Bomb Threat Highlights the Danger of the GOP’s Racist “Eating Cats and Dogs” Lie Boosted by Musk and Trump

Folks have had a lot of fun with the Republican Party’s latest insane fever dream, as the notion that Haitian immigrants are terrorizing Springfield, Ohio by eating people’s cats and dogs is so manifestly absurd that ridicule and laughter is the only logical response to these weirdos (but it should be noted that the lie originated with neo-Nazi groups online). I spent yesterday making fun of these brain stems for being the most internet-poisoned people in history who personally are the biggest liability to their political movement. It’s hard not to treat the GOP’s increasing radicalization with derision, but news out of Springfield, Ohio today reveals how truly insane beliefs like this create real-world danger.

City Hall in Springfield, Ohio has been evacuated this morning due to a bomb threat, and parents at one Springfield school said they were told to pick up their children. Mayor Rob Rue said it is related to the mass hysteria whipped up among America’s lemmings this week by irredeemable pieces of shit like Elon Musk and Donald Trump.

This is far from the first time that Republican hallucinations have manifested in real-world violence or threats of real-world violence. The Pizzagate conspiracy was an internet joke right up until Edgar Maddison Welch fired his AR-15 inside of Comet Pizza and was sentenced to four-years in prison for it. Igor Lannis shot and killed his wife and nearly killed his daughter after falling down a QAnon rabbit hole and was subsequently killed by police when they arrived on the scene. The January 6th attack on the Capitol is another example of how these narratives that whip folks up into a frenzy online inevitably spill out into the real world. Hell, the El Paso mass shooter’s manifesto was virtually indistinguishable from a standard monologue you’ll hear on Fox News every night. There are countless examples of the danger these manifestly absurd notions create.

Perhaps nothing better defines the era we live in than the completely batshit insane conspiracy theories the right-wing is constantly marinating in and the violent outcomes that spring from them. We are living in both the dumbest time ever and one of the most dangerous times ever, as ubiquitous access to guns has turned every internet lunatic into a potential mass killer. We should treat these unhinged theories with the disrespect they have earned, but don’t forget that this stuff is not confined to the web. At some point, someone is going to believe what people like Donald Trump and Elon Musk are telling them, and it should not surprise anyone at this point when real-world violence springs from these racist lies the GOP spends all day every day telling its followers.