At the same time as the Trump campaign had to keep the hard core of conspiracy theory believers, they also had to win the middle ground voters to win the election. The Trump campaign systematically spread wandering stories and slander memes about political opponents, to frighten the undecided from voting for them.
As the election race heats up, the Trump campaign has largely focused on fear-mongering about immigration. Their approach involves a two-step strategy aimed at dissuading voters from supporting Kamala Harris.
- First, they circulated alarming urban legends or wandering stories with refugees and immigrants in the role as “vicious and bloodthirsty criminals”. The aim most being likely to spread these frightening narratives among people who are not so interested in politics and do not spend much time fact-checking.
- Second, they followed up the stories by falsely depicting the opposing candidate, in this case Kamala Harris, as someone who supported open borders, framing her as willing to allow unchecked immigration.
- Memes stick easy to your mind when they are repeated often enough.
- The use of memes could be effective for winning over those who don’t spend much time gathering information, as memes are easy to remember.
This strategy incited the fear of immigration and tried to paint the opposing candidate Kamala Harris as a threat to national security.
It is not yet clear how Trump managed to mobilise the middle ground voters and win the election. NBC News has published exit polls that among other point on two factors;
- The Federal Reserve’s solution to combat inflation — raising interest rates — led to higher borrowing costs for mortgages, car loans, and similar expenses and lead to a strain on many peoples private economy. The interest rent set by national banks like the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Federal Reserve in the United States are not politically controlled, because they are independent institutions by law. This is to avoid political manipulation, maintain credibility and confidence, and to enable them to focus on long term goals.
- Voters said they trusted Trump more on but immigration, crime and abortion.
Wandering stories and memes of “vicious and bloodthirsty criminals”
Donald Trump told a frightening story about a Venezuelan gang with weapons better than the US army. Trump claimed that “vicious and bloodthirsty criminals” had taken over an apartment building and invaded and conquered the city. The local authorities say the story is false, that the building and the city had not been taken over, and that 9 out of 10 of the alleged gang members are arrested.
Donald Trump said in a speech in Aurora 11. October that “Kamala [Harris] has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world … from prisons and jails and insane asylums and mental institutions, and she has had them resettled beautifully into your community to prey upon innocent American citizens,” Politico reports.
The Guardian reported that Trump in a rally in Aurora 11. October memed the city as a “war zone”, following a video of armed men. Trump, on a stage decorated by posters of mugshots of alleged Venezuelan criminals, spread the story despite Aurora’s Republican mayor, Mike Coffman, called Trump’s claims “grossly exaggerated” and insisted: “The narrative is not accurate by any stretch of the imagination.”. Authorities say the incident happened in a single block and the area is again safe, noting that the local crime rate is actually declining.
Trump stated“I’m hereby calling for the death penalty for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer. With your vote, we will achieve complete and total victory over these sadistic monsters. It’s going to go very quickly,”
He then showed a series of news clips of murders of US citizens by undocumented criminals. Trump branded Harris a “criminal” and the “worst Border Tzar” in the country’s history. This claims about Harris is repeated again and again despite the fact that she never has had the responsibility for border control.
Trump said “I will rescue Aurora and every town that has been invaded and conquered. These towns have been conquered and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them out of our country and we will be very, very effective in doing it. It’s going to happen very, very fast. Gonna get them the hell out of our country,”
The Guardian described Trump claiming undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country” and presented the racist claim that those suspected in homicide cases “have bad genes”.
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Video stating that “America is being invaded” from Trump Facebook post 11. October 2024
Trump claims that “illegal Haitians are stealing and eating cats”
The intentional spread of the falsified story about Haitians eating cats is a violation of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination articles 1 and 4, and especially 4 a.
The convention requires participating states to “declare the spreading of any ideas that promote discrimination as illegal: “to declare an offence punishable by law all dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority or hatred, incitement to racial discrimination, as well as all acts of violence or incitement to such acts against any race or group of persons of another colour or ethnic origin.”
“The term “racial discrimination” shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.”
James Fleurijean, a Haitian Community Help & Support Center member is referred by ABC News: “I know some parents like for this period of time they’re trying to keep their children home, like, by the time they see how things gonna be, like, wait for a couple of weeks to see if things that are calm down, or if things gonna escalate,” Fleurijean said. “You see, that’s why, like some parents, they don’t even send their children to school, like, for this week.”
The President of Haiti’s transitional council said before the UN General Assembly about the Trump campaigns protested: “The passions that naturally arise during an election campaign should never serve as a pretext for xenophobia or racism in a country such as the United States, a country forged by immigrants from all countries, and which has become a model of democracy for the world.”
Huffington Post told that Trumps Vice President candidate JD Vance in a X-post claimed that people in Springfield, Ohio have had their pets “abducted and eaten by Haitian illegal immigrants.”
It bubbled up from the depths of right-wing internet spaces directly to the X account for the Republican Party’s vice presidential nominee.”.
JD Vance later said to CNN s State of the Union host Dana Bash that “The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. 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”
According to Huffington Post the posts have been amplified by far far-right X accounts and reached a 2.9 million followers on the app. “Apparently, people’s pet cats are being eaten,” Elon Musk, X owner and Trump endorser, responded to Trump aid Charlie Kirk’s post about the fourth-hand claim of the missing cat, Huffington Post cites.
The Guardian told how Donald Trump repeated the claims in the presidential debate with Kamala Harris Tuesday 10. sept 2024: “They’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” Trump said. “They’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”
The story about Haitians is a wandering story that has spread virally, but no one has so far managed to connect it to real events. Huffington Post writes that this claim is false. “There are no credible reports that people that “people who shouldn’t be in this country” are eating pets.
NPR cited The Springfield Police Department saying it has “dealt with its fair share of rumors and misinformation.”
“I think it’s sad that some people are using this as an opportunity to spread hate or spread fear,” says Officer Jason Via, Deputy Director of Public Safety and Operations. “We get these reports ‘the Haitians are killing ducks in a lot of our parks’ or ‘the Haitians are eating vegetables right out of the aisle at the grocery store’. And we haven’t really seen any of that. It’s really frustrating. As a community, it’s not helpful as we try to move forward,” says the police to NPR.
The story is not new. The American folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand documented urban legends from the 1980s that described Asian refugees consuming pets in areas like Salt Lake City, Utah; Stockton, California; and Fairfax, Virginia, among others. “Evidence was supposedly found in garbage cans, and people had heard about Vietnamese wanting to buy puppies or kittens to use for food”, Brunvand wrote in “The Mexican Pet”.
“Bad genes” racist meme
NBC News cited Trump saying on “The Hugh Hewitt Show” that immigrants were bringing “bad genes” into the country. Trump presented the story that Kamala Harris would allow 13 000 murderers into the country. He also said that this alleged criminal behaviour was caused by the genes that these claimed murderers would bring into the country.
There is absolutely no credible evidence to support the claim that “illegal immigrants” are disproportionately responsible for committing murders more frequently than other groups. The claim that immigrants carry bad genes linked to alleged criminal acts is a violation of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination articles 1 and 4.
“When you look at the things that she proposes, they’re so far off she has no clue. How about allowing people to come to an open border, 13,000 of which were murderers,” Trump said, referring to Kamala Harris.
“Many of them murdered far more than one person, and they’re now happily living in the United States,” he added. “You know, now a murderer, I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now. They left, they had 425,000 people come into our country that shouldn’t be here, that are criminals.”
BBC stated that this was misleading because the figures are statistics that span over the last 40 years. Kamala Harris has not allowed them to come. A great portion of the mentioned criminals came into the country while Trump was president.
A country can not simply deport who they like when they want. Part of the reason why the US can not deport somebody to countries like Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua is the lack of agreement with those and other countries.
This is the probable reason why neither Trump nor anybody else has deported the 425,431 non-citizens with criminal convictions on ICE’s “non-detained docket” – a database of people facing deportation proceedings but who are not held in ICE custody.
Though misleading, the story would still be effective in scaring people. The idea of having a large number of murderers going free would be frightening. There is however no evidence to suggest that “illegal immigrants” are more frequent perpetrators of murder. The libertarian Cato Institute, who found that for the years 2013-2022, the homicide conviction rate in Texas for “illegal immigrants” was 2.2 per 100,000, while that of native-born Americans was 3.0 per 100,000.
Brennan Center for Justice has published substantial research on the matter. They conclude that the research does not support the view that immigrants commit crime or are incarcerated at higher rates than native-born Americans. In fact, immigrants might have less law enforcement contact compared to nonimmigrants.
The wandering story and the meme about the “Border Tzar”
Facsimile of memes targeting Kamala Harris as “Border Tzar” on Trump Facebook posts 11. October 2023
The Trump campaign has told a wandering story of Kamala Harris as a “Border Tzar”, followed up by slandering memes depicting her alleged inability to control the immigration policy . On the background of the sown wandering stories of immigrants being dangerous criminals, it could scare voters on the middle ground from voting for her, as she is presented as a threat to national security.
Even though the meme “Border Tzar” is false, it is easy to remember and sticks to your brain. Especially in combination with a photo. The combination of image and text creates a conceptual link that helps them stick in your memory. And it provides a simple explanation to complicated questions.
There has been increased movement of people in Central America, South America and the Caribbean for a number of economical, social, political and other reasons the last years. Some have moved to close neighbouring countries, and some have moved to North American countries.
In reality, there is no quick fix on the complicated questions about border, refugee and immigration politics. It is an area that raises many complicated moral, ethical and legal issues. This complexity provides an information gap of hart-to-answer questions. The extreme right can manoeuvre easily in this information gap, with their claims of others disability and own ability to solve the questions easily.
Chapter 9 shows that the “Border Tzar” meme also can be understood in two different ways. Functioning as a “dog whistle” meme, it also aligns with the “great replacement” conspiracy theory.
BBC reports that The Trump campaign repeatedly memed Kamala Harris “The Border Tzar”, blaming her for immigration from Central America. The Tzar was the absolute ruler of the Russian empire before the revolution in 1917. The meme would imply that Kamala Harris has exercised sovereign control with the immigration enforcement.
This is false. Kamala Harris was never in charge over the border or immigration policy. She has had a mission in Central America to get the private sector investing there. BBC states that the Biden administration forced out two million people from USA between January 2021 and 11 May 2023.
Slandering refugees and immigrants in general as violent criminals is the main focus area for the extreme right. As research about the extreme right from the former German Democratic Republic implies, the ones that are susceptible of slander about refugees and immigrants are those who have little or no contact with these groups.
The same research shows ones that receive information about these groups from informal sources. By the introduction of social media platforms on the internet, the impact of these informal sources has been multiplied.
Washington Post has refered Donald Trumps Presidential announcement 16. June 2015 where he said that “When Mexico sends it people they are not sending the best… They’re sending people that have a lot of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I presume, are good people”.
Washington Post have fact-checked these claims and found that there is no evidence immigrants commit more crimes than native-born Americans.
The effect of repetition: Slander memes about political opponents
If you make a caricature once, it might be excused as a slip of the tongue or a joke. If you repeat the joke to often, it becomes a political slander campaign, designed to publicly degrade an opponent. When being fed into the rumour mill, these slander memes can spread peer to peer or on social media platforms, where they can circulate without fact check. When we are exposed to a slander meme, it is likely to stick to our brain if it is repeated often enough.
The emphasis of repetition in fascism ant other right wing populism is shown in chapter 2 and chapter 11. Everybody who have tried to learn a new language, the multiplication table, playing basketball or an instrument knows that repetition is an efficient way of learning.
When we have drilled the multiplication table, the mind associate subconsciously back to it, so we can make calculations without thinking about it. Memes stick to the mind when they are repeated. And the mind connect back to them without realising it. If we hear and see the meme “put Hillary in jail” often enough, we might start to think that “maybe she is a criminal ?”
This effect is probably why we often see TV-commercials and internet commercials repeated.
Video stating that “America is being invaded” from Trump Facebook post 11. October 2024 https://www.facebook.com/reel/3750782021852169
These false claims, caricatures and stereotypes have the function of damaging the public image of his political opponents. You can thereby talk to those who are not so politically interested, and probably do not waste so much time in investigating. And thereby frighten them from voting for the opponent.
Other memes try to paint Democrats as left wing extremists. The democratic party is not a leftist party, but a mainstream party, that has vowed to strengthen the middle class. It could be placed well on the right side of the Norwegian conservative party.
The Democratic party is not a totalitarian party, but a party that respects democracy. It would be more adequate to fear the authoritarianism in Trump-dominated Republican party with background of the Capitol siege insurrection.
The Independent gives details of how Donald Trumps opposing candidate Kamala Harris is characterised by Trump as “Comrade Kamala”. “Comrade” is how socialists and communists addressed each other in the old days. Kamala Harris is neither. No socialist would address Kamala Harris as “Comrade”.
Many of the middle ground and right voters could be spooked from voting on Harris by these claims that she is a socialist. Because they do not believe in socialism, and because of the history of totalitarianism in the Soviet Union, China, North Korea and Kampuchea. There has also been broad anti- socialist sentiments in the USA, especially the McCarthyism under the cold war.
Spreading the general confusion
True facts drown in massive disinformation
It is shown in chapter 2 how conspiracy theories and other wandering stories are easy to make, and that they spread easily. By use of these strategies, right wing populists can take the initiative make and dominate the political arena, defining what topics are to be discussed in politics. Thereby right wing populists can divert attention from important political questions and from their own record.
The German historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt analysed nazism and stalinism in “The Origins of Totalitarism” in 1951. She has described how, in her view, a lie campaign can confuse the voters:
“This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore.
A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong.
And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such a people, you can do whatever you want.”
I am opposed to Arendts claim that “the constant lying is not aimed at making people believe a lie”. There is evidence that these false stories are spread deliberately, as Vice President candidate J.D. Vance have stated to CNN. Many people believe in these false stories, se chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 7, chapter 8, chapter 9 and chapter 12. As shown in chapter 2, some of the politically effective stories are the individually true ones that are hand picked by selective storytelling.
But I believe Arendt is correct in that widespread disinformation can divert focus away from political issues. It lowers the quality of information given to the voters. By this, it reduces their possibility for the voters to make rational decisions.
The massive amount of disinformation also distracts attention from Trump’s own record as president and other matters. One of the most significant failures in Trumps presidency is instigating the Capitol Siege to overturn the democratical election. Other are important political themes like environmental protection and the climate change, the situation in Gaza and the Middle East, and the relation to the present Israeli government.
Hurricanes and “fraud” stories
Trump has proclaimed a false story that the Biden and Harris have stolen money from a federal emergency disaster money and given them to “migrants”, as referred by NBC News:
“They stole the FEMA money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season,” Trump claimed.
FEMA responded that “No money is being diverted from disaster response needs. FEMA’s disaster response efforts and individual assistance is funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, which is a dedicated fund for disaster efforts. Disaster Relief Fund money has not been diverted to other, non-disaster related efforts.”
This wandering story draws attention from the question of climate change as a probable reason for the extreme weather as documented by the IPCC, and Trumps politics of wanting to increase the oil production.
Newsweek reports that Republican Congress Representative Majorie Taylor Greene stated in connection with Hurricane Helene that someone is controlling the weather, calling “them” “outrageous.
Greene said: “Yes they can control the weather,” Greene wrote on X last week, after Hurricane Helene swept across the Southeastern U.S., killing at least 227 people. “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”
She then posted an image of Helene overlaid on an electoral map, suggesting that the hurricane’s path had been intentionally set in motion to target Republican-leaning counties. The map appeared to have been created by Matt Wallace, a crypto influencer and conspiracy theorist with over 2 million followers on X.“, Newsweek writes.
Chapter 9 describes more about hurricanes and conspiracy theories
Deepfake memes
The Independent describes how Artificial Intelligence generated deepfake memes has become an important tool in the trump campaign. AI generated deepfakes has become so good that it can be hard to separate from fiction from reality.
NBC News details how Elon Musk har posted a deepfake video of Vice President Kamala Harris, that he thinks is amazing, in a post in his social media platform X. The post has been seen more than 150 million times.
The AI voice says among other: “I am a your Democrat president candidate because Joe Biden finally exposed his senility.–I was seleceted because I am the ultimate diversity hire, and both a woman and a person of colour. And if you criticise anything I say, you a both a racist and a sexist. I may not know the first thing about running the country. But that is a good thing if you are a deep state puppet.”
The message is camouflaged as humour and can be spread effectively a such, but contains slander degrading the opposing candidate. It also contains a reference to the conspiracy theory about “The deep state”, that surely will be understood by the inner circle of conspiracy believers.
X-owner Elon Musk, who according to The Guardian have endorsed Donald Trump and have pledged to pay 45 million US Dollars a month to a Trump supporting Super-Pac (Super-political-action committee).
Other slander victims: Antifa
Antifa are slandered as generally violent. Antifa is not an organisation, but a broad diverse movement by people who have the one thing in common: that they want to defend human rights and to oppose racism and fascism. The greatest threats of violence, terrorism and authoritarianism comes from the extreme right, like the Capitol siege and terror actions in Norway. And the antifascists are in general trying to prevent it by non-violent civil action.