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
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    53 days ago

    A distraction from what? What is overt, disgusting racism distract from in any helpful way?

    • @barsquid
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      12 days 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
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      12 days 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

      • Flying Squid
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        12 days ago

        Okay? Well they’re being attacked. Massively. So I guess this distraction isn’t working out for them.

        • @twistypencil
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          12 days 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.

          • Flying Squid
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            12 days ago

            Yes, and all of those statements essentially are “Donald Trump and JD Vance are racist liars.”

            Which you seem to think people shouldn’t say.

            • @twistypencil
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              2 days ago

              It “seems” you are wrong. I think they should go on the attack, and do that.

                • @twistypencil
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                  21 hours ago

                  Not the same kind of attack, it’s weak. You hear anyone except lemmy people pointing out the stochastic terrorism? Or even pointing out that it’s racist? All Harris said is, it’s sad… It’s either defense (they aren’t eating cats), or weak attacks

                  ‘A crying shame’: Harris rips Trump’s remarks about Springfield

                  “It’s got to stop”

                  Such attack! Very powerful

                  • Flying Squid
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                    110 hours ago

                    Yes, I hear tons of people all over the media point out how it’s racist.

                    Do you not pay attention to the news at all?

                    Two seconds of Googling:

                    Let me know when your argument starts to reflect reality.

      • Flying Squid
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        23 days ago

        But he literally talked about this in the debate…

    • @[email protected]
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      23 days 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
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        -13 days 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.

        • @[email protected]
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          73 days 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
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            -23 days 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.

            • @[email protected]
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              43 days 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
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                3 days 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.

                • @[email protected]
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                  43 days ago

                  And those people are being told that the moderators were lugenpresse who were on the wrong side and want to protect criminals over your dog as part of their something something woke. The fact that the lamestream media keeps talking about how false it is and going to increasingly desperate lengths to deny it must mean we’re onto them.

                  This is how the propaganda works. This is such a blatant lie that it should be a simple fact-check, but since that doesn’t actually change anyone’s mind all the attempt does is keep everyone talking about immigration, an issue that fires up the right-wing base and exhausts a lot of their opponents. You’re absolutely right that we shouldn’t be still talking about whether this is true or not, but focusing on how weird and dumb this conspiracy theory is getting. That’s why the “weirdo” tack has been working for Harris in this campaign, and it’s unfortunate that the headlines have lost interest.

                  • Flying Squid
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                    -13 days ago

                    Yes, again, those are the MAGA faithful. Trump needs more than them to win.

                    I didn’t think I’d get to use this again so quickly:

                    He just needs to lose by a small margin. And that’s absolutely possible no matter what Fox News tells his fans.