Our 2020 book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Our next book will discuss the 2024 election, including the role of lies and disinformation.
It was roughly a month ago when Donald Trump and JD Vance started heavily promoting racist conspiracy theories about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. The dangerous consequences — bomb threats, closed buildings, canceled events, terrified residents, death threats, etc. — soon followed. What’s more, those consequences are still ongoing as the Republican Party’s presidential ticket continues to lean into their lies.
But from a purely political perspective, one of the things that made the GOP’s Springfield fiasco notable was the division within the party. In fact, while the Republicans’ message at the national level focused on imaginary pet-eating thieves from Haiti, the Republicans’ message at the local level was qualitatively different.
Springfield’s GOP mayor and Ohio’s GOP governor not only pushed back against the Trump-Vance lies, they also urged their party’s candidates to stop deceiving the public.
About a month later, a similar dynamic is unfolding in the wake of Hurricane Helene.
Just as with Springfield, Trump has spent several days brazenly lying about the governmental response to the deadly storm. And just as with Springfield, the former president’s lies are causing real on-the-ground harm. As my MSNBC colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim explained, officials have warned that the election season lies and conspiracy theories “are hindering relief efforts:”Disaster relief organizations and lawmakers from Trump’s own party are urging people to stop spreading unsubstantiated rumors about relief efforts. The American Red Cross issued a statement disputing false claims about its response, saying such misinformation “disrupts our ability to deliver critical aid and affects the disaster workers who have put their own lives on hold to assist those in need.” FEMA even resorted to launching a misinformation page on its website to debunk rumors about its Helene response.
