Sowers: Pet-eating claims are latest Trump knee-jerk reactions
Arthur E. Sowers is a resident of Harbeson.
The person who started all the pet-eating accusations (do an internet search on “Erika Lee Ohio”) was located. The way I read it, she did not intend or foresee the consequences of her actions. But there was no basis, no evidence and no verification of anything before she posted. Nor was there much thinking. But it went viral like all bad rumors do. It did a lot of damage and cranked up more hate and harassment and — the latest thing — bomb threats (there will surely be more details coming out later). Even the local police department said that the “Haitian pet-eating” story is false. Later, an image of a dark-skinned male carrying two geese was also posted as some kind of “proof” that fit into the false story, too. More follow-up on that part of the story said that he was legally moving roadkill off the road, and it referenced two other sources beyond the scope of this letter. But, up at the top of the hierarchy, Donald Trump was making a bonfire out of nothing. And all his Trumper followers were surely “eating up” everything Trump said, like they always do.
Here is a second, highly credible and well-documented story about Trump’s “knee-jerk” thinking. It is full of dangerous bias, logical errors and — overall — does a disservice to everyone. It starts with the following quote:
“Shortly after Donald Trump moved into the White House, a little-known filmmaker named Ami Horowitz told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson (2017) that Sweden was facing an unprecedented crime wave at the hands of Muslim refugees and immigrants. Horowitz’s claims were reinforced by a video montage consisting of a dark-skinned man hitting a policeman, shots of a burning car and short-clips taken from Horowitz’s film. It is unclear whether the scenes of the burning car or the assault on the policeman were shot in Sweden, though that was the implication. Swedish police officers were heard to confirm the existence of a massive rise in crime linked to Muslim immigration. Throughout the Fox News segment, Carlson maintains a look of bemused incredulity at the naivete of the Swedes. At a political rally in Florida, the next day, President Trump said, ‘You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden! Who would believe this?’”
Two sentences later: “Did Trump have intelligence agency reports on something that no one else knew? Eventually Trump would confess that he got his information from the Horowitz interview on Fox News.” (These quotes are from the first paragraph of the 2018 article titled, “The disinformation order: Disruptive communication and the decline of democratic institutions.” It can be found online by searching for the title. It is a free download on some sites. It has three pages of references.)
This example is just one of many serious mistakes Trump continually makes after processing what he sees and hears, then verbalizing or initiating a reaction. He does not check his sources. He makes logical errors, fallacy-filled statements and false deductions. He exploits bad information by expanding it into propaganda. All this contradicts his self-evaluation as a “stable genius.”
Out of Trump’s bad messages, his supporters, on the other hand, “buy into” practically everything and anything he says without thinking. I hate to say it, but it resembles the Nazification that took place in 1930s Germany, under Adolf Hitler. Readers would do well to do an internet search on the keyword string, “Germany Nazi brainwashing.” It is all there. It all happened. It did not end well. Wikipedia has three important articles, “Nazism,” “Gleichschaltung” (meaning “Nazification”) and “Denazification.” I read them all. All you have to do is compare the parallels between Project 2025, the GOP’s 2024 platform and “Agenda 47” from the Trump campaign (plus, its deportation plans) with the Nazi ideology of disposing of “inferior races.” The Nazis scapegoated the Jews. Trump is scapegoating immigrants in general and illegal immigrants — and statistics show 95% are employed — in particular. Unless Trump is lying, that deportation has to eventually involve something like 10 million people. It would wreck the federal budget, and it would wreck the U.S. economy. And then, we don’t know how or what or how many executive orders he will sign on the first day in office, if he gets elected to a second term.
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