Last week, a bogus conspiracy theory about immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, took the MAGA Internet by storm. JD Vance tweeted about it, and Donald Trump repeated it, creating the most bizarre moment in presidential debate history.
In appearances on NBC’s Meet the Press and CNN’s State of the Union, moderators grilled Vance about the story. Now that local officials had debunked the lie, did Vance regret his role in spreading the lie?
Nope:
Vance is following the MAGA "alternate facts" playbook, but what’s new is that he seems to openly acknowledge it.
To fuel Trump’s fear-driven narrative of immigrants "destroying" the country, Vance is spreading false claims that immigrants are attacking pets in a small Ohio town. By doubling down, he demonstrates a lesson learned by many on the right: when a lie is repeated enough in the right-wing echo chamber, eventually, large numbers of Republicans—and even some swing voters—start to believe it.
Vance and Trump know how this works. Right-wing lies spread online. Bad actors like them double down on misinformation because it helps them win. Then, online influencers pile on with more false claims to reinforce the lie.
Fox News and the far-right media amplify the falsehoods until people believe some or all of it to be true.
This is how Trump’s Big Lie spread, leading to the January 6th insurrection and nearly 60% of Republicans believing Democrats stole the 2020 election. It’s the same pattern that fueled the "Pizzagate" conspiracy, which convinced a disturbed man to bring a gun to a D.C. pizza restaurant, wrongly believing a Democratic pedophilia ring was operating in the basement.
As bizarre as the immigrant-attacking-pets story seemed at first, it has taken a darker turn. Last week, Springfield faced bomb threats, and now Haitian immigrants are afraid to go out in their own communities.
COURIER is ready to fight back.
Our reporters in our eleven battleground states work around the clock to publish factual news stories on the issues that matter most. Using our research-backed model, we push those stories on the platforms where people are most likely to encounter right-wing misinformation, like social media news feeds and email inboxes.
When we counter these lies and conspiracies at the source, we stop them from taking hold in the minds of Americans. We inoculate against bad information with good information.
But we can’t do it without your help. With less than 50 days until the election, Trump and the right-wing media will be working overtime to push their propaganda to millions of Americans.
COURIER needs ample resources to fight back. Can you chip in $5.00 today to help us out?
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