.WHEN DONALD TRUMP uttered the word “Springfield” 33 minutes into the United States presidential discussion on September 10th, David Muir, the co-moderator, was actually prepped. During that tiny Ohio city, Mr Trump announced, illegal aliens are actually “consuming the canines, they are actually consuming the cats, they’re consuming the dogs of individuals that reside there”. Mr Muir immediately answered that, according to Springfield’s mayor, there were no trustworthy reports of pet-eating.
The former president’s case have to possess hit many visitors as peculiar. Yet bunches of Mr Trump’s supporters were keyed for it: the accusation had been moving around in right-wing groups on social networks, improved by Elon Musk, the proprietor of X. How did the town become at the centre of a conservative conspiracy concept?