Donald Trump's dead cat strategy puts the pressure on JD Vance

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Donald Trump's dead cat strategy puts the pressure on JD Vance
Desperate to distract from a disastrous debate, Donald Trump clings to lies about Haitian immigrants in Ohio

By Heather Digby Parton
Columnist
Published September 16, 2024 9:30AM (EDT)


(Salon) If you feel as if American politics have taken yet another deep dive into the Trump show maelstrom, you aren't alone. This past week has been a chaotic whirlwind of lies, false accusations, lurid scandals and even a foiled assassination plot. Even the sleaziest reality show wouldn't have had the nerve to script something like this.

The assassination plot that capped off the week took place on Sunday at Trump's Palm Beach golf club where the Secret Service reportedly spotted a man with a rifle in the bushes at one of the holes and shot at him, setting off a chase which concluded in his arrest. It's still early, but a cursory look at his background appears to show the man's politics were all over the place from voting for Trump to giving donations to Democrats and then begging Nikki Haley to team up with Vivek Ramaswamy to compete for the presidential nomination. At one time, he was attempting to be involved with recruiting foreign volunteers to fight in Ukraine, but nobody took him seriously.

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Trump's bizarre contention in the debate that Haitian immigrants are "eating the dogs and eating the cats" in Springfield Ohio has morphed into a full-blown panic resulting in bomb threats, school and hospital closings and terror among the Haitian community in that town. Despite the governor of Ohio, local leaders and business owners making it clear that none of these grisly accusations are true and that, in fact, the immigrants are hard-working, taxpaying contributors to the economic resurgence of the town after years of decay, Republicans refuse to back down.

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They are clearly trying to distract from their campaign's shortcomings, with Trump even posting one of the silliest, most juvenile posts he's ever written to try to get a new controversy going. On Sunday he blurted out: "I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT." (Maybe he let his 6-year-old grandson play with his phone, but I doubt it.) Vance's admission that they "create stories" along with his obstreperous appearances on the Sunday shows overshadowed it, lucky for Trump, and then another gun nut gave him the ultimate gift of thwarted martyrdom and overwhelmed everything else. ..............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/09/16/donald-cat-strategy-puts-the-pressure-on-jd-vance/