In a statement on Monday, September 9, Vance said on the platform formerly known as Twitter, "Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country." The "reports" he was referencing were the theories and racist claims made by Springfield residents following recent influx of immigrants, primarily from Haiti. The following day he walked back part of the statement claiming they were only killing the pets, not eating them. But, the damage has been done as National Security Council Spokesman, John Kirby, stated "the false claims about immigrants were a “dangerous” variety of conspiracy theory." With conspiracies that spread extremely negative misinformation it can lead to violence and acts of hate, regardless of the insanity of the claims. One local Haitian had even reported an uptick in harassment and racist comments in the aftermath of JD Vance's comments.
Furthermore, JD Vance in the same statement walking back the eating of pets, doubled down on the conspiracy encouraging followers to "Keep the cat memes flowing," the cat memes being cat photos with edited text with racist ideology and slogans such as, "don't eat me immigrants". Adding further fuel to the fire, he referenced a crash from last year involving a Haitian man driving a minivan hitting a school bus killing one 11 year old boy and injuring 20 more. The man was later charged with involuntary manslaughter and vehicular manslaughter being sentenced to 13 years in prison. His statement on the story was that "a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant,” a statement that mischaracterized the crime, instead depicting it as an act of violence from an immigrant, not an accident.
However, the spread of misinformation gets even worse. On September 10th, the debate between presidential candidates, former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris took place. During their debate the issue of immigration was posed to Donald Trump and he, on live TV in front of hundreds of thousands of Americans, with a straight face said that Haitian immigrants were eating and killing pets as if it was fact and used it as a reason to deport immigrants. The moderators quickly interjected with a statement that the story had been debunked as false, but he doubled down and ignored them. With both the backing of the former president and his running mate, JD Vance, the story can now cause even more damage than before.
JD Vance's constant vocalization of anti-immigrant and hateful rhetoric is nothing new for Republican followers of Donald Trump. With the rise of misinformation and social media, Donald Trump and his supporters have utilized the technology to warp the perspective of the American public and "Red-pill" people bringing them further and further right. As we discussed in seminars regarding media the conservative right has a tendency to get news from select sources that heavily bias and skew towards conservative beliefs. Due to this fact JD Vance and others utilize it push their political agenda by spreading conspiracy, biased info, or general misinformation to promote beliefs in this case not dissimilar from Neo-Nazism.
The dangers of these beliefs cannot be understated, with a history of racism and general bigotry, the promotion of racism ideology can spark renewed violence directed towards minorities. An example of this very principle was Donald Trump's social media and press statements regarding covid as the China Virus. Following those statements a rise in anti-Asian hate occurred increasing by 77% in America. With continued rhetoric towards Haitians, people of primarily African descent, a rise in anti-black hate could be on the horizon. Thus the danger of JD Vance's statements are clear, as altering people's perspectives and manipulating them into blaming immigrants for every problem can and has led to hate-crimes aimed at minorities.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sources:
4 comments:
I think that right now, especially after statements made in the Presidential Debate, the Trump administration is facing severe backlash for many false claims and accusations. In your blog post, you pointed out how Trump refused to back down on his statement about the Haitian immigrants during his debate, and how the story can cause more damage than ever. The story is actually causing quite a lot of damage right now, as Springfield actually had to suspend a City Hall after the debate because of a bomb threat. This kind of misinformation propagated by political figures, like Trump, who have a large and loyal following is very dangerous to the public safety and welfare in general, and even though it is fact checked, there is not really anything that people can do about it. Maybe Springfield can sue Trump for defamation. Otherwise, there is going to be a group of people in the United States that wholeheartedly believe that Haitian immigrants are eating dogs and cats in Springfield.
100% agree with everything you said, and I hope that's also reflected in my article's opinion. The issue with conspiracy's such as these is they go unchecked and spread targeted hate towards minorities, a trend seen with the "China Virus" (also backed by Trump). If these unbacked and targeted conspiracies continue unchecked they will only grow in scale and size. I'd argue that classifying conspiracy's targeted ethnic or religious groups as hate crimes and punishable or enforceable law in some form could be a solution. It'd stop a lot of these hateful and violent ideas from spreading.
I think that the points you make in your article are particularly compelling. Even a week after this wrong statement was made by Vance, in a press interview a few days ago, he stated he was willing to spew lies in order to get the medias attention; even if these lies as reported, are racist and have real life implications for the people involved (The recent threats to the officials and hateful rhetoric towards the citizens of Springfield as proof of this disheartening impact). Moreover, the fact that Vance himself, is a senate representative of the state Springfield resides in is maddening; as he is harming the town by spreading racist ideology towards the very people he is supposed to be representing and advocating for-- it makes you wonder if these are the people in office, how these beliefs translate into unjust legislature and systemic oppression, and/or problems within these cities.
Post a Comment