Westneat: Republicans determined to stick to their story

One of the many reporters who descended on Springfield described what he wrote as “a pretty long story about a thing that didn’t happen.” But disbelief is part of the problem. Because the fake has a way of becoming real.

When the governor of Ohio revealed Monday that the faded factory town of 58,000 had gotten an extraordinary 33 bomb threats, forcing it to close schools, hospitals and street fairs, whatever disbelief I had gave way to anger.

The kicker was when the GOP vice presidential candidate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, admitted he knew the pet-eating slur aimed at Springfield’s Haitian immigrants wasn’t true. It didn’t matter, he said, because it drew focus to the immigration problem.

“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,” he said.

Does what’s real no longer matter, not even a tiny bit?

Denigrating immigrants is sadly an American tradition. In Springfield a century ago it was the Germans and the Irish who got the side-eye. The pet story is so toxic because it’s perfectly crafted to whip up the worst sorts of prejudice. Even if it fades, though, it will remain unnerving because it was so boldly fake and cynically used.

Most unsettling of all is that a majority of Republicans believed it. The polling outfit YouGov this past week asked Americans about various statements made recently by top politicians. One question was: “Do you think the following statement is true or false . . . that Haitian immigrants are abducting and eating pet dogs and cats?”

By 52 percent to 25 percent, Trump voters said they believe it’s true or probably true. By 43 percent to 40 percent, they said they also believed his absurd claim that in some states they execute babies after they’re born.

Do they really believe these things? Or are they just saying they do, out of partisan allegiance, a sense of team building?

Either way, the pet-eating saga is so off the rails I’m wondering how we’re going to find our way back on track. This stuff is alternate reality demagoguery.

We’re having this same struggle in Seattle, with asylum-seekers adding to a homelessness crisis. Remedies seem elusive enough without stirring in fake poison.

Seattle pollster Stuart Elway released a recent poll that asked people here whether things will get better or worse in the next year, in the U.S., in Washington state and in your community.

Democrats, typically the anxiety party, were effusively optimistic. They said by huge margins that things are looking up everywhere. Meanwhile, Republicans said the opposite, that life is about to get a lot worse.

My Republican friends: Have you considered that you’re feeling so bleak because the people you look up to keep telling you everything is going to hell?

Now it’s special pet-eating levels of hell. It’s mind-boggling, but it’s their story, and they’re sticking to it, even if they have to make it up.