If there’s one clip you’ve seen from last Tuesday’s debate, it’s probably the infamous lie by Trump, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats.” To some, this quote might seem to be a harmless, silly soundbite or even a true statement. However, the comment underscores a deeper danger surrounding the outcome of spreading such falsehoods, both for innocent people and for our democratic norms.
To begin, it’s important to establish what is fact and where this outlandish claim originated. According to NBC, the rumor accused Haitian immigrants of eating pets in the city of Springfield, Ohio. It began among members of the neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe in August, spreading quickly to Facebook and X (formerly Twitter). On Sept. 9, Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance amplified the claim on social media, at which point the national press took notice. Just a day later, Trump brought these claims to the debate stage. When he did so, ABC moderator David Muir took care to fact-check, noting that the city manager of Springfield, Bryan Heck, had said no credible reports existed of pets being eaten.
The damage was already done, though. Over the past few days, the city of Springfield has been wracked by bomb threats made in the wake of Trump’s comments. Per the Guardian, two hospitals had to enter lockdown protocol and schools were evacuated while the threats were investigated. Meanwhile, emailed threats targeting the Haitian immigrant community were sent to Wittenberg University in Springfield. While Trump did not send the messages himself, it’s no coincidence that people were emboldened to make threats after his reckless, inflammatory claim in the debate. Trump’s rhetoric has long influenced his supporters and driven them to harangue those caught in the crossfire; his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen led to election workers across the country receiving numerous threats and the breaching of the U.S Capitol on Jan. 6. Make no mistake: words have consequences, especially when spoken by a former president with a devoted following. Trump’s “cats and dogs” claim put innocent Haitian immigrants and American citizens in needless danger.
The absurdity of Trump’s comments raises the question of how such an extreme rumor ever made it to the debate stage. The answer lies in a distinctly dangerous instinct to bring about the moment when lies become truth and facts are rendered meaningless. To Trump and Vance, it doesn’t matter whether the claim is true – Vance acknowledged in a post on X the day of the debate that “It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false” – it matters that the lie is now part of the national discourse and that his supporters believe it. The media can fact-check, this article can be written, but we are entering an age where the truth is easily muddled. This has been Trump’s intention even before his presidency, beginning when he spread false claims about Obama’s birth certificate. One day after assuming office, Trump’s then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer claimed that the inauguration crowd had been the largest ever, which was disproved by several major media outlets such as the New York Times, CNN and ABC News – but White House counselor Kellyanne Conway coined the term “alternative facts” to describe Spicer’s assertions. There is no better term to describe Trump’s philosophy. It is a comprehensive strategy which seeks to poison fair, rational discourse, first by making false claims and then smearing those who attempt to fact check. Indeed, Vance said of the Haitian immigrant controversy, according to Forbes, that he wanted to “create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people.” To the MAGA movement, Trump and his surrogates are the only ones who can be trusted. In reality, it is Vance and Trump who are doing a disservice to the American people by amplifying false rumors. The 2020 election brought forth this philosophy to the worst moment in American democracy since the Civil War – a sitting president refusing to admit he lost. There was no evidence to support his baseless claims, and every court case where the issue was brought up was quickly thrown out. But his supporters believed, and continue to believe, that there were legitimate issues with the election. That belief in the face of rational facts, fueled by Trump’s lies, fed into the tragic events of Jan. 6. In a similar vein, the absurdity of the idea that immigrants are eating cats and dogs feeds into the MAGA strategy of replacing fact-based discussion with outright falsehoods. When we have lost the ability to determine facts, we have lost an important piece of a healthy democracy.