I've been thinking a lot about freedom lately, and what it means in the West today. The freedom to take to the streets and take a stand, the freedom to express one's view, even if it offends others. The freedom to travel, even to leave one’s country and a find a new home, as I’m easily able to do, while so many others facing great hardship or mortal danger are not.
“They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” former US president Donald Trump said during his debate this month with Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, referring to Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.
The moderators refuted the claim, but it was too late. Within days, bomb threats led to the evacuation of Springfield City Hall, two elementary schools and the motor vehicle agency. Haitians faced harassment; several cars were vandalised and some considered leaving.
How it happened may be instructive. Just over a year ago, 11-year-old Aiden Clark was thrown from his school bus and died after the unlicenced Haitian driver of a minivan veered into oncoming traffic. The incident unsettled blue-collar Springfield, sparking angry rhetoric about the 20,000 Haitians who had settled in the area since 2020.
The anger had receded by July, when Mr Trump named JD Vance as his running mate. But the US senator from Ohio soon sought to revive it. Blaming Haitians for bringing disease and increasing housing prices and crime, he portrayed them as a Biden administration failure. He said Aiden Clark had been “murdered by a Haitian migrant” and repeated false claims that Haitians had stolen and eaten local pets.
The Haitians are legally authorised to work in the US and Springfield-born Ohio Governor Mike DeWine says they have helped revitalise the town. Aiden Clark’s father told the Springfield town council that his son had been accidentally killed. “Don’t spin this towards hate,” he urged, tears streaming down his face. Hours later, Mr Trump delivered his cats and dogs line.
This echoes the origin of the recent UK riots. In late July, three young girls were killed in a knife attack on a dance class in Southport. A false news report that the suspect in custody was Muslim soon spread like wildfire, prompting locals to take to the streets and inspiring a broad wave of anti-Muslim demonstrations and assaults.
Similarly, in Dublin last year, a near-deadly knife attack on children sparked almost unprecedented rioting, and shouts of “Get them out”, after reports that the main suspect was an immigrant. In all three cases, the death or near-death of a child plus the spread of migrant-linked misinformation spurred anger and retribution.
Mining legitimate, deep-seated frustrations among mainly working-class voters, the anti-migrant far right appears to have built an online infrastructure that’s able to whip up and direct considerable animosity at the flip of a switch. A crucial element, as my colleague Gavin Esler recently pointed out, is the “prominent public figures who add fuel to the fire”.
Former British home secretary Suella Braverman argued in an opinion piece in The Times early this year that Islamists had taken control of the country. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on X on the weekend that all migrants who enter the country illegally will be deported, a policy that sounds logistically impossible.
X owner Elon Musk approved of Ms Meloni’s stance. He has also shared falsehoods about the recent UK riots and signalled agreement with the great replacement theory, which imagines migrants repopulating and gaining control of western nations. This may explain why Brazil has blocked access to X and the EU’s chief digital officer recently urged Mr Musk to mitigate the amplification of harmful content.
In response, Mr Vance called for the US to pull out of Nato if the EU blocked X. “We are in a type of global war when it comes to freedom of speech,” Russell Brand posted last week on X. Whatever you think of the unruly British actor-turned-right-wing-pundit, he’s got a point.
Online and across the West, two competing versions of free speech are engaged in a dark, bloody battle for supremacy. One side, with its so-called cancel culture, seeks to silence those who might offend with the wrong phrase or insinuation.
The other is all about being able to say whatever one likes, even if it’s hate-filled or untrue. “If I have to create stories so the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people,” Mr Vance said last week, “then that’s what I’m going to do.”
This idea – that as long as you seek to protect the homeland you need not worry about inciting chaos or adhering to the truth – seems to be the dividing line. Mr Musk, who controls one of the world’s largest public forums, has expressed support for the Trumpian view, yet some who might gain from it have begun to push back.
Mr Trump’s tall tales about pet-eating migrants are a missed opportunity for Republicans to highlight the real outrages of mass migration, a prominent conservative pundit, Batya Ungar-Sargon, recently argued. Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook recently banned RT and other Russian-run media outlets for peddling disinformation.
“As a supporter of former President Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance,” Governor DeWine wrote last week in The New York Times, “I am saddened by how they and others continue to repeat claims that lack evidence and disparage the legal migrants in Springfield.”
The problem with such claims is not, or not only, that they are anti-migrant. Politicians in the US and beyond may at some point have good reason to curb immigration. Perhaps new arrivals are depressing wages or taking too many jobs, increasing local hardship.
The real problem is that this rhetoric keeps politicians and the public from taking a close look at immigration, finding real trouble spots and developing solutions. Instead, the deceptions mainly spread fear and hate. Following the recent riots, for instance, the share of UK Muslims who are very worried about their safety is up four-fold.
Real freedom involves transparency with information, encouraging discussion and, when needed, correction. Controlling information and the narrative in an attempt to generate a specific response, on the other hand, strikes me as a curb on freedom.
Going down that road, it’s not hard to imagine AI-driven social media algorithms feeding us a stream of extremist hate, spurring catastrophic polarisation. That may even be the goal, just look at Springfield and Southport.
Is that the type of freedom the western world prefers?
