.WHEN DONALD TRUMP said the word “Springfield” 33 mins in to the United States presidential debate on September 10th, David Muir, the co-moderator, was actually readied. During that tiny Ohio community, Mr Trump declared, illegal aliens are actually “consuming the pet dogs, they are actually consuming the pet cats, they’re consuming the family pets of the people that live there”. Mr Muir quickly replied that, depending on to Springfield’s city manager, there were no reputable documents of pet-eating.
The past president’s claim need to have struck lots of audiences as unusual. But bunches of Mr Trump’s fans were actually keyed for it: the accusation had been actually moving around in conservative circles on social networks, boosted by Elon Musk, the owner of X. Just how did the community become at the centre of a right-wing conspiracy theory?