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Dear John,

Hope you’re having a nice weekend – here’s another quick round-up of what’s going on in the United States Presidential election. Election day is just under 52 days out.

“They’re Eating the Cats!” A Textbook Disinformation Case Study

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs – the people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there. This is what’s happening in our country.” – Donald Trump at Tuesday’s debate.

If you caught Tuesday’s Presidential debate, you, like millions of others, may be wondering what in God’s name the former President was talking about here.

It started with one unsubstantiated post on a private Facebook group about Haitian migrants eating local geese in Springfield, Ohio. Blood Tribe, a recognised ([link removed]) Neo-Nazi group, spread the rumour widely amongst far-right circles on Telegram. In the few days leading up to the debate, the number of posts on “X” mentioning the rumour increased by 720% ([link removed]) .

Trump’s VP nominee JD Vance picked it up on his social media feeds the day before the debate, and Trump himself was posting about it just hours prior to his debate with Kamala Harris. An absurd conspiracy was able to leap from social media into the one of the most high-profile forums in the country in a matter of days.

It’s not unlike what we saw with the UK’s race riots this summer. An unsubstantiated rumour grows out of control, until it’s activating real world behaviour with real consequences.

Team Trump is now framing the debate as “rigged”, after moderators corrected him on his claims (no one is eating cats or dogs in Springfield, Ohio, if that wasn’t already clear). Republican Senator Mike Lee suggested that “it’s time to re-examine the laws that made this possible.” That’s a sitting congress person advocating for MAGA-controlled TV Broadcasting. Trump agreed, stating that debate host ABC should lose its network license.

What proceeded was a MAGA melt-down, American right-wingers complaining about the “3 versus 1” debate – simply because Trump wasn’t able to lie with impunity.

As one writer put it ([link removed]) , “The reason it feels to Trumpists that the debate moderators were biased is because the right operates under an absurd and self-serving notion that fairness can only be achieved by pre-committing to an equal number of fact checks for both candidates.”

“Proper journalistic scrutiny, however, doesn’t actually require that both candidates be challenged the same number of times—in fact, it requires actively rejecting that idea.”

In other US election news…
* The Presidential race may still be neck and neck, but Republicans are increasingly ahead in the Senate – if they win it, it will be practically impossible for Harris to pass any major legislation.
* Trump has ruled out another Presidential debate, claiming he won this one so thoroughly that it’s not necessary.
* Concerns are already mounting ([link removed]) about election denial should Harris win, with many known 2020 election deniers holding offices that could disrupt vote counts later this year.

That’s it for this week.

All the best,

Matt Gallagher

Communications Officer

Open Britain
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