\u00a0I am not a \u201ccat person\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0I earned that right honestly, at three years old.\u00a0\u00a0We 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We had\u00a0\u00a0woods behind the house. It seemed huge to a three-years old, like Winnie the Pooh\u2019s hundred acre wood.\u00a0\u00a0It was actually a quarter of an acre.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Anyway, one day I found Bimbo and went to grab her.\u00a0\u00a0Now fully feral, she didn\u2019t allow any of that, and I got scratched.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So from that day forward, I was not, and am not, a cat person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But since cats (and dogs, and geese) are playing such an important part in our politics today, I am standing up for cats.\u00a0\u00a0The whole thing started a couple years ago, with an ill-advised comment by then-candidate for Senate from Ohio, JD Vance.\u00a0\u00a0The \u201cHillbilly Elegy\u201d author was talking to a conservative commentator, and used a\u00a0glib and in-artful description of Progressives, and women Progressives especially.\u00a0\u00a0He called them \u201cchildless cat ladies\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Vance became the Republican nominee for Vice President, it started a deluge of \u201cchildless cat ladies\u201d memes and references.\u00a0\u00a0T-shirts supporting Kamala Harris appeared with the \u201cchildless cat lady\u201d comment and pictures from kittens to tigers on the front.\u00a0 Even Taylor Swift posted her endorsement of Harris with her cat. \u00a0But MAGA-world being what it is, Vance continued to double-down, further commenting that \u201cpost-menopausal\u201d women\u2019s role was to help raise children.\u00a0\u00a0It seemed that Vance and the whole Trump campaign wouldn\u2019t move off of the insults to younger women and older women, and, of course, to cats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Vice President Harris and Governor Walz were getting the better of the \u201ccat lady\u201d fight.\u00a0\u00a0They called it what it was:\u00a0\u00a0weird.\u00a0\u00a0And that weird comment stuck in Trump\u2019s craw like a hairball.\u00a0\u00a0He spent time in his rallies ranting that he and Vance weren\u2019t \u201cweird\u201d at all.\u00a0\u00a0And, of course, the more he talked about it, the weirder he seemed to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
MAGA-world had to open up a second front, to flip the \u201ccat\u201d script.\u00a0\u00a0And what better way to do that, then to make Trump the cat \u201csavior\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0So it should be no surprise that a woman\u2019s rant on Facebook, complaining about Haitians, made it to national attention.\u00a0\u00a0As the REO Speedwagon song goes:\u00a0\u00a0\u201c(She) heard from a friend who, heard it from a friend, who, heard it from a friend\u2026\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Pets were being taken and eaten by Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio. Of course, (fact check) that wasn’t true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the MAGA internet network acted like a cat on catnip.\u00a0\u00a0A 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).\u00a0\u00a0Added\u00a0\u00a0to 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).\u00a0\u00a0So now, the Haitians were eating cats and geese.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So there was \u201cvideo evidence\u201d of what now-illegal (they aren’t) Haitian migrants were doing in Springfield.\u00a0\u00a0They\u2019ll take the geese from your parks, and the cats (and soon dogs) from your neighborhoods, and eat them.\u00a0\u00a0Trump 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”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, it\u2019s all a fabrication, a very demonstrable fabrication.\u00a0\u00a0But in our \u201cpost-truth\u201d MAGA world, fact-checking is just another \u201ctool\u201d of Democrats to \u201clie\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Fact-checkers used to generate righteous indignation; \u201cHow dare you question my \u2018facts\u2019\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Now they\u2019re just another \u201cBoomer\u201d or \u201cKaren\u201d to be ignored. As Ex-President Trump said in his debate with Vice President Harris, it must be true because, \u201c\u2026I saw it on TV\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Along with the \u201cIllegal immigrant gangs over-running cities,\u201d in Aurora, Colorado and Dallas, Texas; it all fits in with the nativist MAGA message.\u00a0\u00a0Illegal \u201cbrown\u201d people are wrecking our country: vote for Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is an old phrase; \u201cAll\u2019s fair in love, war and politics\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0And if this was all just an ugly, racist \u201cFacebook fight\u201d then, it wouldn\u2019t really make a difference.\u00a0\u00a0But there are real world consequences to the lies told by those running for the highest offices in the land.\u00a0\u00a0Those lies impact people, and particularly the legal Haitian immigrants, of Springfield, Ohio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The schools and city buildings have been closed by bomb threats.\u00a0\u00a0Yesterday 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 \u201cstop the madness\u201d.\u00a0A couple dozen “Proud Boys” just marched through town. Someone is likely to get hurt.\u00a0\u00a0Someone is likely to get killed.\u00a0\u00a0And all because the MAGA world had to get back at those \u201cchildless cat ladies\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was completely foreseeable.\u00a0\u00a0And a man who was and wants to be President again should put community ahead of political gain.\u00a0\u00a0But, of course, that\u2019s far too much to ask.\u00a0\u00a0Instead, all Springfield can do is hang onto their cats, and try to fortify themselves for the onslaught. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"