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There was a moment in the presidential debate where I was truly confused and worried I had somehow landed in a Simpsons episode.
Tuning into the broadcast on my car radio during the drive home, I landed smack dab in Springfield where, according to Donald Trump, cats and dogs were being eaten by millions of people coming into the United States.
In the words of Homer Simpson, “D’oh!”
I gave my head a shake and was relieved when ABC debate moderator David Muir set the record straight by saying there was no evidence of the baseless claim Trump was peddling.
Alas my relief was fleeting as we live in an age where facts are trumped by feelings, where rage overwhelms sage. When confronted with the truth, those in the business of sowing division by any and all means simply double down.
“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,” JD Vance, Trump’s vice-presidential nominee, said Sunday.
JD Vance, Trump’s vice-presidential nominee (Abbie Parr / The Associated Press)
Create stories?
“It comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents. I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it. I didn’t create 20,000 illegal migrants coming into Springfield thanks to Kamala Harris’ policies. Her policies did that. But yes, we created the actual focus that allowed the American media to talk about this story and the suffering caused by Kamala Harris’ policies.”
I don’t want to spend too much time on Vance’s feline fetish, or what Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi brilliantly coined as his predilection for spreading “fake mews.” And the reason I don’t want to spend too much time on the false narratives surrounding Springfield is because we can’t forget the conspiratorial hokum that was spreading around our city one year ago this week.
Without any help from the megaphones of Trump or Vance, more than 1,000 students — including nearly half of one elementary school’s population — were absent from classes in Seven Oaks School Division because of misinformation spread online about its teachers distributing graphic sexual content.
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As we reported at the time, then superintendent Brian O’Leary said “false and malicious fearmongering” on social media prompted hundreds of families in the Seven Oaks School Division to keep their elementary-aged children home from classes Sept. 20.
“We had a lot of information circulating on social media, particularly within the South Asian community, telling parents that the schools were planning to hand out books with graphic sexual material to all students,” O’Leary said.
From Springfield to Seven Oaks, the soundtrack increasingly being listened to is one stuck on a loop of lies. And like the Pizzagate false theory targeting Democrats during the 2016 US presidential election, those tuning in all too often turn to hate and harm.
Is more media literacy the antidote? I’ll have much more to say on that in these newsletters to come. In the meantime, I will simply note the Simpsons never needed a laugh track, but fake mews could certainly use a sad trombone.
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