find out there. And it is absolutely terrifying stuff. I'm not even going to talk about everything that I've found out.

I have a good friend who practices Haitian voodoo. He's a bokor, which means a dark priest, which means he basically works with one hand that serves the devil. And that stuff, I'm telling you, look into it a little bit, look into the levels of animal sacrifice that go on in Haitian Voodoo. who do. It's a whole other level of stuff that we don't know about. It's a religion in Haiti. They serve the Lois, and the Lois are what they call gods. And if the Lois commands them to get an animal and sacrifice it to them, you know that they are going to get that animal. It can be a goat,

it can be a dog, it can be a calf, it can be a whole bunch of fucking animals. But let me explain it to you. And I won't even get into it all, because I know Plenty of it, but I don't want to talk about it because I don't frankly want that heat. I don't want those curses coming my way. But this Haitian voodoo stuff, the things they will sacrifice, y'all don't understand. This is not something that we are familiar with in the United States of America. This is not something that is practiced here. There are very few Haitian Bocores in the United States of America.

Very few. I think there's only like, there's very few, okay? and that's for a reason because the way that they do things you can't particularly do in the United States of America so when you hear all this oh they're eating the cats in Springfield oh if all they were doing was eating the cats that would be one level of scary this is another level of scary this is a level of scary that the mind the American mind without actually understanding this stuff can comprehend look up Haitian voodoo animal sacrifice look up Haitian voodoo, Bokor, spell it V-O-D-O-U.

And I don't want to be the one talking about it because I don't want that stuff. I don't want that heat at me. I got spiritual protection all day with St. Benedict on my neck, but I don't even want to fuck with that community. All I'm saying is just understand that these animal things is deeper than y'all think.

It's deeper than y'all think. Thank you.