September 13, 2024
Two days ago I mentioned that I would write about the spread of falsehoods regarding the consumption of stolen pets by Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. Little did I know that everybody and their uncle would jump onto the lie after it was uttered by a former President during the Trump/Harris debate (and is now repeated during campaign rallies as we speak.) Whether you read the NYT, The Washington Post, the Atlantic, Vox, Politico, the Guardian, the Wall Street Journal, or countless essays on Substack, people express horror, disgust and step deep into analysis, why this kind of lie is spread, believed, and exceedingly dangerous.
What can I possibly add? Maybe a basic primer on the function and use of memes? A check on historical sources that understood the value of propaganda? Lucky for me, all of that is spelled out in detail in the teaching materials of the U.S. Holocaust Museum, which I will summarize, applied to the case in point.
Here is where we stand right now: the rumor started in late August during a march staged by the nearby neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe and a diatribe in front of the Springfield city commission about the savagery of the Haitian immigrants. It was posted on Facebook.
A flood of memes followed (created by Republicans and their wing men), many indirectly alerting to the issue by making Trump the heroic rescuer of barnyard menagerie. J.D. Vance then spread the lie via tweets, careful to insert an “if rumors are true” in the margins, not so the House Judiciary GOP, and Elon Musk tweeting to his million of followers. Trump locked onto it, publicly disseminating it during the debate. He was fact checked, at the debate, (and again during the last two days when he continued to utter the claim during rallies), by multiple official sources from Springfield, including city hall and the police, that the rumors are not true.
(I have consciously left out the memes that depict Blacks in the background in more savage fashion than the one above. They are horrifying in their attempt to ride on stereotypes of black violence.)
Meanwhile, Vance insists on keeping the memes coming.
And wouldn’t you know it, threats of violence against multiple actors in Springfield have multiplied as of today. Bomb threats against administrative offices (the one who denied the veracity of the claims), the media, threats against schools, now sending kids home early. Fear is spreading among the Haitian population, called on keeping their kids inside and not expose themselves to potential harm at night.
Rightwing extremists are stoking the potential for violence by announcing bounties.
NONE OF THIS IS NEW.
“Propaganda is a truly terrible weapon in the hands of an expert.—Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (1924).
And the more cruel and politically expedient, the more it is employed. By definition, it is biased or untrue information intended to shape people’s beliefs and behavior. In racist societies propaganda plays a major role in establishing who is included and who either belongs to the margin, or should be irrevocably excluded. The means by which propaganda is applied, and the receptivity of the audience are both factors that shape how successfully the manipulation proceeds. For the Nazis, rallies, print material, the radio and film were all used to spread the message.
These days, we also have so-called memes that are disseminated across the internet. Like all propaganda, memes simplify complex issues, and speak to emotions. Moreover, they help to construct collective identity, give us a feeling we belong because we “get the joke.” They grab attention, they establish or prolong a cultural discourse. (In fact, the term was coined by Richard Dawkins some 50 years ago; he believed that cultural ideas, like genes, can spread and mutate, fostered by a surge of dopamine when we recognize what is expressed and emotionally react to it.)
In societies as divided as our’s, these seemingly humorous images act both as a formation for in-group belonging (remember the meme of Bernie sitting with his hand in mittens, transported into all sorts of weird situation, and we smiled every time?) and as a jab at the other side, which is ridiculed for its ignorance or negative reaction.
Memes are not inherently bad, depending on content. But memes breed partisanship, and when they gleefully ignore the absence or distortion of facts, in fact are passionately indifferent to truth, and open the gate wide to racism, they do harm. Trump himself posted this today.
They fall on fertile ground, since the slander that immigrants have unacceptable dietary habits is as old as this country. Across the ages, Asian immigrants have been accused of eating dogs. Jews, of course, have been accused of eating something altogether different and more heinous.
Haitian immigrants are particularly vulnerable, however. They immigrated en masse in the 1980s, and were treated as economic migrants despite fleeing the repressive rule of the Duvaliers. In the 90s they were stashed in a camp at Guantanamo to process asylum claims. David Duke and Pat Buchanan railed against the immigration of non-Whites, and reports on high numbers of HIV infections among the Haitian refugees elicited panic in the American public. Extremists had picked a definable out-group and today’s heirs to this thinking pursue it without remorse.
Legal immigrants have massively contributed to the American economy ever since. Temporary Protected Status Holders from Haiti, Honduras and El Salvador contribute a combined $4.5 billion annually to our GDP. Some 15,000 Haitian immigrants have moved to Springfield, helping revitalize the local economy and filling the pews of local churches. They came legally and are doing all the right things, but are the perfect target for dishonorable smears, however far fetched.
It is hard to deny that once again things boil down to the color of skin, and gleeful racism amuses those who found what looks like an easy target. As Ken White, a first amendment litigator and criminal attorney points out:
Engaging on the same level cannot be the answer. How can you reach across the divide, though, when it all boils down to beliefs and emotions, rather than on a willingness to establish facts?
What should the answer be? You tell me.
Music today from Haiti.
Mike O'Brien
This helped me, from Susan Barndt, a professor at Pomona College:
Opinion: Do you remember what politics were like without Donald Trump? My students don’t
Sept. 9, 2024 3 AM PT
Trump supporters sign a campaign bus featuring a large image of the former president’s face.
Supporters sign a Trump campaign bus during the Conservative Political Action Conference in February. To younger voters, he is truly representative of the Republican Party. (Jose Luis Magana / Associated Press)
By Susan McWilliams Barndt
Every year, I ask my political science students, “What is your earliest political memory?”
I pose the question to figure out what political and cultural moments have shaped them. Over the years, their answers have served mainly to help me think about the mix of perspectives in my classroom. But lately my students’ responses have made me rethink modern American politics.
Why? Because most of my students cannot remember a politics without Donald Trump at its center. Only a few can remember Barack Obama’s second inauguration, in 2012, and only vaguely.
This has serious implications for their political identities — and the nation’s.
Most of today’s college students are 18 to 22 years old, so they were 9 to 13 when Trump elbowed his way onto the political stage in 2015. Having come of age in the Trump era, they think about politics very differently from the rest of us.
With both parties aggressively courting Gen Z voters, this could have a radical effect on the coming election. And it should have older voters thinking differently too.
One major difference among age groups is that these young voters barely knew the pre-MAGA Republican Party. Trump can still feel like an aberration to those of us who are older — a singular figure who hijacked the “true” GOP and remade it in his own image.
That makes it possible for many MAGA-hating “Never Trumpers,” for example, to keep calling themselves Republicans. Groups such as the Lincoln Project, websites such as the Dispatch and politicians such as former Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger offer some of the most articulate and uncompromising anti-Trump takes. Most of these arguments come from folks of a certain age who still identify, in their hearts, as Republicans.
But for young voters, the idea of a different kind of Republican Party might as well be historical fiction. It feels as distant from them as the Whigs or the Federalists — a story that took place a long time ago in an America far, far away.
Even my students with traditionally Republican and conservative beliefs struggle to think of themselves as Republicans. They prefer to be known as independents, Libertarians or even Democrats.
Those who do call themselves Republicans do so because of Trump. As polls have repeatedly shown, the young people who support the former president are also overwhelmingly men.
This shift in perception is one reason it might be harder to de-MAGA-fy the Republican Party than a lot of Never Trumpers hope. Even when Trump finally departs the political scene on that golden escalator to the great beyond, he will have redefined the word “Republican” for a generation in a way that will be hard to undo.
My students have made me look at Democrats differently too. Those of us with pre-MAGA memories may compare the vibes and memes around the Harris-Walz ticket to the energy of Obama’s first presidential campaign. But most of today’s college-age voters were toddlers when Obama began promising “change you can believe in.”
For them, the Harris-Walz campaign’s positive momentum is far more than an echo of an earlier campaign. It’s a totally new way of thinking about politics — a revelation that elections can be about possibility. These vibes are different for them. And they are huge.
For the first time, many college-age voters are experiencing the joy and excitement that can come from joining others, sometimes in person, and committing to a shared vision of a better world. That is not a feeling that dissipates. It is a major driver of participation and action, as we’re seeing not just on TikTok but also in voter registration numbers.
So when people my age say Kamala Harris’ good vibes can’t last until the election, I acknowledge that might be true — for people my age.
But for the youngest voters in this election, those vibes might actually represent the deeper, seismic rumblings of a generation on the move. And I’m not so certain they will go away before this election, or even after it.
Gen Z voters hardly remember what came before Trump. Soon it may be harder to remember American politics without them.
Sara Lee Silberman
Those photos – “memes” – of Trump, the protector of cats, render me speechless. With disgust and worry. What else?
Thanks for the illumination. I guess!
Philip Bowser
Best summary ever!