A JD Vance Primer on Building Conspiracies

... Just about one year ago, during the presidential debate, when then-candidate Trump ranted about Haitian immigrants eating other people’s pets, it sounded like more of his bluster. In a rambling response to a question about immigration—arguably, one of his strongest and most popular campaign topics—Trump pounced on a rumor spread on the internet, “They're eating the dogs … they’re eating the cats … 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.”

Then-vice presidential candidate JD Vance swiftly came his future boss’s defense, defending the debunked rumors, stating, “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.”

One year later, cut to the aftermath of the killing of Charlie Kirk and we see that Vance is following through on his promise. Weaving the beginnings of a baseless conspiracy, Vance announced, “We know Joe Biden’s FBI was investigating Charlie Kirk. Maybe they should have been investigating the networks that motivated, inspired, and maybe even funded Charlie Kirk’s murder. If they had, Charlie Kirk might be alive today.” Discussing this comment on his podcast The Bulwark, Tim Miller was shocked that no news organization picked up this thread or remembered Vance’s statement from just one year ago. The ignorance of Vance’s comment about “networks” may be because the legacy press are no longer able to do their jobs as watchdogs of the government when their corporate owners are more interested in protecting their mergers ...

https://www.laprogressive.com/progressive-issues/jd-vance-primer