The secret brilliance of Trump's Republican propaganda and how to counter it: "Illegal Haitian immigrants stealing pet dogs and cats and eating them in Springfield, Ohio"

BACKGROUND

See,

1) Kris Maher, Valerie Bauerlein, and Tawnell D. Hobbs, “How the Trump Campaign Ran With Rumors About Pet-Eating Migrants—After Being Told They Weren’t True; Springfield, Ohio, city officials were contacted by Vance’s team and said the claims were baseless. It didn’t matter and now the town is in chaos. Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2024 (12:01 am ET);

2) “Trump falsely claims Haitian migrants are eating pets in Ohio,” CBS News ( You Tube), September 10, 2024;

3) “Vance defends spreading claims that Haitian migrants are eating pets,” NPR. September 15, 2024 (12:54 PM ET).

4) UDATE: Frances Robles, “Haiti’s Many Problems and Very Few Solutions, Explained; A search for a solution to the crisis in Haiti is growing more urgent as gangs gain territory and thousands more flee their homes.Intellectually we know that voters frequently vote on the basis of their emotions. In practice, however, the Democrats never seem to get that fundamental fact, and proceed as if voters decided who to vote for solely on the basis of rational analyses of what is in their self-interest,”,New York Times, November 17, 2024 (updated 3:29 p.m. ET).

The Republicans, and particularly Donald Trump and his campaign, on the other hand, assume the voters are stupid, have no memory, and don’t vote on the basis of what is rationally in their best interests.

That is how we can understand the 2024 Republican presidential campaign, and the repeated charge that illegal (very black) Haitian immigrants are stealing pet dogs and cats and eating them in Springfield, Ohio.

The Democrats try to counter such obviously mendacious propaganda with rational arguments, missing the point that the real communication is taking place on a different level and in a different channel, one aimed directly at the emotions of susceptible voters.

The real Republican message, addressed to the subconscious of these voters, is the following:

1) The nation is being invaded and taken over by illegal aliens, who like these Haitians are very black and are essentially criminal barbarians who steal family pets and eat them;

2) These black and brown immigrants from all over the world are taking over your country, and will replace the white population as the Democrats open the floodgates to massive immigration of these barbarians. These include, as Donald Trump incessantly repeats at his campaign rallies, rapists, murderers and other criminals who are being let out of prison from places like the (the Democratic Republic of) the Congo in Africa so that they can emigrate to the U.S.; and

3) Only Donald Trump and the Republicans can protect you from these black and brown illegal immigrants and the invading hordes for whom the Democrats are opening the borders in order to bring these (black and brown) barbarians into our (white) country.

Boiled down to its essence, it sounds like this:

1) Black (and brown) barbarian immigrants are taking over the country;

2} Only Trump and the Republicans can protect you and keep this from happening.

The subconscious message is even simpler:

Immigrants = take over country; Trump = Protection

The calculation of Trump and the Republican propagandists is that when the voter enters the voting booth, if not long before, the primitive emotions associated with these words will dictate the voter’s choice.

Doubling down on these cynical and outragious lies helps to fix these primitive ideas in the voter’s subconscious. So however absurd they may appear to rational observers, they serve an important function in influencing voters to vote for Trump.

In countering such propaganda, Democrats should of course make the rational arguments to rebut such preposterous lies, but without believing that such arguments will by themselves carry the day.

Mush more effective with persuadable voters would be to add to the rational arguments and even give prominence to different arguments and messages aimed at voters’ emotions. For example, in the present case, Democrats might prepare ads that include interviews with model Haitian immigrants and with Haitian children in Springfield. They might also urge journalists to include such interviews in their reporting.

These interviews should be buttressed by interviews with Springfield city, school, and church officials, including in particular those who are white, debunking the Republican lies about “illegal (very black) Haitian immigrants stealing and eating pet dogs and cats in Springfield”.

These interviews might include the following elements:

1) Haitian immigrants showing to the camera documentary proof that they are legally in the country;

2) A succinct but cogent explanation, in the immigrants’ own words, of why they fled Haiti and are seeking asylum in the United States. (See the reports of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights cited below.)

3) Interviews with Haitian children about their personal experience with violence, hunger, etc. in their home country;

4) Interviews with Haitian children from Springfield holding their pets, talking about what they do with their pets, and talking about how good and safe Springfield is for their pets.

The above rebuttals might be included in two-minute television commercials. or better yet in longer paid programs (of 15 or 30 minutes each that allow viewers to feel that they have gotten to know the Haitians and Haitian children who have been interviewed.

The cynical Republican propaganda about Haitians eating stolen pet cats and dogs in Springfield offers the Democrats a magnificent opportunity to flip over the rock hiding the cynicism of Republican propaganda and to expose the ugly racism and xenophobia that lie beneath that rock to the harsh daylight of truth.

Such an ad or paid program could be used on the Internet and in media markets throughout the country. It would not have to be tailored to each race and each market, which would make it quite economical in comparative terms.

The Democrats need rapid reaction teams which could put up rebuttals such as that suggested above very quickly. Unfortunately, they seem to be extraordinarily slow in rebutting memes such as the “illegal Haitians eating stolen dogs and cats” fabrication. It often seems as if any response requires many approvals up the bureaucratic chain of command before any rebuttal is published. By then it is usually too late.

Moreover, Democrats fail to move beyond rational arguments to appeal to the emotions of precisely those individuals which Trump and the Republican propagandists are targeting.

***

On a personal note, as a senior staff attorney at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the lawyer in charge of Haiti at the Commission, I coordinated the logistical and staff work during the Commission’s on-site visit to Haiti from August 16 through August 25, 1978.

See,

1) Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Haiti, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.46
doc. 66 rev. 1, 13 December 1979 (Original: French);

2) Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Haiti, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.,Doc. 358, August 30, 2022 (Original: español).

The 1922 Report describes recent conditions in Haiti of particular relevance to the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio who reportedly are legally in the U.S.

From my work on Haiti at the IACHR and during the Commission’s onsite visit in 1978, I have gained a deep appreciation for the many decent Haitians who simply want to live a normal life, in a country with scarce natural resources and a dark history of violence and dictatorship. For detailed examples of conditions in Haiti, see the above reports of the IACHR.

I still recall the first day during the Commission’s onsite visit in Haiti when the Commission received complaints from individuals who had been the victims of human rights violations. We were staying at the Villa Creole Hotel in Petionville. a wealthy part of the capital up in the hills overlooking the plain and the harbor below.

The staff of the hotel had doubled in the days before our arrival. A man in his early forties in a brown suit with polished brown shoes and no suitcase was staying in the room immediately above mine. The hotel staff warned us that the new staff were all state security agents. When members of the Commission’s staff wanted to talk to each other, we waded out to the middle of the swimming pool to have confidential conversations.

At the entrance of the hotel, there were several state security agents monitoring the arrival of anyone who might testify to human rights violations before the Commission. That first day, we didn’t know if anyone would have the courage to come and testify before the Commission.

I remember clearly the first complainant who came to testify, walking past the security agents at the entrance. As I recall, he was a school teacher. He told us that he had traveled five hours since early morning by bus from a town near the border with the Dominican Republic to give his testimony. “I don’t know if I will be alive at the end of the day today, but I have seen things that I must report to the Commission,” he said. He proceeded to give his statement.

After him, a stream of courageous individuals came forward to present their complaints and testify before the Commission.

Before our trip to the island, I had met in a safe house in Manhattan with the leader of the Haitian Communist Party and separately with the leading independent journalist in Haiti, Jean Dominique,¹ who was the owner of the only independent radio station in the country, Radio Haiti-Inter.

Jean Dominique helped put me in touch with many key independent political leaders and journalists in Haiti. The latter included the young investigative reporters from Le Petit Samedi Soir, who continued their courageous work even after one of their members was killed.

I remember when on one dark, rainy night, after traveling on an empty road in the mountains above Kenscoff, I met Jean Dominque as he stepped out of dark shadows with a flashlight, on a large estate at our pre-arranged meeting location. An intrepid international diplomat drove me to the safe house and back to my hotel. If he had ben discovered, he would have been expelled from the country. Jean Dominque got out the word and had a lot to do with many courageous individuals coming forward to file their complaints before the Commission In Cap Haitien on the northern coast, another city we visited, no one cane forward to file a complaint.

During our stay in Haiti, Jean Dominique took advantage of our presence and the political opening it made possible His radio program became increasingly audacious, as he read portions of the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights to his audience, and even aggressively interviewed members of congress about land issues and other sensitive matters.

Andrew Young, then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and former Executive Director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and close associate of Dr. Martin Luther King,Jr., had persuaded ‘Baby Doc”, the son of longtime strongman“Papa Doc” Duvalier, and the current dictator of Haiti, to ratify the American Convention on Human Rights and to invite the IACHR to conduct an onsite visit to the country. Jean Dominique took full advantage of the resultant opening.

The point of this digression is that, despite its troubled history, Haiti has always had its fair share of enormously talented and courageous people.1978 was a hopeful moment in the country’s history. Since then, Haiti has sunk into a cauldron of violence where at least until recently most of the capital was being ruled by violent criminal gangs. Many of the people in Haiti have fled the violence and some have ended up in Springfield, Ohio.

In addition to unmasking the ugly racism and xenophobia of Donald Trump and the Republican Party today, the cyncal lies of Trump and J.D. Vance about the Haitian immigrants in Springfield mark a despicable low point in American politics.

It is an absolute outrage that Dondald Trump and J.D. Vance have defamed the Haitian immigrants of Springfield. In denouncing the Haitians with unforgivable lies, Trump and Vance have made clear once again what vile hate lies within the hearts of the leaders of the American fascist movement, which has unfortunately taken control of the Republican Party.

James Rowles is a former Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and professor of international law at other universities. He is the author of The Rape of American Democracy: Republican Actions and Democratic Failures, 2016-2021 (September, 2024, now available on Amazon and soon to be available from IngramSpark).

1. A terrific movie has been made about Jean Dominique, The Agronomist: The true story of Jean Dominique, a Haitian radio journalist and human rights activist (French, with English subtitles, 2003). The movie tells the dramatic story of Jean Dominique’s life while revealing much about political and other conditions in Haiti.

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