Republican vice-presidential candidate Senator JD Vance continues to stoke outrage against foreign-born members of his own constituency, sharing video footage with his 1.9 million social media followers that he claimed showed African migrants in Dayton, Ohio “eating cats” — but instead appears to show nothing more than poultry cooking on an outdoor grill.

“Kamala Harris and her media apparatchiks should be ashamed of themselves,” Vance posted Saturday on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter. “Another ‘debunked’ story that turned out to have merit.”

Vance has claimed, falsely, in recent days that Haitians — who are not Africans — living in Springfield — a town of 58,000 which is not Dayton — were stealing, killing, and consuming their neighbors’ pets.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Wow. They are really going over the deep end on this. How could this possibly help them win votes?

    • themadcodger@kbin.earth
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      3 months ago

      Backtracking equals flip-flopping, and then it’s a slippery slope to learning and growing and admitting you were wrong.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        You’re probably right. And if they’re going to keep swimming towards the bottom of the pool, I really want journalists to start asking them why Haitians are eating pets. Because that’s the part that they haven’t actually made clear.

        Haitians don’t eat dogs and cats in Haiti. The Haitians in Springfield aren’t starving, most of them have jobs. So why are they eating them, JD?

        • catloaf@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          It gets them angry and supporting Republican anti-immigrant positions, instead of thinking about the issues that actually affect them, like why Steward Health Care was allowed to buy hospitals, squeeze as much money out of them as possible, give the CEO $250m, and then go bankrupt, leaving hundreds of people without healthcare.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            You think people don’t think about the dire financial straits they are in because Trump and Vance are being racists? And somehow that helps Trump get elected?

            None of that makes any sense.

            • catloaf@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              When someone is out of work, and the media tells them it’s because of immigrants stealing their jobs, and not because of private equity squeezing companies to death for profit, yes, it helps Trump and the Republicans get elected.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                The media isn’t telling them that. The media is telling them that isn’t true. Trump and Vance and their surrogates are telling them that. Trump was literally corrected in the debate.

                • catloaf@lemm.ee
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                  3 months ago

                  https://www.foxnews.com/media/tyson-hiring-migrants-laying-off-us-workers-decimation-american-dream-top-republican

                  Here, an instance of media, in the “immigrants are taking your jobs” category. It demonizes Tyson while conveniently ignoring that Republicans haven’t done a damn thing for labor in my lifetime.

                  I do not have the spoons necessary to bring you up to speed on everything that’s happened in politics in the past few decades that you should already know. Honestly, I feel like I’m getting sealioned here.

                  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                    3 months ago

                    Fox News is your instance? Yes, the network that has Trump’s back all the time still has Trump’s back.

                    Fox News is one media outlet and mostly, again, one that the MAGA faithful consume.

                    And even then- they aired the debate. People heard the fact check.

        • futatorius@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          His dithering, weak, incoherent performance in the debate? Or is that already forgotten?

        • barsquid@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Overt, disgusting racism is what his voters support, so it is a good distraction if there was news about something they don’t support. They support everything, as long as it is evil, though, so do not ask me what that could be.

        • twistypencil@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          The topic does not matter.

          The assertion at hand does not matter.

          Whether anyone believes the assertion does not matter.

          The only thing that matters is: Are you playing offense or defense?

          Cuz attacking looks like winning. And explaining looks like losing.

          https://youtu.be/wmVkJvieaOA

            • twistypencil@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              Who is defending? Not them, they are doubling down. Everyone else is calling the mayor and asking for a statement, or doing some vox pop with Haitians on the ground.

    • ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      They are too used to the typical news cycle where they bombard the public with lies to the point where everyone starts believing those are real. They’ve grown complacent.