By Julian Feeld, Travis View & Jake Rockatansky
Published September 13, 2024 5:45pm
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...