Column: Why JD Vance won’t stop his racist lies about the Springfield Haitians

Hello, and happy Thursday. There are 46 days until the election, and today we are visiting Haitia, where JD Vance apparently thinks Haitians are from. I hear it’s a mermaid mile from Atlantis, and lovely in spring.

While it would be easy to dismiss “Haitia” as a mere slip of the tongue (after all, Donald Trump wanted to deport Haitians to Venezuela, which makes even less sense), the comment during his Michigan appearance Tuesday comes as part of a weeklong foray into a cesspool of lies and racism by Vance. So I’m not cutting him any slack.

Unless you’ve been in Haitia all week, you don’t need me to update you on the whole Springfield, Ohio, mess. But Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal came out with an excellent bit of reporting. After Vance’s campaign gave Journal reporters a police report about a missing cat, Miss Sassy, whose owner suspected she had been abducted by Haitian neighbors, the intrepid journalists did what journalists do. They knocked on Miss Sassy’s door, whereupon her owner said the kitty had not in fact been made into griot, but instead had been hiding in the basement. Oops.

Miss Sassy’s owner had already apologized to the Haitians next door, with the help of her daughter and a translation app.

That follows a tearful apology, detailed by the New York Times, from a woman who made a Facebook post months ago about Haitians eating cats, based on a rumor from yet another neighbor, that also turned out to be baseless.

That revelation came around the same time as confirmation that a picture of a Black man holding a two dead geese was not in fact a Haitian who had killed them in a park, but a man in Columbus, Ohio, clearing the birds off a road after they had been hit by a car.

And, of course, there was that clarification that a report of a woman killing and eating a cat in yet another Ohio town also had nothing to do with Haitian immigrants, but was just a good, old-fashioned American who has since pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

So the whole, ugly pet-eating trope was a trail of false claims, amplified on the far-right internet. But that is irrelevant to Vance. He is not giving up on sending Springfield’s legal immigrants back to Haitia, even if he has to knowingly spread propaganda and lies to do it.

Which brings us to today’s topic: The S.A.D. politics of JD Vance.

Former President Trump, left, and Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) attend the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

Sour, angry, demanding

For those of you who do not live in my head, S.A.D. stands for sour, angry and demanding. The S.A.D. playbook was, of course, created by Trump and has been honed by that ramblin’ man into a blinding polish.

We’ve seen plenty of others apply its lessons, but none quite so diligently or ruthlessly as Vance. There has been lots of talk about how unpopular Vance is (amazingly, he’s managed to increase his unfavorable rating by 16 percentage points in three months), and what a bad choice he was for a vice presidential pick. But Trump loves to tell us he is a genius, and in choosing Vance, he’s got a point.

Vance is proving himself to be the kind of loyalist for whom nothing exists but the loyalty. There seems to be something missing inside Vance, something that being a part of this ticket fills.

You can see it in his response to rally crowds, when they applaud his vengeful pettiness: His chest puffs, he tries to look tough for a minute, but a smile breaks through, genuine and pleased. Pay attention, and you’ll see this reaction over and over again at his money lines. The glory of the moment, filled with such powerful affirmation for being Trump’s attack dog, seems to be its own reward.

He reminds me, chillingly, of a man called Mr. C in the 1941 essay in Harper’s Magazine by Dorothy Thompson. It’s about what makes a person join an authoritarian regime. She’s talking Nazis, but her descriptions are bitingly resonant in today’s political turmoil. (If you’ve never read the piece, it’s worth your time.)

Of Mr. C, a poor man made good, but never accepted by the elite society he aspires to, Thompson writes: He has an ambition, bitter and burning. It is to rise to such an eminence that no one can ever again humiliate him.

Sic ’em

Vance’s fierce fealty, wherever it originates, must please Trump to no end, especially after the post-gallows defection of Mike Pence.

But also, it serves a larger purpose. Propaganda works best when it flies at us from multiple angles. For a while now, Trump has been largely forced to peddle his bunk on his own. Yes, he’s got the Marjorie Taylor Greenes, the Lauren Boeberts, even the Tucker Carlsons with their podcasts or basement broadcasts or whatever they are. But those folks have their own agendas and can’t be trusted to stay on message, to always use the spotlight in service of Trump.

Vance is so singular in his dedication to his boss, not even his wife can compete.

Recently, Trump confidant Laura Loomer, whose racism is so far off the charts it could make David Duke blush, wrote on X that if Kamala Harris wins, the White House would “smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center and the American people will only be able to convey their feedback through a customer satisfaction survey at the end of the call that nobody will understand.”

I’m South Asian, so for a bit of context, I’ll tell you that the trope of Indians and Muslims smelling bad is real and pervasive. It’s not some one-off joke she thought of herself — it’s a wink-wink at a deep and harmful prejudice, an othering meant to shame those for whom cumin and mustard seed are the scents of comfort and home.

Vance, you probably know, is married to a South Asian woman whose parents are immigrants. So one might think Vance would be offended on behalf of his family.

But to be offended by racism, upon which Trump has built his campaign, would not do — especially racism spouted by a woman so close to the man himself.

So when NBC’s Kristen Welker asked him about it, this is what he said:

Look, Kristen, I make a mean chicken curry. I don’t think it’s insulting for anybody to talk about the dietary preferences and what they want to do in the White House....

I think what Laura Loomer said is not what we should be focused on and we should be focused on the policies and issues. So, yeah, do I agree about what Laura Loomer said about Kamala Harris? No, I don’t. I also don’t think this is actually an issue of national import.

And there is the proof of Trump’s genius in choosing Vance: A man for whom no lie is too brazen, no attack too far, no dodge too demeaning — no step too far in his pursuit of eminence.

Woof, woof. Good boy.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: How the Trump Campaign Ran With Rumors About Pet-Eating Migrants — After Being Told They Weren’t True
The upside down world: Trump’s Talk of Prosecution Rattles Election Officials
The L.A. Times Special: Teamsters union declines to endorse Trump or Harris for president

Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

P.S. This week, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that, as my colleague Wendy Lee wrote, “aims to curb manipulated content that could harm a candidate’s reputation or public confidence in an election’s outcome, with the exception of parody and satire. Under the legislation, a candidate, election committee or elections official could seek a court order to get deep fakes pulled down.”

In response, Elon Musk, who has become one of the most influential and powerful spreaders of far-right propaganda and misinformation, tweeted out a deepfake video of Harris.

Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here to get it in your inbox.