If this is already obvious to you, just skip it. The gist is that the current Springfield, OH kerfuffle is kind of a re-run.
Do you recall the thumb-drive-vote-fraud-two-Black-women thing? Republicans alleged vote fraud, based on a clip of routine surveillance video in some polling place. They were completely wrong, but The Right ruined the lives of the poll workers in that video.
And now, instead of death threats for two Black women, it’s a barrage of bomb threats (and who knows what else) for Springfield, Ohio.
But if you trace the arc of the story, these stories really run parallel, and they spring from the same root.
And that root is Republicans’ willingness to promote stories based on their “stickiness”, truth optional. I argued this point two posts back.
What I’m saying is, the Republicans constructed or merely “amplified” these false stories because they were “sticky”. They were memorable for their target audience. And not for any higher purpose, unless you consider lying to make a fictional point an adequate substitute for actual government policy.
Take the first one. I mean, that just ticks all the boxes, doesn’t it? Name your phobia. Fear of a) computers, b) black people, and c) women. In addition to “vote fraud”.
For the Republican base, that’s a triple-sticky story, and way too good to pass up. I think it literally made no difference whatsoever to the Republican party whether or not that story was true.
Promulgating that particular lie ruined the lives of the poll workers involved. Who, I am guessing, where chosen solely because they were Black women, and they made some movement over the course of the day that could plausibly be (mis)-interpreted as something nefarious passing from one to the other.
So, school’s closed in Springfield, OH due to bomb threats? Not intrinsically different from death threats against those two poll workers. Just not as well-targeted.
Haitians eating pets. Again, they just could not pass that up. As discussed earlier, that’s at least a double-sticky.
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice? I guess that’s the viewpoint. And when they’ve run that dog until it won’t run any more, I’m sure there’ll be something to take its place.
I prefer a more reality-centered discussion, if possible.
OTOH, the explicit defense, by the Republican Presidential candidate himself, is that he heard it on TV. He most emphatically heard somebody on TV talking about Haitians eating cats and dogs.
In effect, he said said he just retweeting. So it’s OK, then, right? Whatever it is, it’s somebody else who said it first.
Truth optional? I think that overstates it. Truth or falsity gets every bit as much consideration as the inevitable fallout.
People re-tweet things because they like them. And for a lot of people, I’d say truth is optional there, too. So maybe Trump is the way the world works now.
