Full Disclosure
I am not a “cat person”. I earned that right honestly, at three years old. We lived on Glenmary Avenue in Cincinnati, not far from the Zoo; with a cat named Bimbo. She was our house cat for as long as I remember, but somehow just disappeared.
We had woods behind the house. It seemed huge to a three-years old, like Winnie the Pooh’s hundred acre wood. It was actually a quarter of an acre. Anyway, one day I found Bimbo and went to grab her. Now fully feral, she didn’t allow any of that, and I got scratched.
So from that day forward, I was not, and am not, a cat person.
Cat Ladies
But since cats (and dogs, and geese) are playing such an important part in our politics today, I am standing up for cats. The whole thing started a couple years ago, with an ill-advised comment by then-candidate for Senate from Ohio, JD Vance. The “Hillbilly Elegy” author was talking to a conservative commentator, and used a glib and in-artful description of Progressives, and women Progressives especially. He called them “childless cat ladies”.
When Vance became the Republican nominee for Vice President, it started a deluge of “childless cat ladies” memes and references. T-shirts supporting Kamala Harris appeared with the “childless cat lady” comment and pictures from kittens to tigers on the front. Even Taylor Swift posted her endorsement of Harris with her cat. But MAGA-world being what it is, Vance continued to double-down, further commenting that “post-menopausal” women’s role was to help raise children. It seemed that Vance and the whole Trump campaign wouldn’t move off of the insults to younger women and older women, and, of course, to cats.
But Vice President Harris and Governor Walz were getting the better of the “cat lady” fight. They called it what it was: weird. And that weird comment stuck in Trump’s craw like a hairball. He spent time in his rallies ranting that he and Vance weren’t “weird” at all. And, of course, the more he talked about it, the weirder he seemed to be.
Flip the Script
MAGA-world had to open up a second front, to flip the “cat” script. And what better way to do that, then to make Trump the cat “savior”. So it should be no surprise that a woman’s rant on Facebook, complaining about Haitians, made it to national attention. As the REO Speedwagon song goes: “(She) heard from a friend who, heard it from a friend, who, heard it from a friend…”. Pets were being taken and eaten by Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio. Of course, (fact check) that wasn’t true.
But the MAGA internet network acted like a cat on catnip. A video was attached to the comment, supposedly showing a Haitian in Springfield, Ohio, eating a dead cat in the street. (Turns out, it was a life-long, mentally deranged not-Haitian resident of and in Canton, Ohio. She was really eating a cat). Added to it was a photo of a black man carrying a dead goose along the road. (The picture was taken in Columbus, and the man was removing a goose that was run over). So now, the Haitians were eating cats and geese.
Fact Check
So there was “video evidence” of what now-illegal (they aren’t) Haitian migrants were doing in Springfield. They’ll take the geese from your parks, and the cats (and soon dogs) from your neighborhoods, and eat them. Trump and Vance, stood for pets and geese, and against their consumption by humans, especially illegal migrant humans from Haiti in Western Ohio. They took a Facebook rant (since retracted) about a rumor in Springfield, and made it a national “emergency”.
Of course, it’s all a fabrication, a very demonstrable fabrication. But in our “post-truth” MAGA world, fact-checking is just another “tool” of Democrats to “lie”. Fact-checkers used to generate righteous indignation; “How dare you question my ‘facts’”. Now they’re just another “Boomer” or “Karen” to be ignored. As Ex-President Trump said in his debate with Vice President Harris, it must be true because, “…I saw it on TV”. Along with the “Illegal immigrant gangs over-running cities,” in Aurora, Colorado and Dallas, Texas; it all fits in with the nativist MAGA message. Illegal “brown” people are wrecking our country: vote for Trump.
Not Fair
There is an old phrase; “All’s fair in love, war and politics”. And if this was all just an ugly, racist “Facebook fight” then, it wouldn’t really make a difference. But there are real world consequences to the lies told by those running for the highest offices in the land. Those lies impact people, and particularly the legal Haitian immigrants, of Springfield, Ohio.
The schools and city buildings have been closed by bomb threats. Yesterday even the hospital was closed. The hard working Haitian migrants are worried that someone will take all of the nonsense to heart, and come to their town to “stop the madness”. A couple dozen “Proud Boys” just marched through town. Someone is likely to get hurt. Someone is likely to get killed. And all because the MAGA world had to get back at those “childless cat ladies”.
It was completely foreseeable. And a man who was and wants to be President again should put community ahead of political gain. But, of course, that’s far too much to ask. Instead, all Springfield can do is hang onto their cats, and try to fortify themselves for the onslaught.
