On July 8, 1993, in a nondescript office building in Rwanda's capital city of Kigali, a small, government-funded propaganda radio station called Radio Televísíon Libre des Milles Collines ("Thousand Hills Free Radio and Television"), better known as RTLM, made its first broadcast across the airwaves.
It was the midst of a sectarian civil war between the nation's Hutu-led government and Tutsi-led rebels from the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Ethnic tensions between the nation's Hutu majority and Tutsi minority were at an all-time high. The division, suspicion, and tribalism were palpable, and the pundits at RTLM - all Hutu extremists who dreamed of exterminating Rwanda's Tutsi minority - were keen to stoke the flames of racial hatred.
"The RPF is no different than the Inyenzi", station owner Ferdinand Nahimana spoke over the radio on that first broadcast, using the Kinyarwanda word for "cockroaches" as a derogatory slur against the Tutsi. "They are no different than the Inyenzi because they are made up of Inyenzi, of refugees who left Rwanda. They do not recognize the process of democracy, of our Republic. They want to overthrow the Republic and install the old monarchical regime".
Over the next year, RTLM's dozen or so pundits would spread incendiary, violent, racist, bigoted, and dehumanizing propaganda against Rwanda's Tutsi minority. They would compare them to filthy animals, ridden with disease and unrecognizable as humans. They would mock and dehumanize Tutsis, branding them as "snakes" and "cockroaches". They would spread fantastical stories of Tutsi women seducing Hutu men and manipulating them to do the bidding of Tutsi "traitors". They would amplify false rumors of Tutsis planning to massacre Hutus and pave the way for the European colonists to return. And they would call for all Rwandan Hutus to take up arms against the "Tutsi invaders", root out the "traitors in our midst", and "slaughter them like rats".
In April of 1994, after Rwandan dictator Juvenal Habyarimana was assassinated - likely by Hutu extremists opposed to his negotiating with the RPF - RTLM accused the Tutsi of murdering the nation's president and called for an "apocalypse" against all Tutsis.
Over the next 100 days, Hutu extremist militias and government death squads, cheered and urged on by the hate propaganda spewed by RTLM, systematically slaughtered an estimated 1,000,000 Tutsi, Twa, and moderate Hutu in a campaign of mass genocide not seen since the Holocaust.
The Rwandan genocide was one of the darkest moments of contemporary human history. It showed the emptiness of the world's promise of "Never Again" after the horrors of the Holocaust. It showed the callousness and inhumanity of the west's non-interventionist policies in Africa. And it showed the utter barbarity and evil that man was capable of doing to his fellow man for nothing more than the perceived crime of being different.
But the genocide also showed the immense and deadly power of racist propaganda and hate speech. Throughout the genocide, RTLM pundits like Kantano Habimana, Leon Mugesera, Georges Ruggiu, Noel Hitimana, and Froduald Karamira became infamous for their incendiary calls to violence against the Tutsi. Lies and racist misinformation spread by RTLM helped sway otherwise ambivalent Hutus into joining extremist militias and developing suspicion, resentment, and hatred against their Tutsi neighbors. RTLM'S influence was so powerful that its effects could be measured in terms of mass murder; the massacres during the genocide were most widespread in the areas where RTLM was most popular.
So why am I bringing up RTLM, and by extension the destructive potential of hate propaganda? Because one of the two political parties in this election is taking its campaign strategy right from the Hutu Power playbook, stoking racial hatred and sowing division to serve an ulterior agenda.
For the past five years, the town of Springfield, Ohio, has been home to a community of about 20,000 Hatian immigrants legally settled there under protected status. These immigrants have helped revitalize Springfield's economy, obtaining manufacturing jobs, working in metallurgical plants, and even starting small businesses of their own.
In other words, these Haitian immigrants have taken to heart the principles of the American Dream, which posits America as the land of opportunity - a shining city on the hill. If there is ever an example of an American success story, it is best exemplified by the Haitian community of Springfield, Ohio - where thousands of men, women, and children, who fled a famine-ridden, impoverished, failed state in crisis were able to integrate into the society of the country that offered them refuge, becoming functional, hardworking, productive members of American society.
But to all too many on the American right - whether they choose to admit it or not - these Haitian immigrants are incapable of ever being true Americans by virtue of their very existence. They look different. They speak different. They have different accents. They eat different foods. Their names are unfamiliar. Their skin is a different color.
Over the past month, right-wing propagandists and politicians - including former President Donald Trump - have amplified a racist, xenophobic, dehumanizing, ugly falsehood that claims that Haitian immigrants are killing and eating cats, dogs, geese, and ducks in Springfield. The rumor, as far as can be told, originated in neo-Nazi circles, spread to Facebook, and went viral as the falsehood was repeated and spread by figures such as Elon Musk, Ted Cruz, and Ohio senator and Vice-Presidential candidate JD Vance.
Former president Donald Trump, who is running for a second term on an unabashedly anti-immigrant and nationalist platform, repeated the rumor during last week's presidential debate with Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
"In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats", he brayed. "They're eating the pets of the people that live there".
For the record, the city manager of Springfield has said that he has received no credible reports of Haitian immigrants eating dogs or cats or any other animals. But that hasn't stopped Trump and other GOP politicians and right-wing pundits from continuing to spread this baseless and openly racist lie in an attempt to stoke fear of immigrants.
Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz tweeted a meme of kittens with the text "PLEASE VOTE FOR TRUMP SO HAITIAN IMMIGRANTS DON'T EAT US". The Arizona Republican Party has similarly installed a billboard reading "Eat Less Kittens; Vote Republican".
Trump's running mate and current Ohio senator JD Vance - once seen as a moderate Republican but now an unabashed far-right populist who trafficks in racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric - has been one of the most vocal propagators of this hoax and other incendiary vilifications of Haitian immigrants.
"Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio", Vance tweeted, before adding, without providing evidence: "Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country. Where is our border czar?"
Right-wing activist Charlie Kirk - head of the conservative group Turning Point USA - also repeated the rumor, again without providing evidence. "Residents of Springfield, OH are reporting that Haitians are eating their family pets, another gift of the Biden-Harris mass immigration replacement plan. Liberals will soon be lecturing Americans on why they need to be sensitive to Haitian culture and accept this as the new normal. These idiots deserve to be condemned and mocked mercilessly. Save our pets. Secure our borders."
Stephen Miller - a hardline anti-immigrant extremist and former Trump Administration official who was instrumental in the president's widely-criticized family separation policy - also peddled the baseless conspiracy theory, writing "We've reached the point in Kamala's migrant invasion where the migrants are stealing and eating Americans' pets".
Even when confronted on the lack of evidence for his racist claims, JD Vance doubled down on the ugly rumor. Sharing a wrongly-captioned video of people cooking chickens over a grill, Vance claimed that he now had "proof" of the cat-eating rumors being true.
"Another 'debunked' story that turned out to be true", he snidely posted.
This sort of hate propaganda has already led to dire consequences. The Haitian community of Springfield has, over the past month, been subjected to a deluge of death threats and harassment by extremists. The day after the presidential debate in which Donald Trump repeated the racist lies about Springfield's Haitian community, a former US Marine named Christopher Pohlhaus, who leads a neo-Nazi group known as "Blood Tribe", took to Telegram to claim credit for starting the cat-eating rumor, boasting that he had "pushed Springfield into the public consciousness".
"The president is talking about it now", another member of Blood Tribe concurred. "This is what real power looks like".
Even as the death threats and harassment increased, the propagators of these vicious falsehoods stood by their claims. Rather than walk back on his false claims about Haitian migrants, JD Vance took to X (formerly Twitter) to double down and spread even more vile accusations.
"In Springfield, Ohio, there has been a massive rise in communicable diseases, rent prices, car insurance rates, and crime. This is what happens when you drop 20,000 people into a small community", he wrote, ignoring not only the total lack of evidence for his claims, but also the fact that most of the Haitian migrants in Springfield moved there before Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were even in office. "Kamala Harris's immigration policy aims to do this to every town in our country".
The hate propaganda has not stopped, and neither have the death threats, harassment, hate mail, and acts of ethnic intimidation against the Haitian immigrant community. Dozens of bomb threats and threats of violence against Haitians have forced schools to close and city hall to be evacuated. Wittenberg University, which is located in Springfield, had to cancel several public events due to these threats against Haitian community members.
Flyers from the Trinity White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan have been circulating through Springfield, with hateful slogans like "Foreigners and Haitians out!" and "Join us and stand against forced immigration!". Members of the far-right Proud Boys marched through Springfield on September 14. And still - as life in this small midwestern town has been completely upended by racial hatred and false propaganda - the lies continue. The merchants of hate have not let up. When asked if he condemned the bomb threats in Springfield, Donald Trump did not reply with a condemnation of violence; instead, he said: "I don't know what happened with the bomb threats. I know that it's been taken over by illegal migrants and that's a terrible thing that happened".
In an interview on CNN, JD Vance even seemed to acknowledge that he had helped manufacture and spread racist falsehoods that endangered immigrants' lives, but rather than backtrack and make even the slightest attempt to mend the damage he helped cause, Vance instead chose to justify the unjustifiable.
"The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes", he said. "If I have to create stories so that the American media actually has to pay attention to the suffering of American people, then that’s what I’m going to do."
And there it is, straight from the horse's mouth. It doesn't matter if these stories are true or not. It doesn't matter if these lies and conspiracy theories dehumanize and vilify innocent human beings. It doesn't matter to these demagogues if innocent people get hurt as a result of their hate propaganda.
To these merchants of fear, these purveyors of division and malice, manufacturing a narrative is more important than telling the truth. Power is more important to them than protecting innocent life. If ever there was an example of the callousness, racism, and total disregard for human life that has come to define the modern Republican Party, this is it.
As a senator, JD Vance is supposed to represent the people of Ohio - ALL of the people of Ohio. Not just Republicans. Not just white Americans. ALL Ohioans. Even the thousands of Haitian immigrants he has thrown under the bus in his soulless bid for power. And yet it was that comment that fully encapsulates the evil that has become so inseparably intertwined in the fabric of the GOP.
It's the same ancient evil that fueled the hatemongers at RTLM more than thirty years ago. It's the same ancient evil that fueled the rise of Nazism in Europe and brought upon the worst case of genocide in history. It's the same ancient evil that we see today, alive and well, in the United States, not just in the screaming, contorted faces of the neo-Nazis who marched in Springfield earlier this month, but also in the banal, clean-cut, suit-wearing sycophants in the Republican Party, like JD Vance, who use their platform and influence to stoke the fires of racial hatred in their quest for political power.
We are less than two months away from what is likely to be the most pivotal election in our lifetime. It's about so much more than political differences or disagreements over specific policies. This is an election where we face a choice; a choice between pluralistic democracy and naked racial hatred. And it's not just because of what has been happening to Springfield over the past few weeks. This goes back for years. For years, the GOP has made fear of immigrants - BOTH legal and illegal, despite their denials - the central message of their party platform. For years, politicians and pundits on the right have vilified and demonized immigrants, branding them as "invaders", drug dealers, rapists, murderers, gang members, job stealers, disease spreaders, and all other manner of horrible, dehumanizing smears.
It was never about fighting illegal immigration. The Haitians who have been vilified and subjected to racist lies and death threats from the GOP came here legally and live here legally. Time and time again, the GOP has shown that their issue with illegal immigration isn't the "illegal" part; it's the "immigration" part.
The choice America faces this November could not be clearer if the GOP nominee for president were a sentient burning cross. We have all seen this rhetoric before. We have all seen where racist lies and fearmongering lead. It doesn't end well. And it cannot be allowed to happen here.
Hate propaganda has real world consequences. It has hurt real-world people. The managers and pundits of RTLM knew the destruction and suffering that their rhetoric would cause. It was designed that way. And in the aftermath of the genocide, their responsibility in the slaughter of 1,000,000 Tutsi did not escape the scrutiny of the war crimes tribunals that sought to punish those responsible for the massacres.
RTLM's pundits and managers would be convicted of crimes against humanity for their role in the genocide and sentenced to long terms in prison - some of them for life.
This November let's hold our own hate propagandists accountable for their actions, too.
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