Parables, Hyperbole, Lies and Political Manipulation

"They [Democrats] support abortion up to and even beyond the ninth month… The concept of having an abortion in the later months, and even execution after birth. And that's exactly what it is. The baby is born, the baby is executed after birth is unacceptable, and almost everyone agrees with that“ … “

[Legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio are] 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." Trump statements during the September 10th presidential debate.

“The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do, Dana [Bash of CNN], because you guys are completely letting Kamala Harris coast.”

Ohio GOP Senator & Trump VP Running Mate, JD Vance in CNN interview on September 15th

"There's a lot of garbage on the internet and this is a piece of garbage that was simply not true, there's no evidence of this at all… These are positive influences on our community in Springfield and any comment about that otherwise I think is hurtful and is not helpful to the city of Springfield and the people of Springfield… Springfield is a good city, they [our citizens] are good people, they are welcoming people. We have challenges every day we are working on those challenges," 

Ohio GOP Governor & Trump supporter, Mike DeWine, on the September 15th ABC's This Week

Let’s begin. Where did this egregiously and obviously false premise of baby killing come from? Well, in 2019, former Democratic Virginia Governor “Northam began by explaining that third-trimester abortions come into the discussion when there are ‘severe deformities’ or ‘non-viable’ fetuses. In other words, babies that cannot survive outside the womb without extraordinary life-saving measures. He spoke about infants being kept ‘comfortable.’ He even pressed that multiple physicians being present is advisable in such cases because of how challenging it is to decide whether to keep a baby alive who will soon die anyway…

“Northman’s stance isn’t controversial, and we’ve already seen glimmers of what happens when abortion bans go into effect. Case in point, more infants died after Roe V. Wade was overturned simply because women couldn’t access abortions for fetuses that had little chance at survival. When Texas banned abortions in early pregnancy, infant and newborn deaths increased by 13%. Therefore, rather than terminating nonviable or risky pregnancies, women in Texas had to carry babies they knew would not survive outside the womb, only to watch those babies die after birth.

“Either way, trimester abortions are not as common as Republicans would like us to believe. In reality, less than 1% of abortions happen after 21 weeks of pregnancy, most commonly due to a health concern like a fetal abnormality or a risk to the mother’s life. Overwhelmingly, most abortions (93%) take place in the first trimester…. While the ‘post-abortion’ execution lie’s continuous circulation is odd, it’s not the first time Republicans have leaned into misinformation about abortion. Lies about ‘partial-birth abortion,’ which is not a medical term but a political one coined by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), being rampant have been repeated in the same way. ‘Partial birth abortion’ describes a D&X procedure—once a medical technique for terminating a pregnancy after 21 weeks—and has been illegal since 2003”. Sarah Bregel, writing for the September 11th FastCompany.com, adding “No, babies are not being executed after birth.”

Still, legions of MAGA Republicans stubbornly cling to the belief that the statements in the first quote above are true, even as they have been thoroughly debunked by leaders on both sides of the aisle. OK, but those illegal Haitians are eating local pets, right? First, these Haitians are not illegal (they have 18 months of temporary asylum), and there are no instances of such pet-eating. Springfield’s Republican Mayor Rob Rue and Ohio’s Republican Governor, Mike DeWine quickly debunked the above lies, the local police found the Haitians hardworking temporary residents that appeared to be a genuine value to this small town. What the Springfield locals did get is bomb and school shooting threats, as apparently nasty rumors continue being spread by local extremists like the KKK. DeWine demanded that GOP leaders “stop” spreading these lies.

But J.D. Vance’s admission that he and Trump routinely make up stories simply to get the press to focus on their issues is extraordinary. Writing for the September 16th Los Angeles Times, columnist Michael Hiltzik finds parallels in past propaganda efforts of rising autocratic regimes: “One that came up was a judgment by the Nazi Party’s chief racist ideologue, Alfred Rosenberg, about ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’ an antisemitic tract wholly fabricated by officials in czarist Russia.

“In 1934, Rosenberg wrote that the issue ‘was less the so-called authenticity of The Protocols than the inner truth of what is stated.’… When I first encountered this quote in a posting on X, I found it so overdetermined that I thought it must be apocryphal. It’s not. It has been documented by Holocaust historians. Indeed, Rosenberg’s thinking reflected the general approach to the ‘Protocols’ among Nazis. They included Hitler’s propagandist Joseph Goebbels, who wrote in his diary in 1924: ‘I believe in the inner, but not the factual, truth of The Protocols.’

“The Jewish community will recognize these statements as related to the ‘blood libel’—the persistent assertion that Jews used the blood of Christian children to bake matzoh or for other ritual purposes. A core tenet of Nazi antisemitism, it was designed to stir up anti-Jewish reaction with a visceral intensity. Of course it was completely fabricated… This is what Vance and Trump are up to. Vance surely knows that the poison he has injected into political discourse has no resemblance to truth. Pressed on the issue by CNN’s Dana Bash, he claimed to have heard about the pet kidnappings in Springfield from ‘a dozen’ constituents, 10 of whose stories are ‘verifiable and confirmable.’”

Admitting that such statements weren’t verifiable or true did not give the Trump/Vance ticket justification to continue to lie in a horrific effort at political manipulation. Yet, their most committed followers just do not care… some are even willing to bear arms to restore Donald “a dictator on day one” to the presidency.

I’m Peter Dekom, and even Vance’s on-camera admission that he and Trump lie to gain political advantage still isn’t enough to give Kamala Harris a clear and convincing lead in this election, which seems to be deadlocked in those necessary battleground states.