JD Vance Doubles Down on Racist Conspiracy Theory While Admitting It Could Be Bullshit

For years now, there’s been no practical difference between the mainstream Republican Party and a sampling of the most deranged, racist users on 4Chan. But even for a party led by a man who won the 2016 presidential election by smearing Mexican migrants as “rapists,” the events of this week have still somehow managed to shock me.

On Monday, Republican vice presidential nominee and Ohio Sen. JD Vance amplified a rapidly spreading, white supremacist conspiracy theory that supposedly undocumented Haitian migrants in the small town of Springfield, Ohio, are kidnapping and eating people’s cats. Vance’s Monday tweet claims “Haitian illegal immigrants” are “draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio,” and cites nonexistent “reports” that “show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.” The post, which includes a clip of him railing against the rising population of Haitian migrants in Springfield from July, has effectively brought a baseless right-wing smear campaign into the mainstream.

Just 24 hours after his original post, Vance wrote in a lengthy follow-up tweet that “it’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.” Nonetheless, he doubled down on his racist fearmongering, baselessly blaming Haitian migrants for violent crime and the spread of diseases like HIV, and even heartlessly attacking young migrant schoolchildren for not knowing English:

In the last several weeks, my office has received many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield who’ve said their neighbors’ pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants. It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.

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Do you know…

— JD Vance (@JDVance) September 10, 2024

But I want to return to the line that “it’s possible” that “all of these rumors will turn out to be false”—Vance knows he’s pushing neo-Nazi-level bullshit that carries the potential to subject vulnerable communities to violence and harassment. He just doesn’t care. And to be clear, it’s not just “possible” that these rumors are “false”—they are.

This lie doesn’t originate from police, local authorities, or any verified reports. The rumor appears to have originated from a racist Facebook post from last week that was picked up by the far-right, neo-Nazi Twitter account “End Wokeness,” which has millions of followers and is often amplified by terminally online right-wingers like Twitter owner Elon Musk. The Facebook post read:

“Warning to all about our beloved pets & those around us!! My neighbor informed me that her daughters friend had lost her cat. One day she came home from work, as soon as she stepped out of her car, looked towards a neighbors house, where Haitians live, & saw her cat hanging from a branch, like you’d do a deer for butchering, & they were carving it up to eat. I’ve been told they are doing this to dogs, they have been doing it at snyder park with the ducks & geese, as I was told that last bit by Rangers & police. Please keep a close eye on these animals.”

Springfield police say they haven’t received any reports of pets being killed and eaten and that the allegations in the viral Facebook post are “not something that’s on our radar right now.” The unverified rumor seems to arise from an August incident in Canton, Ohio—about 200 miles away from Springfield—involving a resident who was arrested for killing and attempting to eat a cat. The woman, who is a citizen, was charged with abuse of an animal.

In addition to “End Wokeness,” accounts like far-right influencer Ian Miles Cheong also began circulating it around the end of last week; one user asked Cheong if drugs were a factor in the alleged cat-eating incident, to which he responded, “Worse. Haitians.”

As the right increasingly embraces the white nationalist “Great Replacement Theory,” which posits that non-white people are “replacing” white Americans, they’ve long been looking for a story like this. As Rolling Stone‘s Nikki McCann Ramirez reports, during the latter part of the covid pandemic, manufacturing and warehouse jobs drew a wave of some 20,000 Haitian migrants to the small, primarily white community of Springfield. Though it shouldn’t matter, most of them have legal immigration status, work authorization, and valid Social Security numbers. But their legal immigration status is immaterial: Republicans and the far-right are simply looking for an opportunity to fearmonger about Haitian migrants’ growing numbers in a once predominantly white, working-class community in the Midwest—and the opportunity to smear Kamala Harris, who spoke about the Biden administration’s program to grant temporary protected status to about 100,000 Haitian migrants on The View earlier this year.

In Vance’s Tuesday post conceding that he pushed an unverified conspiracy theory, he cheekily concludes, “In short, don’t let the crybabies in the media dissuade you, fellow patriots. Keep the cat memes flowing.” He’s referring to vile posts like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s meme depicting two cats with the caption, “PLEASE VOTE FOR TRUMP SO HAITIAN MIGRANTS DON’T EAT US.” Another viral post that was shared by the House Judiciary Committee’s official GOP account features an AI-generated image of Trump, waist-deep in a lake, wearing a full suit, and cradling a duck and a kitten. Not only is Musk allowing this content to proliferate across his platform, but he’s sharing it himself: On Monday, he quote-tweeted the post sharing the conspiracy theory and insane AI image with the caption, “Vote for Kamala if you want this to happen to your neighborhood!”

As recently as Friday, Trump, who’s accused immigrants of “poisoning the blood” of the nation, baselessly claimed immigrant gangs are invading apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado, and that immigrants in Wisconsin will drive residents out of their homes; the Republican Party itself is largely running this election cycle on a racist, mythical “migrant crime wave.” Vance and the right’s “Haitian migrants are eating cats” bullshit is disgusting—and it’s the tip of the iceberg of the GOP’s simmering, violent xenophobia.