In what ought to be a headline in The Onion but is instead a clear reminder of the deplorable state of political discourse from MAGA world, the Arizona Republican Party has launched a billboard campaign declaring that only the GOP opposes eating kittens.
I wish this was just monkeyshines, but it’s very, very real.
The billboards, which ape the iconic Chik-fil-A billboards featuring cows encouraging people to eat chicken sandwiches instead of hamburgers, are quite insane. The purpose, AZGOP Chairwoman Gina Swoboda crowed in a press release, is to highlight “disturbing stories” about illegal immigrants perpetrating “unthinkable behavior” in Ohio that acts as a “sobering reminder of the stakes” in the election.
It’s all hogwash.
A quick bit of background is probably warranted, because the story is the perfect example of how the right-wing disinformation media ecosystem works — and how MAGA voters are eager to accept any lie about the people they despise, regardless of how idiotic it is.
In the past week, claims went viral on social media — in particular on X, the once-great site known as Twitter that has become a hive of right-wing extremism and racism — that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing pet cats and eating them. Others supposedly were chowing down on swans and ducks they caught in public parks.
On Sept. 8, Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, posted the batty rumor on X, blaming Kamala Harris for the alleged noshing on pets. The claim has since been amplified by a host of right-wing influencers and politicians, who all credulously swallowed the story hook, line and sinker and performatively wailed about it.
If they cared about the truth — and be sure, they absolutely don’t — they’d have quickly discovered that the claim is bull. It stems from an anonymous post on a Springfield Facebook group, according to the Springfield News-Sun, the local newspaper in the city of about 60,000 people that fact-checked the bonkers story.
The Facebook post presented as fact unverified third-hand information about a cat allegedly being mutilated — and claimed that local law enforcement was aware of a problem involving Haitians butchering local pets or waterfowl.
Except the police said there have been no reports of that, and Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said there’s exactly zero evidence that any geese or ducks were being killed and eaten by anyone, immigrant or not.
To sum up: The Trump campaign is pushing a disgustingly racist lie to smear the 20,000 or so Haitian immigrants that have helped revitalize Springfield, where they work in a Honda factory and a Dole fruit-packing center.
And now the Arizona Republican Party is doggedly using that racist fabrication as a way to scare voters into backing Trump, even though everyone knows there’s no truth to it.
This is the culmination of the Trump effect on Republicans and the conservative movement. Alternative facts are all that matters, and the party’s leaders won’t be cowed into humility or reasonable behavior.
This story was first published by Arizona Mirror, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
