With #humanitarian #catastrophes unfolding on several continents,
the response of the #wealthy #world has been to demand tighter borders and higher fences.

There is no blockbuster charity single raising money for starving refugees from the civil war raging in Sudan.
And now, the cruel taunts come not just from schoolyard bullies and cranks on the political fringes, but from the lips of a man who stood on the presidential debate stage on Tuesday -- a former president who once again has a coin-flip shot at regaining the most powerful office in the world.

And so I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised by that lowest of moments at the debate,
when Donald Trump repeated a vile, baseless claim that Haitian immigrants were killing and eating household pets in Springfield, Ohio.

This allegation appears to stem from viral social media posts and statements at public meetings.
It was picked up by some of the most rancid figures at the #fringe of the #MAGA-verse,
then quickly hopscotched from there to a social media post by Trump’s running mate, JD #Vance,
and finally to the debate stage, sputtered by #Trump himself.

There is something particularly #insidious about this claim,
uttered at this time, from that stage.
#Food and #pets are, to use a Freudian term, highly overdetermined #symbols in our political life.

They are capable of receiving and holding a multiplicity of very potent meanings, transmitting deep messages about #identity and #belonging.

You can tell how powerful this type of slur is by how quickly and vociferously it has animated so many on the right.

Figures who flirt with the mainstream have eagerly jumped into the fray.

The conservative culture warrior #Christopher #Rufo has offered a $5,000 bounty for anyone who can find proof that a Haitian immigrant had in fact eaten a cat.

It is not hard to imagine how this could quickly escalate into #vigilante #violence against Haitians in America.

On Thursday, city officials in Springfield, most of whom have pushed back against the false allegations, said they had received #bomb #threats, prompting the evacuation of city buildings.

MAGA bigotry is far more #sinister and #dangerous than weird.

And disbelieving laughter could,
I fear, blind us to moments like this, when truly unacceptable lines are crossed

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/14/opinion/trump-debate-haitians-pets.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&ngrp=mnp&pvid=93CE287F-EE40-40AE-B1B3-90B0F13022C0