The internet and social media are throwing a fit about JD’s apparent confession that he simply made up the story about illegal Haitian immigrants eating peoples pets. Most recently Mark Sumner wrote an article about it, which is featured prominently on the front page. But actually I think most of the comments focused too much on the story that it seemed like a politician (and candidate for Vice President) openly admitted to lying on TV, when in my opinion there is a much more perfidious story behind it.
This is the part of the interview that gets widely reported and is taken as proof, that JD Vance is a liar.
BASH: Just once and for all, you, again, started this in part by saying that -- which Donald Trump repeated on the debate stage, that -- and he didn't say anything about the policies that you're talking about. He just said, Haitians are eating dogs and cats.
Can you affirmatively say now that that is a rumor that has no basis with evidence?
VANCE: Dana, the evidence is the firsthand account of my constituents who are telling me that this happened.
And, by the way, I have been trying to talk about the problems in Springfield for months, and the American media ignored it. There was a congressional hearing just last week of Angel moms who lost children because Kamala Harris let criminal migrants into this country who then murdered their children.
The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes.
BASH: But it wasn't just a meme, sir.
VANCE: 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, Dana, because you guys are completely letting Kamala Harris coast.
You had one interview with her. You talk about pushing back against me, Dana. You didn't push back against the fact that she cast the deciding vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which is why a lot of Americans can't afford food and housing.
transcripts.cnn.com/...
But it’s not as simple as that. The interview went on to eventually reveal JD’s real intentions.
BASH: You just said that you're creating a story.
VANCE: We ought to be talking about public policy.
BASH: Sir, you just said that you're creating the story.
VANCE: What's that, Dana?
BASH: You just said that this is a story that you created...
VANCE: Yes.
BASH: So, the eating dogs and cats thing is not accurate.
VANCE: We are creating -- we are -- Dana, it comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents.
I say that we're creating a story, meaning we're creating the American media focusing on it. I didn't create 20,000 illegal migrants coming into Springfield, thanks to Kamala Harris' policies. Her policies did that, but yes, we created the actual focus that allowed the American media to talk about this story and the suffering caused by Kamala Harris' policies. (Bolding mine)
transcripts.cnn.com/...
This is something that goes far beyond a simple lie to cover up the truth. It is something much more insidious and sheds light on the way in which the followers of the MAGA cult are to be subtly indoctrinated so that in the end they can no longer distinguish between truth and lies, even if they want to.
In the following paragraphs I will heavily cite from an article that was written by a German professor of theology in which he tries to work out the subtle differences between lies, bullshit and propaganda, and which I think does an excellent job of decoding the actual intentions that Vance has pursued with his interview.
To begin with, let's work out the difference between lies, bullshit and propaganda.
Lies
For a statement to count as a lie, several criteria must be fulfilled: First, one must be guided by truth values and know that the assertion made is false – if I assert something that I sincerely believe to be true, it cannot be a lie. Secondly, there must be an intention to deceive – if I assert something to the best of my knowledge and that belief turns out to be false, I have not lied to the other person, but simply said something false. Thirdly, a lie only works within an overall coherent system of beliefs into which a few false statements are then deliberately introduced: “Telling a lie is an act with a sharp focus. It is designed to insert a particular falsehood at a specific point in a set or system of beliefs, in order to avoid the consequences of having that point occupied by the truth.”3 Thus, in order to lie, three conceptual conditions must be met: The liar must know that their statement is not true, they must have an intent to deceive their counterpart, and they must place the lie within an otherwise coherent belief system.
Bullshit
In contrast to the liar, the bullshitter is completely disinterested in truth values. While the liar must know that things do not stand the way as they present them, it is irrelevant to the bullshitter how things really stand, since they are not interested in this question at all: “It is just this lack of connection to a concern with truth – this indifference to how things really are – that I regard as of the essence of bullshit.”4 Both, the liar and the bullshitter, then, have an intent to deceive, but there are crucial differences: While the liar wants to deceive us about a state of affairs in the world, the bullshitter wants to deceive us about the fact that they are actually indifferent to the state of affairs in the world ...
Propaganda
The difference to lies and bullshit is that totalitarian propaganda is concerned with constructing an entire alternative system of beliefs that contains a distorted representation of reality: “The goal of totalitarian propaganda is to sketch out a consistent system that is simple to grasp, one that both constructs and simultaneously provides an explanation for grievances against various out-groups. It is openly intended to distort reality.”8 The simple picture of the world that Trump (and with him a multitude of other representatives of the New Right) draws serves to construct a great disorder that threatens the very existence of the world as we know it. This alternative reality, which is supposed to be made plausible by forging crime statistics, playing with dull prejudices against other ethnic groups or refugees, or peddling conspiracy theories, ultimately serves to transfer power to the authoritarian leader. It is the president who claims the power to determine what is true and real, and his citizens are supposed to submit to this newly defined reality and thus acknowledge his ultimate power at the same time.
(Bolding mine)
In the following paragraph the author quotes from Hannah Arendt’s book “The Origins of Totalitarianism”:
What distinguishes the totalitarian leaders and dictators is rather the simple-minded, single-minded purposefulness with which they choose those elements from existing ideologies which are best fitted to become the fundaments of another, entirely fictitious world. […] Their art consists in using, and at the same time transcending, the elements of reality, of verifiable experiences, in the chosen fiction, and in generalizing them into regions which then are definitely removed from all possible control by individual experience. With such generalizations, totalitarian propaganda establishes a world fit to compete with the real one.
The author lists three key elements of totalitarian propaganda:
First, it does refer to reality, but only in the sense that this provides themes and cues that are woven into the narrative of an alternative, fictional reality.
The themes and cues that are used in this case are the old and time proven ones:
VANCE: ... but I'm still going to keep on talking about what the migrants have done to Springfield, Ohio, and what Kamala Harris' open border has done to Springfield, Ohio. And, Dana, I think this illustrates the entire contrast between how
we're trying to go about this debate and how a lot of the Democrats are trying to go about this debate. They're talking about 12 Proud Boys marching in Springfield, Ohio.
They're talking about the, frankly, fake debunkings of a lot of these stories that are out there. I'm talking to my constituents and I'm hearing terrible things about what's going on in Springfield, and Kamala Harris' open border policies have caused these problems.
The hospitals are overwhelmed, Dana. The schools are overwhelmed. The local services are completely overwhelmed. You have people who can't afford housing. Homelessness has gone up. Murders are up by 81 percent because of what Kamala Harris has allowed to happen to this small community.
Secondly, the protagonists of the post-factual withdraw their own statements from any discursive examination by denying the competence of well-rehearsed standards for evaluating the truth, correctness or veracity of a validity claim.
Or to say it with the words of JD Vance:
VANCE: Look, the Springfield mayor, he's dealing with a lot of terrible things. I certainly sympathize with the guy and we're going to try to help him out.
But he did not accuse me of inciting a bomb threat. He just didn't. And if we're going to take the firsthand accounts of people who are on the ground in Springfield, why don't you bring on some of the people on your program who say that the migrants are eating their pets?
You're applying a double standard here. You're saying if one person accuses J.D. Vance, I'm going to take that person's word as the gospel truth, even if you misrepresent it.
BASH: You have somebody who is named?
VANCE: If you have another person who's saying they're eating the cats, you're going to completely ignore them, attack them, silence them and harass them.
That double standard is why that people don't trust the media and why we're not talking about public policy 51 days out from a presidential election.
In other words, he questions why we should believe a person who claims the story is not true if we do not believe the people who claim it is true. This way the objective truth will never be able to come out, because there cant be an objective truth, as long as there are different accounts of a story.
Thirdly, such propaganda is no longer part of rational discourse but has gained a
constitutive significance for the construction of the world as a whole. It has thereby
been immunized from any criticism.
VANCE: Dana, I condemn all white supremacists. I'm obviously not -- I'm married to a non-white person. I don't like these people, but I think that we have to keep our focus, not on 12 marchers going down the street, but on the fact that thousands of residents have had their lives destroyed by Kamala Harris' policy.
I find this very unusual, Dana, that the American media is more interested in a bunch of losers marching down the street than they are in the fact that Kamala Harris has made these people's lives worse. I'm not talking about 12 Proud Boys. I'm talking about 40,000 residents, 40,000 constituents of mine, many of whom can't afford housing and food because of Kamala Harris' open border.
That is what I want to focus the media's attention on. We're going to keep on doing it,because I think the American people deserve a government that puts their interests first.
Basically he’s saying: “Who cares that I’m making shit up as the only reason I do it ist to shine a light on the injustices to which people are exposed and because this is a just goal, the means I use to achieve it are beyond criticism.” There's a lot more to say about this, but unfortunately my command of the English language is not good enough to work out the diabolical subtleties of this propaganda event that Dana Bash has allowed herself to be misused for.
This is the first step in justifying any act committed in the name of “justice for the people”, however cruel and unjust it may be.
Trump is a gifted amateur when it comes to propaganda. He does it from the gut, without giving it much thought, but he doesn't have a conscious strategy, other than to nurture his own ego. Vance is an accomplished professional and master demagogue who calculates exactly what he says and does. Joseph Goebbels would have been proud to have had JD Vance as a Padawan (or rather his Sith apprentice). This man is dangerous, and as a potential vice president, only a failing heartbeat of an overweight junk food addict away from becoming even more dangerous.
Post script: Vance has nothing to loose, but everything to gain. People will not vote against Trump because they find Vance to extreme. If they can put up with Trump, they will accept Vance as a given. But if Trump wins, Vance will have positioned himself as the true and rightful heir to the throne of MAGA.
