Let’s see now. Here we are in the 21st century. In the past 500 years humankind has shown remarkable progress on two parallel fronts. Along governance: no longer was the divine right of kings (or tribal leaders) recognized; rather, principles of self-governance were developed, notably in the United States Constitution in which, supposedly, all men were “equal” at least before the law and as voting citizens. Along matters of science and understanding reality: no longer was authority on such matters granted to holy books and their spokesmen; rather consensus on reality was granted to the evidence of the world around us, along with a healthy system of self-criticism, so that errors in understanding would eventually be recognized and corrected.
Why is that “progress”? Because these systems enabled the human population of the world, as it expanded so that no one tribe (city/nation) could exist apart from all the others, to get along with one another, and agree upon a consensus reality.
And yet now, in parts of the US at least, they have apparently stopped working, and we’re beginning to see the consequences. In the US, a large portion of the population rejects democracy, and rejects science. Where will this lead us?
This week’s issue about Haitian immigrants in Springfield Ohio supposedly eating pet cats and dogs is utterly absurd and trivial, on its surface, and yet the more it endures in the daily news cycle, the more it represents the breakdown of the consensus reality that has enabled the United States, and the modern world in both the West and elsewhere, to endure and become powerful. I’ve wondered before if it’s possible for society and its technology to depend on a minority who do understand science and technology, even as most of the rest of the population disbelieves in it while nevertheless depending on it.
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The story about Haitians eating pets derived from a single Facebook post based on third- and fourth-hand reports. This is a classic lesson in understanding why not to believe anything based on secondary reports.
NBC News, 13 Sep 2024: ‘It just exploded’: Springfield woman claims she never meant to spark false rumors about Haitians, subtitled “The woman behind an early Facebook post that helped spark baseless rumors about Haitians eating pets told NBC News that she feels for the immigrant community.”
The woman behind an early Facebook post spreading a harmful and baseless claim about Haitian immigrants eating local pets that helped thrust a small Ohio city into the national spotlight says she had no firsthand knowledge of any such incident and is now filled with regret and fear as a result of the ensuing fallout.
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Heather Cox Richardson‘s September 13, 2024 post drills down into the history of Springfield, how Haitians were invited to the town to revive the economy, how the town nevertheless experienced growth pains. The controversy began with, ironically, JD Vance, and also neo-Nazis. Leading, this week, to bomb threats by those who hate immigrants.
In late August, posting in a private Facebook group, a resident said they had heard that Haitian immigrants had butchered a neighbor’s cat for food. Vance reposted that rumor to attack Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, on whom he is trying to hang undocumented immigration although it was Trump who convinced Republicans to kill a strong bipartisan border bill this spring. Springfield police and the city manager told news outlets there was no truth to the rumors.
Nonetheless, on September 10, Vance told his people to “keep the cat memes flowing,” even though—or perhaps because—the rumors were putting people in his own state in danger.
Trump repeated the lie at the presidential debate that night, claiming, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.” Today, President Joe Biden demanded Trump stop his attacks on Haitian-Americans, but Trump doubled down, promising to deport the Haitian immigrants in Springfield if he is elected, although they are here legally.
They are here legally. What happened to rule of law? This is base racism and xenophobia. Anything that scares their base. A regression to tribal values — always to be afraid of ‘the other,’ who are inhuman.
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Vox, Eric Levitz, 13 Sep 2024: The twisted political logic behind Trump’s attacks on Haitian immigrant, subtitled “Republicans know exactly what they’re doing.”
Do they? Or are they just allowing their inner tribal-morality to emerge? They don’t need to think to do that.
Vance did not smear the Haitian community of Springfield just once. He chose to double and triple down on that smear, reiterating it again in an X post on Friday morning, in which he blamed Haitian immigrants for bringing “communicable diseases” to Ohio (without presenting any evidence to substantiate that timeless nativist trope).
So why would a ticket with strong incentives to project moderation and reassure swing voters choose to direct hatred against a small community, even after their words have already yielded bomb threats?
I suspect the ugliness is the point.
That is, the base tribal instinct to smear other tribes. It’s never about facts or policies.
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AlterNet, Joe Conason: Opinion | Exploiting fear is what the Republicans do
Same point.
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The Atlantic, Russell Moore: Trump’s Lie Is Another Test for Christian America, subtitled “If we’re willing to see children terrorized because of a false rumor about Haitian immigrants, we should ask who abducted our conscience, not someone’s pet.”
I’ve long thought that evangelical support for Trump discredits their movement utterly. They say they believe in their Bible, in the Constitution, and yet they support an authoritarian who violates all of those principles. Rather, evangelicals are about tribal morality — the investment in a single authoritarian leader, and never mind all those principles. How many of them realize this?
Here’s a response from a writer who claims to be an evangelical Christian.
The accusation that Haitian immigrants in a small Ohio city are abducting and eating their neighbors’ cats and dogs relies not on one falsehood but on a web of them. The rhetoric evokes racist tropes about “savages” who do not conform to our civilized Western world. There’s also a religious angle: the idea that Haitian refugees are voodoo occultists who might be worshipping the devil. As an evangelical Christian who actually believes in the existence of Satan, I agree that we can indeed see the work of the devil at play here, only it’s not on the menu of the Haitian families but rather in the cruelty of those willing to lie about them.
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More generally, here’s an item that spells out the religious rejection of reality.
Hemant Mehta, Friendly Atheist: Pope Francis pushes false claim that both presidential candidates are “against life”, subtitled “Kamala Harris wants to protect women’s bodies. The pope thinks that’s evil.”
The core of this is a biological fact that is taken for granted by writers of science, especially of biology and evolution, but is barely mentioned in the public sphere, in which the verities of religion and intuitive biology prevail. Modern intuitive biology and religion I should say; the Bible itself made none of the claims that the religious now make about the humanity of the embryo. Virtually the opposite.
One side hates migrants, yes.
The other side does not, by definition, kill children. They don’t kill toddlers either. Or babies. To say otherwise is to completely misunderstand why anyone might have an abortion so close to birth or why some newborns die shortly after birth.
In order for the pope’s comments to make any sense, you have to share both his warped belief that life begins at conception and that all “sins” are equivalent. And then you have to treat your brain like an Etch A Sketch and erase any memories you had between 2016 and 2020.
Of course this is all about the tribal priority of children, or any kind of potential child, in order to keep expanding the tribe. Never mind consequences to actual adults (the mothers), the vast difference between an embryo and a child, or even the necessity to keep expanding the population.
