v a l l e j o n o c t u r n o

They are Eating the Dogs

 

From NYT's Jamelle Bouie:

Where once Donald Trump attracted only the right-wing fringe of American politics, now he leads it. Where once he kept some distance from agitators and provocateurs like Laura Loomer, now they’re at the center of his campaign. And where once he merely inspired extremists to act, now he points them directly at the objects of his rage.

Take Springfield, Ohio, where schools, colleges and municipal buildings have been shut down and community events canceled owing to bomb threats targeting the city’s Haitian community. Those threats come as Trump — and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio — smear the Haitians of Springfield with the lie that they’re stealing and eating the pets of presumably native-born Americans. Vance, who was ostensibly elected to represent and aid the people of towns like Springfield, has been even more vicious than his boss, spreading the additional lie that Haitians have carried disease and disorder to Ohio.

Despite pleas from both the Republican mayor of Springfield and the Republican governor of Ohio, who called the story of the attacks on pets “a piece of garbage that was simply not true,” neither Trump nor Vance is willing to end the rhetorical assault on the city’s Haitian immigrants. If anything, they’re unapologetic.

During a rally in Tucson, Ariz., on Thursday, for example, Trump expanded the lie even further. “Twenty thousand illegal Haitian immigrants have descended on a town of 58,000 people, destroying their way of life,” Trump said. “Residents are reporting that the migrants are walking off with the town’s geese. They’re taking the geese. You know where the geese are, in the park. And even walking off with their pets.”

When asked about the bomb threats, he dodged the question. “I don’t know what happened with the bomb threats,” Trump said. “I know that it’s been taken over by illegal migrants and that’s a terrible thing that happened. Springfield was this beautiful town and now they’re going through hell.”

The hell, of course, is of his own making.

As for Vance, who spearheaded this smear campaign when he amplified the claim on social media, he confessed to elevating rumors and lies to prove a political point. “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people,” Vance said on Sunday, “then that’s what I’m going to do.”

A more self-aware person would see that “the suffering of the American people” includes all of the people of Springfield, who are facing the ugly consequences of Trump’s decision to make them a prop for his campaign. To him, their day-to-day lives are worth less than their symbolic value. This is why Trump wants to visit — it’s his chance to fan the flames, as well as fuel the fire for his own purposes.

There’s something familiar in the spectacle of a caravan of far-right agitators descending on a small city to weaponize the tensions that surround inclusion, belonging and identity.

More

She Went Nuts: Prose Poem by Trump

From transcript in Arizona this last week. Surrealist poetry from a broken mind.

SHE WENT NUTS

Do you remember that?

It was the weirdest thing. Am I wrong? They were saying, JD and I are weird.

No, we’re very solid people. She’s weird. That vice president of hers is really weird. He’s really… That was a soundbite.

They said, oh, he’s weird.

In other words, they gave it to their friends in the fake news. Weird. It’s something I’ve never called.

I’ve been called a lot of bad things, but not weird.

But she went out and the people were applauding herself and she goes, “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.” I think she went nuts.

There was something wrong with her, but I was very happy because I got the endorsement of the vice president’s family and I got the endorsement of the vice president’s brother and even sent me a contribution, and I was very happy because Barack Hussein Obama, his brother, as you know, endorsed me, so his brother endorsed me.

Bloodbash by the "Stable Genius"

A poem by Donald Trump from his debate last week (actual transcript):

BLOODBASH

I have said “blood bash—bath.”

It was a different term, and it was a term that related to energy, because they have destroyed our energy business.

That was where bloodbath was.

Also, on Charlottesville, that story has been, as you would say, debunked.

Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Jesse—all of these people, they covered it.

If they go an extra sentence, they will see it was perfect.

It was debunked in almost every newspaper. But they still bring it up, just like they bring 2025 up.

They bring all of this stuff up. I ask you this: You talk about the Capitol.

Why are we allowing these millions of people to come through on the southern border?

How come she’s not doing anything—and I’ll tell you what I would do.

And I would be very proud to do it.

Gibberish

I have always thought the filtering effect of our media prevents us from understanding who are candidates are. Even in situations where we have seen the candidate frequently over the years. Perhaps its because of our fractured attention existence that prevents 98% of the population from paying the necessary attention. Here is what Trump answered last week when he appeared in front of a New York group to question about monetary response to childcare. Here is the Joycian answer:

Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down — you know, I was, uh, somebody, we had Sen. Marco Rubio and my daughter, Ivanka, was so, uh, impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue.

But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that — because child care is child care. It’s, couldn’t — you know, it’s something, you have to have it. In this country, you have to have it.

But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to but they’ll get used to it very quickly. And it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country.

Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s gonna take care. We’re gonna have — I, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time. Coupled with, uh, the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country — because I have to say with child care, I want to stay with childcare, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth.

But growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just, uh, that I just told you about. We’re gonna be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as childcare is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in.

We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people. But we’re gonna take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about: Make America great again. We have to do it, because right now we’re a failing nation. So we’ll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question.