We’re effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at [sic] their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.— JD Vance, interview with Tucker Carlson, Fox News, July 2021

The Trump campaign promoted an outlandish false claim on Monday that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, have abducted and eaten their neighbors’ pets, again demonizing migrants as the campaign seeks to attack Vice President Kamala Harris on immigration—New York Times, “Trump Campaign Amplifies False Claim About Haitian Migrants in Ohio,” 9/9/24

Editor’s Note: So which is it? Are the evil forces threatening to make America even ungreater a bunch of coastal elite childless cat people, or anchor-baby-dropping cat-consuming immigrants?

In the public interest, we tracked down the apotheosis of rightwing paranoia in an actual coastal elite cat-eating childless cat lady illegal immigrant, and arranged an interview with her, in her palatial immigrant-shelter villa in Springfield, Ohio.

CECE: Pleased to meet you, Garden of Eaton! I do hope you’ll be staying for tea! We’ll be having kitty en croûte or puppy au Poupon this evening. It all depends on whatever my cook Anatole discovers in the city pound this morning, or perhaps finds straying unwisely from a back yard…

GOE: I’m a bit confused, Coastal Elite Cat-Eating Childless Cat Lady Illegal Immigrant! How can you be a cat lady who also eats cats?

CECE: I’m afraid you haven’t been following your Fox News lately! It’s not our cats in the cassoulet, my dear, it’s other people’s. I would never eat my Muffin!…although perhaps in pinch…I mean with this horrid Bidenflation! Have you seen the price of corn lately? It’s frightfully expensive to raise a good, tender cat these days…

GOE: Cats eat corn?

CECE: Of course not, silly! But rats love it! So we force-feed our imported Norwegian rats with corn, and when they’re nice and plump, we force-feed the cat with the force-fed rat… I mean, we’re not your common vulgar alley-cat eating Childless Cat Lady Illegal Immigrants. We’re the Coastal Elite Cat-Eating….

GOE: It sounds like so much trouble. Does cat really taste so much better than, say…chicken?

CECE: Cats taste quite awful actually, though Anatole does miracles with his truckloads of parsley and butter. But the larger point here is that just the idea of intentionally harming a household pet incites fear and hatred in…just about anyone, except maybe Alex Jones. So a shrewd politician can marry the specter of a kitty-killer to all the insecurities and ignorance grumpy working-class white guys have around immigrants, intellectuals, uppity women, and…voilà! Coastal Elite Cat-Eating Childless Cat Lady Illegal Immigrant! And then you identify that, the ultimate other, with your political opposition. With a strategy like that, any idiot can be elected president of the United States of America…and has been!

GOE: But how can you be a coastal elite and an illegal immigrant?

CECE: Have you ever heard of Port-au-Prince?

GOE: Of course, it’s a city on the coast of…oh, ok.

CECE: And we all speak French, which automatically makes us elite, and probably communist.

GOE: I don’t know, you seem so unreal…

CECE: Of course I’m unreal! The more fantastic the better!

GOE: But how can you be an effective right-wing fever dream if you’re not even believable?

CECE: Who’s unbelievable? Let’s try a little thought experiment. Think of a common, adorable tradition that American families practice together, regardless of political conviction, race, or religion.

GOE: OK, how about…pizza night out with the wife and kids?

CECE: Great! And what’s the most revolting thing a human being can do?

GOE: Sexually abuse a child, without a doubt.

CECE: Bingo! Put the two together, hang it on Hilary Clinton, and you’ve got this preposterous thing called Pizzagate! And millions of Americans thought that was legit! But now I’m unbelievable! Oh, look what Anatole has brought us! Hot puppy puffs! You simply must try one, I insist!

GOE: Um, I’d love to, actually, but I’m, er…hyper-allergic to shrimp and…canine meat products!

CECILIA: Oh for heaven’s sake, they’re pizza puffs from Costco. You people will believe anything!