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Why Trump fell for the Haitian dog-eating meme

No pets were harmed in the making of this debate. Credit: Getty

September 12, 2024 - 10:00am

Donald Trump’s debate performance against Kamala Harris on Tuesday night will be remembered almost entirely for a statement that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago. “They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” the Republican candidate declared, referring to social media rumours about the dietary preferences of Haitian immigrants in Ohio.

This moment encapsulates the current ecosystem of Right-wing ideas and their propagation. What began as a handful of vague posts on the fringes of the internet has become the most memorable talking point in a presidential debate, eagerly leapt on by the former president. Trump has historically been no stranger to amplifying fringe theories. But in 2024, the Right-wing rumour mill operates at warp speed.

The contrast with Trump’s dismissive attitude towards the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 couldn’t be starker. When Harris brought up this interesting and comprehensive conservative policy blueprint, Trump claimed to have “nothing to do with it” and said he hadn’t even read it. This juxtaposition tells the story: the MAGA base is more energised by and receptive to provocative, easily-shareable content than dense policy proposals, even those crafted by the best and brightest at conservative think tanks.

This pattern in communication on the Right can be traced through the spread of the pet-eating meme. It began with vague social media posts, including a fourth-hand story in a Facebook group about local crime. These unverified claims were then given a wider audience at public meetings, where residents spoke about violence against animals without providing evidence. Despite repeated statements from Springfield police and the city’s mayor that there were no credible reports of such incidents, the rumour gained enough traction to be picked up by prominent Republicans, with Ohio Senator and vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance — a heavy social media userpointing to these claims as evidence of immigrant-induced chaos.

This bottom-up flow of information, from internet forums to the debate stage, has supplanted traditional top-down policy dissemination. It’s a far cry from the days when conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation could shape the Republican agenda through considered policy proposals such as the 1994 midterm election-defining Contract with America. Now, the currency of ideas is increasingly measured in shares and retweets rather than policy papers and institutional endorsements.

Of course, this phenomenon isn’t limited to the American Right, but it is here that it is most acute. Trump’s debate performance, meanwhile, wasn’t just a personal quirk, but a window into the transforming grassroots conservative landscape. This shift has been building for years: in Nevada this June, Trump pushed another unverified claim about the January 6 riots, saying: “All they were doing is protesting a rigged election. And then the police say, ‘Go in, go in’ to the Capitol,” he said of his supporters. “What a set-up that was.”

This statement, like the pet-eating rumour, flies in the face of established facts. Nearly 140 law enforcement officers were injured trying to keep protesters out of the US Capitol that day, according to official reports. Outside of the usual gamesmanship and political gerrymandering that precedes every trip to the polls, there’s no evidence the 2020 election was “rigged” or that Trump supporters were the victims of an FBI “set-up”. Yet these claims continue to gain traction within certain conservative circles.

As we move deeper into the 2024 election cycle, Trump’s viral comments remind us that the traditional gatekeepers of Right-wing thought — think tanks, policy wonks and establishment figures — have been sidelined in favour of a more decentralised, internet-driven approach to spreading ideas.

For better or worse, this is the new reality of conservative politics in America. The pet-eating rumour’s bottom-up journey from social media to the presidential debate stage is just one example of how this system works. If Trump can make it work for him once more — and polls have tightened recently, even if most show Harris “prevailing” in the debate — then we may be facing a sea change in how American democracy functions, from policy formation to the very mechanisms of governance itself.


Oliver Bateman is a historian and journalist based in Pittsburgh. He blogs, vlogs, and podcasts at his Substack, Oliver Bateman Does the Work

MoustacheClubUS

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Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden
1 month ago

I just thought of ritual voodoo as well as crime and vagrancy if a significant influx is involved to suburban America. And if such gangs can traffick children with such ease, then they will do the same to pets.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 month ago
Reply to  Tyler Durden

And there is now police audio indicating that they are killing and eating the local gease and ducks. So dogs and cats is hardly a stretch and , for all we know, common place in Haiti.
What is also interesting is how the MSM, and in the context of the debate, Muir, just dismissed the cats and dogs story because the town inspector told them it wasn’t true. Well of course the town inspector would say that if he’s a democrat toadie. But did the MSM ever send reporters out there to actually investigate and talk to the local people who live there. Of course not. That is the real story because the MSM no longer seems to do real reporting but just relies on statements from authority.

Andrew Dalton
Andrew Dalton
1 month ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

They’re stenographers, not journalists.

ChilblainEdwardOlmos
ChilblainEdwardOlmos
1 month ago
Reply to  Andrew Dalton

Presstitutes and Whorespondants.

Martin M
Martin M
1 month ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

I myself (a respectable middle aged, middle class white man) have eaten any number of geese and ducks in my long life. Never eaten a dog or cat though.

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
1 month ago

The author tries to characterise ‘the Right’ by this idiocy. If that’s what ‘the Right’ are about, i’ll eat my hat.

Aidan Trimble
Aidan Trimble
1 month ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

Or, indeed, your cat.

Steven Carr
Steven Carr
1 month ago

The author has no problem with the Biden/Harris administration allowing so many Haitians into America that a town of 60,000 in Ohio now has 10 to 15 thousand Haitians , who left Haiti after turning their country into a gangster state.

Martin M
Martin M
1 month ago
Reply to  Steven Carr

Is it possible that these Haitians left Haiti because other Haitians turned it into a gangster state?

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago
Reply to  Martin M

It is absolutely true that they are here because of Harris.

glyn harries
glyn harries
1 month ago
Reply to  Steven Carr

You can make no such claim as the author does not look at that but simply the idiot story of immigrants eating pets.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago
Reply to  Steven Carr

The invasion of Sprigfield is happening nationwide. And who was in charge of border/ immigration policy….

Laurents De Wit
Laurents De Wit
1 month ago

It could just as well be explained as a smart strategic move that shifts people’s attention away from a mediocre debate from Trump, towards this somewhat ridiculous issue which nevertheless has people looking into the real issues of the 20k migrants in Springfield.

Steven Carr
Steven Carr
1 month ago

The Biden/Harris administration is trying to boost the American economy by importing tens of thousands of unskilled black workers to act as cheap labour.
That was an idea that was around in the 18th century in America….

Guy Haynes
Guy Haynes
1 month ago

Could be wrong about this, but this strikes me as the equivalent to the “£350m a week to the EU” on the side of a bus during Brexit.
I’d never heard anything about this until it was raised by Trump, but it sounded so bizarrely other-wordly that I did some scouring of t’internet – and found that, while there is indeed little if any evidence of Haitians eating household pets by the dozen in Springfield, there is a whole lot of chaos being caused by the dumping of tens of thousands of Haitian migrants in Ohio, and residents’ lives are truly being made a misery. And said dumping of said migrants has the Democrats’ fingerprints all over it.
Back in 2016, all the ever-so-clever media types squealed with outrage over the fact that we don’t send the EU £350m a week once the payments in the other direction are factored in – the argument was eventually won by the other side as people became curious and found out that we actually did send the EU a net figure of over half that amount without getting a lot in return. Which a lot of normal people, people who might be undecided on how to vote in the Brexit referendum, thought outrageous. And to make it even cuter, it was the oh-so-clever media types publicising this fact by their zealous outrage over the Leave Campaign’s “lies”.
And so it is here – all these incredibly-intelligent media types think (in a completely unbiased way of course, obviously they’re neutral in this race) that they’re helping the Democrats by outing Trump’s “lies”, but I suspect what they’re doing is drawing the attention of people who would otherwise be ignorant to the fact that the real-life effects of the Democrats’ asylum policy are genuinely dreadful.
I’m not sure this is the gotcha for the Democrats that Oliver and his very clever media types think.
Oh, and please spare me the outrage over the dishonest way in which this has been raised by Trump – there were multiple distortions from the Democrat side as well, notably on Trump’s abortion stance, her own abortion stance, Project 2025, the Border Bill, her own stance on fracking and many more. No outrage from Oliver, or fact-checks from ABC. And all that’s before we start mention the Russia dossier, the Hunter Biden laptop and many other items that the media covered so dishonestly for so long.
Without in any way wishing to be a cheerleader for Trump, it would nevertheless be genuinely hilarious if Trump has ended up outplaying his self-proclaimed far more intelligent adversaries in the media.

Maria Borisof
Maria Borisof
1 month ago
Reply to  Guy Haynes

Actually, there is a video on YT about a woman eating a cat. The video is genuine and it is from the police interview of the person. It happened in Ohio, but it is unclear whether the woman is Haitian.

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
1 month ago
Reply to  Maria Borisof

I wouldn’t be so dismissive of it, without having tried some barbecued Tabby with Creole spices.

Martin M
Martin M
1 month ago
Reply to  Maria Borisof

Surely the question of whether she is Haitian (or an immigrant of any kind) is a relevant one?

mac mahmood
mac mahmood
1 month ago
Reply to  Guy Haynes

The brouhaha over the bus was not about that money was not going to the EU, but rather over the claim that £350M/day was to be given to the NHS instead, which has turned out to be totally false.

Steven Carr
Steven Carr
1 month ago
Reply to  mac mahmood

Indeed! More than 350 million a day was given to the NHS instead.
Between 2015-16 (the year before the referendum) and 2019-20 (the year before the COVID-19 pandemic), the NHS budget in England rose by £400 million per week in real terms

Jim C
Jim C
1 month ago
Reply to  mac mahmood

Actually, although people inferred that was what would happen, the slogan never said all that money would go to the NHS

Aidan Trimble
Aidan Trimble
1 month ago
Reply to  mac mahmood

You’re right, it was false. It was a lot more.

Jim C
Jim C
1 month ago
Reply to  Guy Haynes

The “intelligent” writer appears not to know the difference between evidence and proof.

So he repeatedly claims that there’s no evidence for various conservative beliefs (the FBI setup Jan 6 protectors, the election was rigged, the police let in the protesters) but in fact there’s quite a lot of evidence for all these beliefs. What there isn’t, is definitive proof.

Yet he then writes that according to official reports that 140+ police were injured is a “fact”. Yes, it is a fact that the official reports assert this, but that isn’t proof that the police didn’t let protesters in; it’s evidence.

… evidence that is contradicted by other evidence, such as multiple eye-witness testimonies, cctv footage show police ushering in and escorting protesters around the Capitol, etc.

The problem with writers like this isn’t that they’re not intelligent. The problem is that they don’t know how to think.

R Wright
R Wright
1 month ago
Reply to  Jim C

“And then the police say, ‘Go in, go in’ to the Capitol,” he said of his supporters. “What a set-up that was.” This statement, like the pet-eating rumour, flies in the face of established facts.”
I was watching the whole thing on a live stream as it happened and the author is incorrect. The police line opened up as if by magic and let them walk in.

David McKee
David McKee
1 month ago
Reply to  Guy Haynes

I’m not sure the 2016 referendum is a good analogy. It was an insurgency, which was opposed by most of the political establishment. It was not an election for a government. An insurgency needs to be a little creative with the facts.

I got the impression Trump was just making up ‘facts’ as he went along. He had no credibility at all.

Guy Haynes
Guy Haynes
1 month ago
Reply to  David McKee

David, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an election more like an insurgency than this, other than possibly 2020 – and that includes the Brexit Referendum. Far more of the political establishment favoured Brexit than favour Trump. Far more of the national media in its country favoured Brexit than favour Trump. Not even most of his own party want Trump to win!

Jae
Jae
1 month ago
Reply to  Guy Haynes

Hahahaha! What in the world are you smoking?

Jae
Jae
1 month ago
Reply to  David McKee

Take the time to fact check Trump as I did and not on left wing media alone. Because if you’re going to vote that’s what you should do. He’s generally not wrong as I discovered, suffers from hyperbole and exaggeration more than most. But nowhere near the lies and delusions we’re required to believe to vote for Kamala. I’d have to deny what I can clearly see and hear with my own eyes and ears to vote for her. Not going to happen, I don’t want 4 more years of what we just got, not going back.

T Bone
T Bone
1 month ago
Reply to  Jae

Exactly. He’s stretching the truth and she’s inverting it with cropped soundbites.

David McKee
David McKee
1 month ago
Reply to  Jae

Let me get this straight. You want to elect someone who gave Gen. Milley, the then chairman of the Joint Chiefs, concern that he, Trump, might try to use the military to keep himself in power after he lost the 2020 election?

In heaven’s name, why?

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago
Reply to  David McKee

You have that exactly backward. They were part of the actual coup.

Liakoura
Liakoura
1 month ago
Reply to  Jae

While Biden’s memory problems are widely known and were the major reason for his withdrawal. Trump however needs to be careful who he calls in his defence.
 “Though Donald’s fundamental nature hasn’t changed, since his inauguration the amount of stress he’s under has changed dramatically. It’s not the stress of the job, because he isn’t doing the job—unless watching TV and tweeting insults count. It’s the effort to keep the rest of us distracted from the fact that he knows nothing—about politics, civics, or simple human decency—that requires an enormous amount of work.”
― Mary L. Trump,in ‘Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man’
And from Bob Woodward’s book:
Former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats reportedly told Former Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, about Trump – ‘he doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie’.
and 
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was no more complimentary, commenting privately that Trump’s ‘attention span is like a minus number.’

Janine Econ
Janine Econ
26 days ago
Reply to  Liakoura

Mary Trump seems to be consumed with vindictive hatred over some slight at being left out of a legacy in the family. Fauci is likely going to be indicted for his own colossal lies about bioweapons research in China if our Senate hearings have anything to do with it. It’s very clear that the intelligence establishment (friends of Bob Woodward) worked to get rid of Trump before he even became President. Not good witnesses

General Store
General Store
1 month ago

Immigrants are sh*tting on beaches in Canada. And they have been raping white and Sikh girls in northern England. This is the sort of thing that happens when radically different cultures are thrown together, along with a little poverty…and when the immigrants are coming not in a trickle….but a flood…an entire subculture…often from the same small village…in the same backwater.. Memes have traction not because people are stupid….but because they capture a reality. In this case the dog eating is irrelevant. Springfield has been transformed/destroyed (for some people), lives changed….the feeling changed….and it feels very negative.
This is why they don’t go to Martha’s Vineyard …and why Many Pelosi doesn’t have to pick her way through human excrement.
If you want immigration on this scale, then you have to also fund radical coercive integration and assimilation programmes….for the good of the immigrants as well as the host communities….But if you really want it, you should host them in your own communities with your own people. Springfield clearly wasn’t asked and has no capacity to say no. It’s already died once. And now it’s being killed agin
But Trump is too stupid/narcissistic or just old….and can’t restrain himself. He rambles…gets played. If we end up the the extreme left air-head, it will be his own fault. And the dog eating will get worse

El Uro
El Uro
1 month ago
Reply to  General Store

But Trump is too stupid/narcissistic or just old….and can’t restrain himself. He rambles…gets played. If we end up the the extreme left air-head, it will be his own fault. And the dog eating will get worse
.
But one can also assume, looking at the Swifties, that these are too stupid/narcissistic voters

Kent Ausburn
Kent Ausburn
1 month ago
Reply to  El Uro

As the Babylon Bee recently noted, a woman who has made a living singing about her bad life decisions has just endorsed voting for Kamala Harris.

El Uro
El Uro
1 month ago
Reply to  Kent Ausburn

A rather strange desire to brag about one’s failures. Strange from a man’s point of view, but not from a woman’s.
However, we are no better. Let’s take the known statement “My wife is a fool.” The question immediately arises in my head “Okay, so be it, but who are you, if you decided to marry her?”

Liakoura
Liakoura
1 month ago
Reply to  General Store

“If we end up the the extreme left air-head…”
You’re like the man Trump – just because you believe what’s in your head, doesn’t mean the world somehow changes to match that belief.
Extreme-left political groups and individuals support the revolutionary redistribution of income and wealth. They argue that capitalism and consumerism are the cause social inequality and advocate their dissolution. Extreme-left groups and individuals also support the abolition of private property and the violent overthrow of capitalist governments and societies, the seizure, confiscation and redistribution of private property and wealth.
The Extreme-left believes violence is necessary because the ruling class would never relinquish their power peacefully and because the violence would cleanse the false consciousness of participants on both sides of the struggle. Well at least those who survived the carnage.
Your suggestion that Harris’ politics are ‘extreme-left’ is sadly an indication of your own lack of political education. So here’s something to help you remedy that deficiency:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-left_politics

General Store
General Store
1 month ago
Reply to  Liakoura

reparations, trans operations for children, abortion until 9 months, DEI – are all based on the same anthropology and zero sum conflict theory that animated Marx. It’s far left and extreme

Daniel Lee
Daniel Lee
1 month ago

A photo is making the rounds of the internet of a street person striding along the sidewalk with a firm grip on a Canada Goose that I doubt he was taking to a wildlife rehabilitator. Eating pets is another of those perhaps spurious rumors that gains credence not because Republicans are credulous, but because they fit so well with obvious reality – in general if not in detail – in an environment where legacy media has been plainly unreliable for decades.

tintin lechien
tintin lechien
1 month ago

I sense a lot of anti Trump writers these days, from traditionally conservative circle, and it spells trouble for democracy.

Martin M
Martin M
1 month ago
Reply to  tintin lechien

You think the fact that traditional conservatives are turning away from Trump “spells trouble for democracy”? Should they be obliged to support a notionally conservative candidate even though he is mad?

Terry M
Terry M
1 month ago

I live in Ohio. The story was on local TV. It was about Haitians eating the geese from the local park in Springfield, and it had a short audio recording of a guy saying he saw about 5 or 6 of them, each with a dead goose, walking away from the park. On the internet I saw a video of a person claiming her neighbors had stolen her cat and strung it up in a tree like a side of beef.
I don’t know if the story is true or not. But how did the MSM report Hunter’s laptop? the Russian hoax? and so many others. So I expect that someone will get to the bottom of this.
But it is not unreasonable to discuss this, although it is too early to say it on national TV. Trump should have simply said the town is overrun with Haitians – 15,000 added to 56,000 locals qualfies on that score. But, of course, the story is too juicy to ignore. So what?

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago
Reply to  Terry M

Please excuse my negative reply- your post is valid – my fingers not so accurate

j watson
j watson
1 month ago

The key point, I think, to the article is not specifics about Haitian migration, but that ‘…MAGA base is more energised by and receptive to provocative… content than dense policy proposals’. Trump has previously been the alchemist converting this to electoral success and whilst ‘dog whistles’ (note the pun) aren’t usually so bizarre for some it’ll work. It’s already well remembered.
The point though is in the absence of any real Policy proposition the dog whistle only ever goes so far in solving the problem. Amplifying rage is much easier than practical policy implementation and Trump the personification of that reality.
Back to Haitian migration – the opening up of legal pathways has drastically reduced illegal asylum requests, and there is something in it energising the local economy in Springfield. But whether the increase in one area ever what was expected or deemed sensible v open to contestation. Migration has always been a big ‘motor’ underneath the US economy. The link is often forgotten and if specific communities seem overwhelmed the benefits will get lost.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 month ago
Reply to  j watson

Ugh. You’re confusing immigration with the mass influx of 10 million people in four years, the vast majority being unvetted. There’s a difference, but one apparently many govts in the west cannot distinguish between. This same credentialed class thinks you can run a modern nation on solar panels and windmills without destroying the economy. This is truly magical thinking.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
1 month ago
Reply to  j watson

Are you serious? How does importing 20,000 people from a completely different culture into a town of 60,000 energize the economy? And why is it incumbent on the US to open “legal pathways” to people who ignored the previous legal pathways?

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
1 month ago
Reply to  j watson

Good grief, the Dominicans share an island with Haitians and they want nothing to do with them. They know full well how Haitians “energize” the economy.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago
Reply to  j watson

So you like that the Harris campaign policy descriptions on the official website is literally cut and pasted from the Biden campaign. And that Harrischas no policy discussions at all. The real social mental health disorder is that millions of people think Harris is a strong candidate.

Unwoke S
Unwoke S
1 month ago

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/08/22/ohio-woman-ate-cat/74902749007/ USA TODAY saying that “ earlier in the year “ this incident occurred in Canton Ohio. Not “two weeks ago”, note, (The cat was eaten on 24 August) but “ earlier in the year” i.e. they are trying to cut any connection between the VERACITY of the cat-eating episode in Canton, Ohio, and the Springfield, Ohio, cat-eating meme. Below is a Police video cam showing a woman being arrested for killing and eating a cat two and a half weeks ago in Canton Ohio. “Earlier in the year”??? Do you see how mainstream rag-mags lie, obfuscate, omit and spin? The fact of the matter is that VERIFIABLE facts were mixed together : an influx of refugees living rough in parks in Springfield, a cat being killed and eaten in Canton, local citizens feeling unsafe, a duck being killed for food:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MxC8VQrH54. Trump speaks without notes or teleprompters and often gets the specifics wrong, but he is not wrong on the IMPORT of what is happening around us all, controlled by the mainstream media, debate moderators, fact-checker employees in the mainstream, and lying Demorats

Maria Borisof
Maria Borisof
1 month ago
Reply to  Unwoke S

Very well put.

Brian Kneebone
Brian Kneebone
1 month ago

I know that the US election turns on the two nominated candidates but no one is obliged to prefer one over the other. Frankly, they are crap candidates. The big story is how a great nation can’t come up with better candidates. The current situation is an indictment on the state of the US polity. Without going full conspiratorial, there must be something deeper going on. Until understood and addressed, the future may be no better or, even worse.

Martin M
Martin M
1 month ago
Reply to  Brian Kneebone

Who would you prefer to see as a candidate?

mac mahmood
mac mahmood
1 month ago

This is what I call ‘throwing mud in the hope that some of it will stick’ principle. The idea is not to convey the truth, but to blacken the name of your opponent by fooling, if not all the people, the credulous half at least half the time. In a democracy that is a useful approach. Witness the Iraq WMD affair. Even in a dictatorship that approach is not totally without its benefit, as Goebbels well understood. The zionist state has mastered this approach very well. Thus we see stories of beheaded babies and fabricated suicide letters taking hold of even our great and the good. It may be just a case of ‘the way you tell them’.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
1 month ago

You realize that there are pictures and reports of immigrants killing geese, ducks, and who knows what else, right? Also, given that we have gone through multiple hoaxes: fine people on both sides, Russian collusion, a bloodbath, the laptop was disinformation, among others, you may want to revisit this line: “the MAGA base is more energised by and receptive to provocative, easily-shareable content than dense policy proposals”
It’s not MAGA people who circulated those false claims. Kamala kept pushing at least two of them the other night, even though they have all been thoroughly debunked. Trump frightens some of you; I get it. He’s not part of the same old, same old which is a good thing. How is more of the same working out for you in the UK?

Martin M
Martin M
1 month ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

Geese and ducks are commonly eaten by a majority of people in Western cultures.

ChilblainEdwardOlmos
ChilblainEdwardOlmos
1 month ago
Reply to  Martin M

Not the ones that inhabit city parks however.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago

Well now, a couple of days hence, we have a flood of Springfield residents calling in to national talk shows in support of Trump’s account. The list of other offenses includes opening and consuming food in the local markets, taking and butchering of area livestock and other domesticated and wild animals. Public urination, driving without license leading to an increase in area accident rates. Given the 24 hour news cycle, the “fact checking” denial provided by the (soon to be former) ABC news moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis will have accomplished their partisan intent in exchange for destroying their professional standing. See Donna Brazil.

Steven Carr
Steven Carr
1 month ago

There is no problem in Springfield, says the mainstream media, as Governor Mike DeWine announces that he will deploy Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers to assist the Springfield Police Department.

ELLIOTT W STEVENS
ELLIOTT W STEVENS
1 month ago

“Fell” for it!…? THEY ARE DOING IT YOU MORAN!!!!

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
1 month ago

*moron*

Jae
Jae
1 month ago

The problem the Trump haters have is they ridicule Trump and say he lies or is a conspiracy theorist. Then nine times out of ten, maybe more, his claims turn out to be true. I know this because I’ve been a Trump denier and learned the hard way.

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
1 month ago
Reply to  Jae

This is particularly stupid even for you people.
Trump’s lies may be defended by the extreme right and their comical excuses for him but never mistake that for his claims being found to be true.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago

You made a bigger jerk of yourself, if thatvis possible, by going to the “you people”. Nothing says ignorant bigot better than snidely using ” you people”.

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
1 month ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

“You made a bigger jerk of yourself, if thatvis possible, by going to the “you people”.”
Oh I’m sure thatvis possible!
God, you people are stupid!

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago

Yes, focusing on typos in social media posts is another characteristic of being a jerk, jerk.

Jae
Jae
1 month ago

Why is Unherd showcasing so many Trump Derangement sufferers? This author doesn’t mention that Harris lied on that debate stage many times, including about January 6th. Mr Bateman simply reiterates the 140 police officers injured.

I know someone personally, a single woman in her sixties, who went to the Capitol to protest peacefully, was invited in by the officers, and was then jailed for three months through facial recognition by a self pronounced Trump hating judge in Washington DC.

No journalists out there interested in telling her story and many like it though. No, too busy browbeating Trump and Vance because what are the odds this author thinks protesters on January 6th got what they deserved, no matter the harshness.

This author is saying Trump should read Project 2025 because he, the author is a policy wonk. What? Trump hasn’t read it because he doesn’t like it and wants no association with it. Why waste his time then. Unless you, like the rabid leftists, want to hogtie him to policies he doesn’t support.

Oliver Bateman hides behind concerns for policy and a pretence at fear for us minions being deluded by the internet. But readers aren’t fooled Mr Bateman. Your TDS is showing.

Martin M
Martin M
1 month ago
Reply to  Jae

I believe Trump when he says he hasn’t read Project 2025, because he doesn’t read anything longer than a page.

Jae
Jae
1 month ago

Hahahaha! Reading farther down the comments with proof of immigrants eating geese, etc., seems Mr Bateman has been caught with his head in the Democrat sand. No wonder people don’t trust media, this is why.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 month ago
Reply to  Jae

Are geese pets? I’ve eaten goose, it’s quite nice

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 month ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Just wondering whether you, Billy Bob, go around killing the ducks in Green park by breaking their necks and then eating them for dinner. Somehow I don’t think that would go down too well in London. Could be wrong here but somehow I don’t think so.

Martin M
Martin M
1 month ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

An old friend of mine used to “acquire” the odd duck from the local park back in the day (not Green Park in London though).

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 month ago
Reply to  Martin M

Clearly your friend must have been a Haitian illegal immigrant, possibly practicing vodoo magic!

Martin M
Martin M
28 days ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

He was (and still is) a large, bearded white man. I am talking about the 1970s. I doubt he does anything like that now.

El Uro
El Uro
1 month ago

Dear Oliver, you are in the wrong place at the wrong time 🙂

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago

There’s no excuse for Trump and Vance’s mistake. If you’re a leader, you have to have evidence for your claims. Trump is so clueless that he doesn’t understand that basic concept. Trump is so clueless that he thinks Matt Gaetz was an expert to train him in debating. This man looks like he’s on the way out, and Vance might have a very short career in politics. Republicans let Trump slide without debating in the primaries, and now they have a candidate who got his clock cleaned and can’t give even a convention acceptance speech without rambling idiocy (citing Hannibal Lector). In 2020, Trump was atrocious in the debates also, and he blames election cheating on his loss.

Steven Carr
Steven Carr
1 month ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

The first question in the debate was ‘“When it comes to the economy, do you believe Americans are better off than they were four years ago?”
Harris never answered it. Not even close.
Her answer seemed to consist of saying the government would give people money to pay higher food and housing prices.
As for Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, why are they there?

Martin M
Martin M
1 month ago
Reply to  Steven Carr

To eat the cats and dogs?

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

The layers of ignorance in your post are like a cake made of offal.

Martin M
Martin M
1 month ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

The concept of “truth” is alien to Trump. The question is “Is this good for me, or isn’t it?” Whether it is true or not is irrelevant to him.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 month ago
Reply to  Martin M

But perhaps the concept of truth is equally alien to you Martin. All you seem able to do is accept the words of some authority figure from on high. How about thinking for yourself for a change.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

You making a lot of assumptions and placing a lot of pressure on poor Martin.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago
Reply to  Martin M

Says a sock puppet who supported Biden until the week after the failed assassination of Trump.

Micael Gustavsson
Micael Gustavsson
1 month ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

What makes you think he is a sock puppet. And for who?

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
29 days ago

Good question. Sock puppet or merely TDS sufferer?

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Since Trump was right, there is only a need for the easily manipulated to look in a mirror and ask why they choose consistently to accept lies.

G M
G M
1 month ago

There aee parts of the world where dogs and cats are eaten as food.
They immigrate here and are encouraged to hang onto their culture.

Their culture could include having dogs or cats on the menu.

Martin M
Martin M
1 month ago
Reply to  G M

Does it though? That would be an important fact, I’d have thought.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago

He fell for the truth. So very tired of democrat schill liars. Frankly, as Elon Musk would say, go. phck. yourself

Martin M
Martin M
1 month ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

So, to be clear, you say that Haitian immigrants are in fact eating Springfield’s dogs and cats?

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 month ago
Reply to  Martin M

I would say that the odds are better than 9:1 that the Haitian illegals in Springfield have indeed eaten pet dogs and cats. And if the MSM wants to truly find out they would actually investigate the matter and speak to some ordinary fold rather than blindly accepting the word of some city official. What David Muir did was not fact checking or reporting but just following the word of authority. Pretty pathetic.

Micael Gustavsson
Micael Gustavsson
17 days ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

since basically all Haitians in Springfield are legal immigrants who have jobs, it is very unlikely that “haitian illegals” have done anything at all there.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago
Reply to  Martin M

There is direct testimony, direct confession to police, video of Hatians carrying off ducks and geese. How does it feel to hate Trump more than you accept reality.

Micael Gustavsson
Micael Gustavsson
1 month ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Ducks and geese are not dogs and cats.

Sun 500
Sun 500
1 month ago

They clearly are eating ducks and geese from the local parks and cat is eaten in Haiti so it’s possible alright … lots of anecdotal evidence … ‘Asians’ steal lambs in the UK and E Europeans eat the freshwater fish from ponds … it’s not exactly.impossible …. Bottom line 20000 Haitians should be in Springfield or the US.

Liakoura
Liakoura
1 month ago

If Trump is so unaware of how anything unusual or dubious or likely to upset or annoy a significant part of the electorate, he hasn’t been listening to the advice of his advisers.
Or as Mary L Trump wrote:
“Donald today is much as he was at three years old: incapable of growing, learning, or evolving, unable to regulate his emotions, moderate his responses, or take in and synthesize information.”
― Mary L. Trump, in “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man”

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago
Reply to  Liakoura

Mary Trump, bitter, spoiled and deceitful, monetizing her faults for a willing gullible audience

Chris Maille
Chris Maille
1 month ago

The (AI generated) images of Trump saving kittens are hilarious ! Again, the dems and their sycophants are totally clueless on what is going on 🙂

Liakoura
Liakoura
1 month ago

“Why Trump fell for the Haitian dog-eating meme”?
Because he is ignorant of the eating habits of the population whose votes he’s supposedly campaigning for.
It’s some Chinese men who eat dog, believing it to increase their virility and there’s an outdoor dog snack cafe less than a mile from where I live in south west China.
In general, the average Haitian diet is largely based on starch staples such as rice, corn, millet, yams and beans. All types of meat and seafood are eaten as well, but often only the wealthier residents can afford them, according to wiki.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
29 days ago

So it turns out, once again, Trump was telling the truth.

Micael Gustavsson
Micael Gustavsson
17 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

What???

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
29 days ago

Cats are cats, and indépendant investigators confirm what the foks in Springfield are reporting.

Janis Barnard
Janis Barnard
27 days ago

Actually, there is a (not fake video) of a Springfield resident at a city council meeting in March of this year trying to tell the members that “domesticated animals” began disappearing after the immigrants arrived. He was clearly uncomfortable saying this, but determined that the city be made aware of the situation. He was asked for proof, but of course had none. Nonetheless, he seemed awfully sincere.