Thank you for this piece. Always good to have someone return to these kinds of stories as they fall out of memory with everything else that is going on. Especially now, as the vile Vance is a heartbeat away from the presidency -- a president whose health is deteriorating before our eyes.
I hope Governor Mike DeWine will speak up about the terrible morals of JD Vance during the presidential election … this incident should be the primary cautionary tale to voters regarding Vance. Scapegoating an entire group of people! Despicable
The "eating the dogs and cats" BS is one of those "I hope it's true" stories where factually it's definitely not true but it feels emotionally true to people suspicious of outsiders. Ohio is a breeding ground for it because of the following reasons:
1. It's a highly populated U.S. state that has historically greatly benefited from immigration due to industrial needs (Dayton, Toledo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Akron, and a number of other manufacturing centers drew them in) but dwindled down starting in the early to mid 1900s and largely been confined to metropolitan areas since then. Therefore, a lot of the people in Ohio (particularly right wingers) have a very ignorant perception of what immigration looks like (hearing rosy stories from their elders but seeing something that looks very different to them in reality), particularly if it's in a place like Springfield, Ohio where it's something novel.
2. Ohio has a lot of wonderful places to live (I grew up in one of them), but I do think that it's suffered a decline in perceived importance due to the fact that it's not growing as fast as the Sun Belt, negative perceptions due to Rust Belt stereotypes (shrinking manufacturing bases and cities), and the fact that while it's great at producing talented go-getters, it's not always great about keeping them there ("Ohio's chief export is people" is a long running joke). I think that a lot of Ohioans have internalized that cynical outlook.
3. The concept of immigrants coming into a place like Springfield viewed as declining and succeeding where they have failed (or at the very least revitalizing it but in a way that looks unfamiliar) is a lot more than many Ohioans can emotionally and mentally handle. So that's exactly how rumors start.
J.D. Vance, as someone who grew up in a place like Springfield, and who, despite his memoir's claims to the contrary, perceives himself as an Ohioan and a Midwesterner (particularly if he's choosing to live in the liberal and affluent East Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati), is keenly aware that a fake story about immigrants has cultural cachet not only in Ohio but in the many other places in America that resemble Ohio.
The point of saying this was never to actually communicate a factual truth about what was happening on the ground in Springfield, Ohio. The point was to communicate the emotional message “Haitians are disgusting, and you should be disgusted by them, the same way you would be disgusted by someone who killed and ate your housepet.” This is why J.D. Vance could admit that he was lying to the media and pay no price with his voters: because his voters already knew it wasn’t true, they just liked Vance saying it because it told them Vance emotionally agreed with them about his own constituents.
Not only that, but it has cultural cachet in Ohio, which contain a lot of small and mid-sized towns like Springfield, Ohio (places which still do have plenty of middle class people but have declined in relevance as people have moved elsewhere in and out of the state). A lot of Ohioans in those areas would rather those places continue to decline rather than observe immigrants revitalize those places in ways that look strange to them.
This story tells you all you need to know about the current administration in general and J.D. Vance in particular. (And it’s all the fault of the Jews because of course it is.) When we try to understand Trump voters — the jobs lost to globalization; the deaths of despair, and so on — we should never discount the sheer hate and bigotry roiling underneath. We must remove these awful people from power and erase all sign they were ever here, starting with Trump’s obscene arch if that gets built.
Rufo is a White supremacist who lies to promote Nazi Great Replacement theory, and yet he is also a creation of the New York Times. How do I reconcile these facts? Another excellent A++ article by Cathy Young, who has become one of my favorite writers.
I don't know that would call him a white Supremacist - he's married to an Asian woman, and I think he's tried to get the right to dial back some of the overtly racist stuff. Has he endorsed "Great Replacement Theory"? I think his decision to wade into this controversy on the side of the hoax was just partisanship -- he wanted to get Trump elected.
(Although JD Vance is also married to an Indian woman, and sliding closer and closer to overt white nationalism... what is going on with people!)
I recommend reading Robert Darnton’s book The Great Cat Massacre. Not because it is about the same situation, but because it looks at the varied sensibilities of different social groups about both pets and people who are considered subordinate by a dominant group. In this case the subordinate group was apprentices who felt their masters treated their pet cats better than their workforce. I also wonder whether Vance was the type of child who mistreated animals in that awful way that some children do.
Thank you for this piece. Always good to have someone return to these kinds of stories as they fall out of memory with everything else that is going on. Especially now, as the vile Vance is a heartbeat away from the presidency -- a president whose health is deteriorating before our eyes.
I hope Governor Mike DeWine will speak up about the terrible morals of JD Vance during the presidential election … this incident should be the primary cautionary tale to voters regarding Vance. Scapegoating an entire group of people! Despicable
I fear for the health and safety of the children and spouses of hateful MAGAs.
They are clearly hateful, and thus psychologically abusive, (and likely physically abusive) people.
#sure-thing-I'm-admittedly-a-bit-biased-but-No-that's-not-comparable-to-the-grotesque-stupidity-of-MAGA
##-Pretty-sure-MAGA-never-actually-met-a-Haitian
The "eating the dogs and cats" BS is one of those "I hope it's true" stories where factually it's definitely not true but it feels emotionally true to people suspicious of outsiders. Ohio is a breeding ground for it because of the following reasons:
1. It's a highly populated U.S. state that has historically greatly benefited from immigration due to industrial needs (Dayton, Toledo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Akron, and a number of other manufacturing centers drew them in) but dwindled down starting in the early to mid 1900s and largely been confined to metropolitan areas since then. Therefore, a lot of the people in Ohio (particularly right wingers) have a very ignorant perception of what immigration looks like (hearing rosy stories from their elders but seeing something that looks very different to them in reality), particularly if it's in a place like Springfield, Ohio where it's something novel.
2. Ohio has a lot of wonderful places to live (I grew up in one of them), but I do think that it's suffered a decline in perceived importance due to the fact that it's not growing as fast as the Sun Belt, negative perceptions due to Rust Belt stereotypes (shrinking manufacturing bases and cities), and the fact that while it's great at producing talented go-getters, it's not always great about keeping them there ("Ohio's chief export is people" is a long running joke). I think that a lot of Ohioans have internalized that cynical outlook.
3. The concept of immigrants coming into a place like Springfield viewed as declining and succeeding where they have failed (or at the very least revitalizing it but in a way that looks unfamiliar) is a lot more than many Ohioans can emotionally and mentally handle. So that's exactly how rumors start.
J.D. Vance, as someone who grew up in a place like Springfield, and who, despite his memoir's claims to the contrary, perceives himself as an Ohioan and a Midwesterner (particularly if he's choosing to live in the liberal and affluent East Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati), is keenly aware that a fake story about immigrants has cultural cachet not only in Ohio but in the many other places in America that resemble Ohio.
The point of saying this was never to actually communicate a factual truth about what was happening on the ground in Springfield, Ohio. The point was to communicate the emotional message “Haitians are disgusting, and you should be disgusted by them, the same way you would be disgusted by someone who killed and ate your housepet.” This is why J.D. Vance could admit that he was lying to the media and pay no price with his voters: because his voters already knew it wasn’t true, they just liked Vance saying it because it told them Vance emotionally agreed with them about his own constituents.
Not only that, but it has cultural cachet in Ohio, which contain a lot of small and mid-sized towns like Springfield, Ohio (places which still do have plenty of middle class people but have declined in relevance as people have moved elsewhere in and out of the state). A lot of Ohioans in those areas would rather those places continue to decline rather than observe immigrants revitalize those places in ways that look strange to them.
This story tells you all you need to know about the current administration in general and J.D. Vance in particular. (And it’s all the fault of the Jews because of course it is.) When we try to understand Trump voters — the jobs lost to globalization; the deaths of despair, and so on — we should never discount the sheer hate and bigotry roiling underneath. We must remove these awful people from power and erase all sign they were ever here, starting with Trump’s obscene arch if that gets built.
Rufo is a White supremacist who lies to promote Nazi Great Replacement theory, and yet he is also a creation of the New York Times. How do I reconcile these facts? Another excellent A++ article by Cathy Young, who has become one of my favorite writers.
Thank you, Kate! Have you seen my more comprehensive review of Rufo's career? https://www.thebulwark.com/p/chris-rufo-dreams-anti-woke-revolution
I don't know that would call him a white Supremacist - he's married to an Asian woman, and I think he's tried to get the right to dial back some of the overtly racist stuff. Has he endorsed "Great Replacement Theory"? I think his decision to wade into this controversy on the side of the hoax was just partisanship -- he wanted to get Trump elected.
(Although JD Vance is also married to an Indian woman, and sliding closer and closer to overt white nationalism... what is going on with people!)
I recommend reading Robert Darnton’s book The Great Cat Massacre. Not because it is about the same situation, but because it looks at the varied sensibilities of different social groups about both pets and people who are considered subordinate by a dominant group. In this case the subordinate group was apprentices who felt their masters treated their pet cats better than their workforce. I also wonder whether Vance was the type of child who mistreated animals in that awful way that some children do.
Wow, that brings back memories -- I read that book years ago! Love Darnton's work.
Thank you for this comprehensive account. We in Ohio are waiting with dread to see what the end of Haitian TPS will mean for us and our neighbors.
And “More than 20 people have been shot at since September, nearly all of them in their cars.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/us/witnesses-houston-ice-shooting.html?
We must do everything we can to remove these criminals from power.