The Danger of Post-Debate Pet Memes
You may be laughing, but the calculating right-wing machine is laughing louder
I teach in a curious little program at New York University called “Animal Studies.” We are, faculty and students alike, united in a deep empathy we share for what we call “non-human animals.” We believe in non-human animal sentience to a degree that the larger public probably does not. We feel animal suffering in a way that, to many, could seem over-the-top. We judge the way human animals have abused their role as the planet’s dominant vertebrate as deeply disturbing if not outright criminal.
Which is why the meme-ification of a fully disproven rumor about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio is so problematic.
A person who lives in this alternate space time is neither liberal nor conservative but, rather, Animalcratic.
What I’ve found after teaching in Animal Studies for the last five years is that there is a certain portion of the population that looks at the world through a non-human animal lens. This point of view can arise for a number of different reasons. Sometimes it has to do with a personal experience of atrocious human behavior. Sometimes it arises from a bond between a non-human…
