Writing in The Nation today, the great Elie Mystal perfectly captured the spirit behind one of the more persistent racist tropes there is. He was reacting to Donald Trump’s already infamous non-sequitur in Tuesday’s debate:
"In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating… they’re eating the pets of the people who live there. And this is what’s happening in our country."
Back in the 1980s, when I was a child, the same wild charge circulated annually across the playgrounds of Southern Idaho—mostly aimed at seasonal laborers, up from Mexico to work corn pack for Green Giant. I'm sure you encountered a variant of it in your hometown, too—aimed at whatever insufficiently white immigrant population happened to be saving the locals from a protracted labor shortage.
Mystal's article treats the particular potency the racist epithet gets when aimed at Haitians, and since that’s the core of his piece, I want to foreground it first.
"Haitians committed the greatest sin possible in the modern world: we took our freedom back from the white man. Haiti is the birthplace of the only successful slave-led revolt in the “New” or “Western” world. Like everywhere else in this hemisphere, enslaved Haitians asked for their freedom, agitated for it, and were willing to negotiate terms with the enslavers for their emancipation. Unlike everywhere else, when those negotiations, and political dealings resulted in nothing more than the continuation of permanent chattel slavery, Haitians stopped talking and started rebelling—and by 1804 had liberated themselves from their suddenly-not-so-superior captors."
It matters that it’s Haitians Trump is attacking. He’s not simply lashing out a random target that just happened to pop up right when he needed to hyper-charge a public distraction. He is harnessing a figure with unique salience for U. S. white supremacists.
Haiti’s prominence in racist discourse is why swastika-bearing neo-Nazis from “Blood Tribe” descended on Springfield in early August (Springfield News-Sun’s image below). It’s why their local campaign to terrorize Springfield’s Haitian population quickly drew support from Ohio chapters of the Proud Boys, Patriot Front, & “Active Clubs” and engaged white nationalist activists from as far as Germany. It’s why TPUSA-founder Charlie Kirk, Gab-founder Andrew Torba, X’s Elon Musk, J. D. Vance, Ted Cruz, Marjorie Taylor Green, Jack Posobiec, and whole phalanx of lesser MAGA politicians kicked off an anti-Haitian meme-war in the days leading up to the Harris-Trump debate. It’s why racist hate-influencer Laura Loomer was so keen to get Trump to malign Haitians from Tuesday’s debate stage. And it’s why a multi-day series of bomb threats subsequently closed Springfield’s City Hall and it’s schools, while neo-Nazis around the country began reaping the rewards of their success by harnessing Trump’s words for a major recruitment drive.
I recommend Mystal’s article for its sharp, yet succinct, explanation of why American racists have always been so triggered by the prospect of Haitians… existing.
But the part that really caught my attention was Mystal’s description of the peculiar mindset that fixates on the phobic trope of pet-eating. It just nails the icky, “Beta” sadism that seems to palpitate through so much of the MAGA movement.
"The goal," he writes, "their only goal—is to hurt people. It’s their kink. Hurting people of color titillates and excites them. It makes them feel powerful and important. When these small people see reports that Haitians in Springfield are afraid to send their children to school; when they read about the damage being done to immigrants’ property, it makes them feel strong. Imagine being able to contribute to a lynch mob raised against largely defenseless people from the comfort of your own home, simply by sharing a cat meme. That kind of power is intoxicating to some people, and what you see online is the real, honest thrill a racist experiences whenever they find someone to menace."
Once again, “the cruelty,” as Adam Serwer wrote, “is the point.”
Or, maybe we should say, “the cruelty is their kink.”