Pet Story

They're eating the cats and the dogs

“We saw naked people.” That’s what Christopher Columbus is thought to have written in his diary that day in October 1492. “They were a people very poor in everything,” he wrote, describing the people he met on an island they called Haiti, “land of mountains.” Columbus called it Hispaniola, “the little Spanish island” instead. The ignorant colonizer believed it had no name. On his voyage home, Columbus wondered about all that he did not understand about the people he’d met, a people he called “Indians” because he believed he had sailed to the Indies. It occurred to him that it wasn’t that they didn’t have a religion or a language but that these things were, to him, mysteries that he could not penetrate, things beyond his comprehension.

The natives of Haiti, the Taino, had no writing. They called their god Yucahu and described him as timeless. Like all peoples on Earth, they ordered their world with tales of their gods, stories of their dead and origins of their laws. The Taino did not have writing, but they had government. Their laws were contained in their ancient songs, which they used to govern themselves. They sang their laws, and they sang their history. These songs stayed in memories, not in books. In those songs, they told their truths. They sang of how the days and weeks and years after the broad-shouldered Italian first spied their island were the worst of times. Yucahu had once foretold, they said, that they “would enjoy their dominion for but a brief time because a clothed people would come to their land who could overcome them and kill them.” This had come to pass.

There were about three million people in Haiti, the land of mountains, when Columbus landed. Fifty years later, there were only five hundred. Everyone else had died. Their songs remained unsung. Columbus is rightfully dubbed the “father of modern slave trade,” as the first license to ship enslaved Africans to the Caribbean was issued in 1501 by the Spanish monarch to the first royal governor of Hispaniola, Nicolas de Ovando.

All original accounts of that day in 1492 are lost, including Columbus’s diary. That is unfortunate but not unusual. Flesh decays. Wood rots. Walls fall. Books are burned. History is but a study of what remains. Sadly, what remains is often only two elements: the exultation of the conqueror, and the silent despair of the conquered.

Yucahu foresaw the mayhem the clothed people would bring. If the Taino had leaned in and listened a little closer, they might have also heard Yucahu speak of a white man in Ohio, who would one day falsely accuse the Haitians “of coming into our neighborhoods and eating our pets.”

J.D. Vance last week admitted that he made up the story of Haitians stealing cats and dogs from white people in Springfield, Ohio, and eating them. He added that he would make up any story “if it would help to keep the conversation on immigration.” This is where we are, folks.

Last night, we had the least consequential event of a Presidential election cycle in America: the VP debate. I watched the whole thing. For a while, the two candidates played it safe, even agreeing with each other on things where it seemed plain as day that there was little agreement. Sixty days ago, JD Vance was an unknown. Today, he has the highest disapproval rating of any VP candidate in modern election history. To be disliked intensely by people who did not even know you a month ago is quite a feat. Vance spent most of the debate trying to be likeable that he forgot to land any blows. Walz, on the other hand, offered the impression that he’d rather be having root canal surgery than be on the debate stage. Vance came across as a slick salesman who shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the White House. Walz came across as an honest and decent man who shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a debate stage.

“Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 elections?” Walz asked Vance at one point, to which Vance replied, “Tim, I’m just looking to the future.” Coach Walz retorted, “That’s a damning non-answer.” All of Vance’s carefully orchestrated moves to be likable fell apart just like that, in that moment. If Trump loses, JD Vance will be one of the contributing factors. If Trump wins, Vance will not get any credit.

It's the first of October. It’s perhaps time to start paying attention to polls and such, even though I’ve become increasingly skeptical of them. Harris is leading by a small margin in the most of the swing states. North Carolina, which was once solidly in Trump’s column, is now in play, although it’s possible that the recent hurricane devastation could change the calculus back in Trump’s favor.

Trump has done everything possible to lose this election. And yet, the polls show a statistical tie. Amazing, right? Well, maybe not so. Let’s zoom out a bit. If someone had asked me a year ago how Kamala Harris would fare against Trump in a head-to-head contest, I’d have predicted that Trump would beat her handily by 5-8 points. You see, American society, beneath its shiny and shimmering façade, still has significant swathes of racist and misogynistic peoples. It’s hard to win if you’re black. It’s even harder if you’re a woman. Kamala Harris happens to be both. Trump should be leading by 4-5 points comfortably now. For a black woman to be leading an alpha white male in a Presidential election in October is no mean achievement. Let’s not forget that. If you’re one to put your stock in polls, then you should believe that is a good sign for Harris.

Will Trump will lose in 2024? As JD Vance put it, I’m just looking to the future, man.

Have a great week ahead.