Без помощи российских друзей и прикормленных ими инфлюенсеров не обошлось.
We may never know exactly how the false story first began to circulate. A white supremacist account on X tweeted a police video labelled Black woman eats the neighbor's cat on Saturday morning - she was not Haitian and the events took place in Canton, Ohio, not Springfield. By that evening, the story had come to the attention (new window) of Malaysia-based RT columnist and online influencer Ian Miles Cheong, whose work appears in Canadian outlets such as Rebel News and the Post Millennial. Cheong soon connected cat-eating to a different Ohio town that has experienced an influx of Haitian migrants, and the story was off to the races (new window), with an assist from other channels of amplification strongly associated with Russia. It was quickly echoed, with AI-generated memes, by Benny Johnson, one of the right-wing commenters employed by Tenet Media, which was paid large amounts of Russian money through Canadian influencer Lauren Chen. Soon, Elon Musk - a superspreader of Russian propaganda themes - was fully on board with numerous tweets (new window) and retweets over a 48-hour period. Republican vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance warned (new window) that reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country. Where is our border czar? The story performed a full circle through the pro-Trump ecosystem, leaping from the accounts of Russian-affiliated influencers to mainstream Republican accounts, then from the online world to the real world as an official GOP billboard campaign. Johnson and Cheong both tweeted about the billboards. Small wonder, then, that an apparently confused Trump would cite the story during Tuesday's debate. https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/2104224/how-russia-uses-race-and-migration-to-divide-the-west
It was one day before Trump would meet Harris in Philadelphia for their first and only debate, and Vance, according to people familiar with the situation, was feeling punchy. Over the past several days, the young senator had marinated in right-wing agitprop stemming from Springfield, Ohio, where it was rumored that Haitian migrants were stealing and eating pets. When Vance’s allies on the campaign learned that he’d already spoken out about related issues in Springfield-how the influx of thousands of Haitian migrants who came legally to fill jobs had stressed the city-they urged him to seize on this conspiracist catnip and turn it into a crusade for the Trump campaign. One staffer in particular-a young activist named Alex Bruesewitz-helped convince Vance and his team that this was an opportunity to put his stamp on the campaign. Vance agreed. “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country,” the senator posted on X, catching the Trump campaign’s leaders entirely off guard. Figuring there was no use in half measures, Bruesewitz led Vance’s minions in blasting the social-media post around their networks and urging officials on other GOP campaigns, as well as at the Republican National Committee, to join Vance’s assault on the migrant community of Springfield. <…> Technically a mid-level staffer-formally a liaison to right-wing media, informally a terminally online troll and perpetual devil on the campaign’s shoulder-Bruesewitz had grown his profile inside Trump’s orbit. The candidate’s appearances on various bro-themed podcasts were hailed as acts of strategic genius. But there was one guest booking Bruesewitz couldn’t secure: He wanted Trump to talk with Hinchcliffe on his show, Kill Tony. When word got around that Trump was looking for opening acts at the Garden, Bruesewitz made the introductions. Trump’s head of planning and production, Justin Caporale, ran with the idea. No senior staff ever bothered to vet Hinchcliffe themselves. Now, with their grand celebration quickly morphing into a public-relations nightmare, Trump’s allies stewed. Two decisions needed to be made, and quickly: whether to inform the man of the hour about this disaster before he took the stage, and whether to issue a statement rebuking Hinchcliffe and his remarks. Some staffers feared throwing Trump off his game at such a crucial moment, and others argued that showing any weakness would just make things worse. But LaCivita dictated a short statement to the communications team that was blasted out to reporters across the arena, distancing the campaign from Hinchcliffe, while Wiles pulled the former president aside and explained the situation. (Trump, aides told me, was merely annoyed at the time; only after watching television coverage the next morning would he rage about how Wiles, LaCivita, and Caporale had “fucked this up.”) https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/11/trump-2024-campaign-lewandowski-conway/680456/
Без помощи российских друзей и прикормленных ими инфлюенсеров не обошлось.
We may never know exactly how the false story first began to circulate. A white supremacist account on X tweeted a police video labelled Black woman eats the neighbor's cat on Saturday morning - she was not Haitian and the events took place in Canton, Ohio, not Springfield.
By that evening, the story had come to the attention (new window) of Malaysia-based RT columnist and online influencer Ian Miles Cheong, whose work appears in Canadian outlets such as Rebel News and the Post Millennial.
Cheong soon connected cat-eating to a different Ohio town that has experienced an influx of Haitian migrants, and the story was off to the races (new window), with an assist from other channels of amplification strongly associated with Russia.
It was quickly echoed, with AI-generated memes, by Benny Johnson, one of the right-wing commenters employed by Tenet Media, which was paid large amounts of Russian money through Canadian influencer Lauren Chen.
Soon, Elon Musk - a superspreader of Russian propaganda themes - was fully on board with numerous tweets (new window) and retweets over a 48-hour period.
Republican vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance warned (new window) that reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country. Where is our border czar?
The story performed a full circle through the pro-Trump ecosystem, leaping from the accounts of Russian-affiliated influencers to mainstream Republican accounts, then from the online world to the real world as an official GOP billboard campaign. Johnson and Cheong both tweeted about the billboards.
Small wonder, then, that an apparently confused Trump would cite the story during Tuesday's debate.
https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/2104224/how-russia-uses-race-and-migration-to-divide-the-west
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It was one day before Trump would meet Harris in Philadelphia for their first and only debate, and Vance, according to people familiar with the situation, was feeling punchy. Over the past several days, the young senator had marinated in right-wing agitprop stemming from Springfield, Ohio, where it was rumored that Haitian migrants were stealing and eating pets. When Vance’s allies on the campaign learned that he’d already spoken out about related issues in Springfield-how the influx of thousands of Haitian migrants who came legally to fill jobs had stressed the city-they urged him to seize on this conspiracist catnip and turn it into a crusade for the Trump campaign.
One staffer in particular-a young activist named Alex Bruesewitz-helped convince Vance and his team that this was an opportunity to put his stamp on the campaign. Vance agreed. “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country,” the senator posted on X, catching the Trump campaign’s leaders entirely off guard. Figuring there was no use in half measures, Bruesewitz led Vance’s minions in blasting the social-media post around their networks and urging officials on other GOP campaigns, as well as at the Republican National Committee, to join Vance’s assault on the migrant community of Springfield. <…>
Technically a mid-level staffer-formally a liaison to right-wing media, informally a terminally online troll and perpetual devil on the campaign’s shoulder-Bruesewitz had grown his profile inside Trump’s orbit. The candidate’s appearances on various bro-themed podcasts were hailed as acts of strategic genius. But there was one guest booking Bruesewitz couldn’t secure: He wanted Trump to talk with Hinchcliffe on his show, Kill Tony. When word got around that Trump was looking for opening acts at the Garden, Bruesewitz made the introductions. Trump’s head of planning and production, Justin Caporale, ran with the idea. No senior staff ever bothered to vet Hinchcliffe themselves.
Now, with their grand celebration quickly morphing into a public-relations nightmare, Trump’s allies stewed. Two decisions needed to be made, and quickly: whether to inform the man of the hour about this disaster before he took the stage, and whether to issue a statement rebuking Hinchcliffe and his remarks. Some staffers feared throwing Trump off his game at such a crucial moment, and others argued that showing any weakness would just make things worse. But LaCivita dictated a short statement to the communications team that was blasted out to reporters across the arena, distancing the campaign from Hinchcliffe, while Wiles pulled the former president aside and explained the situation. (Trump, aides told me, was merely annoyed at the time; only after watching television coverage the next morning would he rage about how Wiles, LaCivita, and Caporale had “fucked this up.”)
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/11/trump-2024-campaign-lewandowski-conway/680456/
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