'It just exploded': Woman who sparked Trump's migrant pet-eating hoax comes forward

just_another_person@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 353 points –
'It just exploded': Woman who sparked Trump's migrant pet-eating hoax comes forward
rawstory.com
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“It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen,”

She meant it. She just didn’t mean to get in trouble.

If you didn't mean it you shouldn't have lied about it in the first place. What kind of deranged asshat would make up stories like that.

Racists? Christians? Trump supporters? Karens? Women trying way too hard to get their trumpet husband to love them? People who tell racist jokes, but lead with, “I’m not racist, but—“

It's times like this where I sometimes feel people need a license to surf the internet.

Following the Debate I had a Trump supporter come to my door. We have yard signs but, uh, the dude went a step deeper and knew our names. Weird but okay I guess that shit is publicly available in registration dbs after all...

Anyways, he seemed innocent enough but boy would he hop skip around point to point. Just as you corner on one thing, they jump to the next. "I'll show you the source on my phone!" yet he wouldn't and jumped to the next subject. I asked him to identify his sources for information and he dodged that as well, just vaguely alluding to, "googling." Really fascinating and kind of fun to interact. I can see why Klepper does it so much lol.

On the flip-side it's just a bit sad to see people who seem like decent people but are completely led astray and living in an alternative reality. "You've been... Living in a dreamworld, Neo."

Racists always mean what they say

It's only when they're caught or called out on what they said that they want to back track on everything.

It takes a coward to say terrible things anonymously and it's only a coward that pretends they didn't mean what they said.

I’d partially disagree here; a lot of people don’t know how to effectively communicate, and speak in cultural innuendo and clichés because that’s the language they think in. They don’t really fully understand what they, or the people they surround themselves with mean.

Think of it like the kid in elementary school that learns a new word or phrase and sees the reaction it gets when others use it, so they (over) use it themselves to get the same reaction without understanding what it actually means.

That’s how a lot of these people live their entire lives.

That doesn’t excuse it, but it does explain it. These people have no intent to harm; they don’t understand the implications of what they’re saying enough for that.

And this is why education is so important.

Those who have been educated in critical thinking and effective communication and STILL say things like that? They’re the evil manipulative ones.

TL;DR: it’s possible to be ignorantly racist because that’s all you know.

“Casually racist”

Which means they won’t beat them, but they’ll vote against them. My grandmother wouldn’t hire Asian house cleaners because they were thieves, but she loved having them do her nails. She always pointed out black people in public. “Look at him” she would say casually. She also said in her will that if anyone was gay they couldn’t get inheritance.

She also said in her will that if anyone was gay they couldn’t get inheritance.

Interested to know if that was respected in court.

It would have been if anyone challenged its enforcement. But since no one challenged the Un-enforcement of it, court wasn’t necessary. ;)

According to the report, Erika Lee, a resident of Springfield, posted to Facebook commenting on a neighbor's cat who had gone missing — and mentioned that the neighbor had been suspicious the cat might have been attacked by Haitians who lived in the neighborhood.

Racist, but I believe that she didn’t intend for it to cause a national thing. She wanted to be racist on a small scale, not cause schools to get bomb threats. Well, this is what you caused, shithead. Probably the biggest thing you’ll ever accomplish. Take a bow.

I think more of the blame should fall on Trump. She is at least apologizing, despite her racism. Trump shone the national spotlight on this city by amplifying an obvious lie in front of 10’s of millions of people last Tuesday and his squad reacted as they always do.

Honestly, the small scale racism is a huge issue. These constant small arguments is what manifests it in people's heads.

But yeah Trump is an ass, fuck him.

Its worst than the qoute. She posted a story her neighbor told her about her daughter's friend's cat. So the source of the story was 3 layers of people removed from her.

When the news reached out to the neighbor, she said that it was an acquaintance of a friend, so even less reliable.

So yes, wholley racist, even as she claims it wasn't. She was pissed at legal migrants moving into her community, and spread racist rumors about them to feed that anger.

"I regret my toxic racism leaked out of my bubble and caused the scale of environmental damage it did."

It doesn't matter. They are all gas no brakes at this point and will triple down. I've already seen another article where Vance has tweaked it so now it's HIV instead of eating pets.

This contraction to the very hard core of MAGA is probably going to accelerate in the coming weeks, and we're going to see how many craven Republicans have the stomach for a full mask off MAGA campaign.

His only play at this point is to separate wheat from chaff and prepare to raise hell with state election officials in his pocket while stochastic terrorism increases up to and after election day.

And that's assuming he loses because, whoopsie, electoral college means this thing is going to he a nail-biter even if he were to cross the N-word rubicon.

Iirc, if Kamala wins Pennsylvania, then the election is over. If Kamala loses Pennsylvania, but wins any 2 other battleground states, the election is over. If Kamala loses every battleground state but wins Texas, the election is over.

Remember to vote; if you do, she'll win. Even if you're in a heavy-sided state, vote.

Amen. She has more paths to victory than Biden, for sure, but this one is going be a squeaker no matter what.

It's not even just her. The people that ate this up just wanted something, anything, to latch onto to feed their racism and xenophobia.

LMAO why does this not surprise me. Woman comes forward proving that all that nonsense he spouted had no basis and was completely false.

So irrevocably there can be no doubt in the minds of any and all Americans who know how to read, that his claims are completely false. In other words caught bold-faced in a lie.

What does he do? He issues an apology like a normal politician, probably falsely promising to make sure his team fact checks more diligently in the future, because his goal is to bring his base and America nothing but the truth in his ongoing effort to make America great again.

Oh wait no, that's what a normal person would have done. This idiot doubles down.

Lmaooooo

She almost apologized. She was so close to apologizing. But she couldn't quite do it. (At least from what is quoted in the article.)

Screw her and the republicans.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna171043

Bomb threats on Friday forced the evacuation and closure of public schoolsand municipal buildings for a second consecutive day, as the city continues to deal with sudden national attention because of false claims involving its Haitian population.

In addition to those school evacuations, several city commissioners and a municipal employee were the target of an emailed bomb threat, city spokesperson Karen Graves said.

A second email threatened multiple locations that included Springfield City Hall, Cliff Park High School, Perrin Woods Elementary School, Roosevelt Middle School, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the Ohio License Bureau Southside, Graves added.

Former President Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have pushed those false claims as part of a broader effort to use Springfield as an example of what they say are the harmful consequences of immigration.

I think trump believed the post. I think he believed a random internet post more than the fact checker. Maybe he keeps saying nonsense because he believes it, and not always because he is trying to manipulate people.

I think he believed a random internet post more than the fact checker

NBD. Not like he's running for a position powerful enough to wipe 90% of life off the planet or anything. We want the president to be a gullible rube that doubles down on the stupidity when discovered. What could go wrong?

I could maybe believe this if he didn't flop around on things and say some of them were jokes. Like the lost by a whisker comment that pissed off several members of his base so he just walked it back by saying he was kidding.

He is running and spending millions of tax payer dollars, on an election he doesn't believe is legitimate according to his words/actions. Bologna, why would you spend all your time on something you know you can't win.

He knows he lost, he is just a fraud. The people he frauds, the U.S. population. Pence made sure the legitimate electors were submitted last election. Wait for the conspiracies that come when maga realizes Harris is the one who submits the electors now.

And yet MAGA idiots still believe it's true regardless of this retraction. There's some random US citizen from Canton, Ohio named Allexis Ferrell who is in jail for eating a cat that they are using to justify these false claims even though she has absolutely no relation to Haitian immigrants in Springfield

She spreads racist bullshit then hides behind her half-black daughter

this is what a two-party system looks like

immigration is not tolerated by either party because that would bring new people with new ideas that would not align with the carefully crafted narrative the two parties have helped write

Wow. This is an incredibly simple viewpoint. It's like you ignore all the other facts and thoughts surrounding a topic to frame and reinforce the initial uniformed idea. Very skillful.

immigration is not tolerated by either party

One party: process and admit immigration at the border. Prevent it elsewhere and keep it documented.

Another party: immigrants are racist cat-eating scum who only come here for crime and will be sent to some other country. Maybe their own, maybe not. Don't care.

"Tolerated".

because that would bring new people with new ideas

Yeah. America is at risk of new ideas from gazan refugees and El Salvadorian people fleeing disaster. If America can learn from victims of cruelty then I say let it.