Cat Scratch Political Fever

 

Jeffrey St. Clair>>

Miss Sassy started the biggest political fire since Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lamp and burned down Chicago. Last month, Miss Sassy disappeared from the sight of her owner, Anna Kilgore, a Trump-Vance fanatic in Springfield, Ohio. After a couple of days, Kilgore called 9-11, claiming that her Calico cat may have been stolen and devoured by her Haitian neighbors, who she’d never bothered to get to know.

Someone sent this unverified police report to Ohio Senator and Trump sidekick JD Vance, who tweeted out his racist alarum that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing cats and eating them. A day later, Donald Trump amplified this bigoted slur during his debate with Kamala Harris. Soon, Springfield’s city hall and schools were hit with bomb threats.

This week, the Vance campaign sent the Wall Street Journal a copy of the police report as proof of an epidemic of pet-eating by Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. Later that evening a Journal reporter knocked on Kilgore’s door to inquire about her missing and allegedly gormandized cat. Kilgore said Miss Sassy wasn’t missing; after all, she’d been hiding in the basement and reappeared a couple of days later. Kilgore said that she’d already apologized to her Haitian neighbors, something JD Vance is unlikely ever to do.
+ The alleged Haitian “geese-napper” in Springfield, Ohio, wasn’t in Springfield, but Columbus, 40 miles away. Didn’t steal the geese, he was shown holding, they were roadkill. And, alas, isn’t Haitian. Close, but no cigar, MAGA…

+ Give JD Vance credit for being honest about his pathological dishonesty: “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.”

+ Still even after admitting he was telling racist fairy tales, a majority of Trump supporters believe the Haitian immigrants are stealing-and-eating-pets lie, while independents disbelieve it more than 2-to-1, though.