Donald Trump may seem like an odd choice to be a pet savior.
Breaking with tradition, Trump has not kept a pet in the White House. “Honestly, I wouldn’t mind it, but I don’t have time,” he said at a rally while still president.
He often used the word “dog” as an insult. The leader of ISIS was killed by US forces in 2019 “He died like a dog.” Arianna Huffington was a “dog.” tweeted, as his former administrative assistant, Omarosa Manigault Newman.
In Tuesday night’s debate, Trump warned that something terrible was happening in Springfield, Ohio. The immigrants “eat the pets of the people who live there,” he said.
there is no evidence the claim is true. But it served Trump’s purpose, shifting the blame to the migrants who threaten everyday Americans.
As shocking as the story sounds, it’s emblematic of Trump’s obsession with tales of innocents being eaten on the campaign trail.
Sharks eat people
Start with the shark. Ocean predators have long been on Trump’s mind. The story he tells on the trail is about the agonizing choice between being electrocuted by a sinking boat battery or being eaten by a shark swimming nearby. Trump said he will avoid sharks at all costs.
“By the way, there have been a lot of shark attacks lately, have you been paying attention? Lots of sharks,” he said at a rally in Las Vegas in June. “I watched some guys justify it today: ‘They weren’t really that angry, they bit the young lady’s leg because they weren’t hungry, but they misunderstood who she was.’ “
Trump was thinking about sharks again during a campaign stop along Lake Michigan the following week, assuring residents they were happy to live in ocean waters where sharks live, not near them. (A study shows that in the United States of more than 340 million people, there were 36 unprovoked shark bites last year, down from 41 in 2022).
“Look at that beautiful lake” Trump said. “Which is better: this or sitting in the Pacific Ocean or the Atlantic Ocean with sharks? You don’t have sharks. This is a great advantage. I’ll take the one without the shark.”
People who eat people
It’s been more than three decades since horrified moviegoers first laid eyes on cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs.
Trump has not forgotten the fictional Dr. Lecter.
He invokes “the late, great, Hannibal Lecter” on the campaign trail as an example of the types of people who came to the United States illegally and would deport if he wins.
“He’d like to invite you to dinner,” he said with a laugh At a rally in Chesapeake, Virginia earlier this year. “Don’t do that. If he offers, I’d like to have you for dinner, don’t go. But these are people who came to our country.”
It’s unclear if the audience got the joke. The median age in the U.S. is about 39, meaning most Americans weren’t even old enough to see a horror movie when it came out. Vice President Kamala Harris took a jab at Trump during the debate, citing Lecter references and saying people left his rallies early because of “boredom.”
People who eat pets
One might think that Trump is simply using familiar cultural building blocks. He came of age in the 1970s, when the movie “Jaws” riveted the nation and sparked the fear of shark attacks.
She may not have pets, but she understands that people love their dogs and cats and would recoil when they hear that they are being killed for food.
Joseph Pierre, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, says Trump’s tendency is to associate the “targets of his anger” with “scenes of terror.”
“For example, his ongoing criticism of green energy includes repeated claims that wind turbines kill ‘all the birds,’ ‘make the whales crazy,’ so they wash up on shore or cause cancer in people,” Pierre told NBC News. “Thus, the story of sharks and electricity – seemingly extraordinary on the surface – appeared to be in the service of connecting electric vehicles – in this case boats – with another dire consequence.”
John Gartner, a psychologist and host of the Little Trump podcast, said Trump’s focus on carnivores and unsuspecting prey reveals something else about his psyche.
His father had impressed upon him that he needed it “murderer” and “king”. Trump has embraced the idea that victimhood is a destiny to avoid. Gartner said becoming an “apex predator” was Trump’s “number one goal,” helping to explain his fascination with both sharks and Hannibal Lecter.
“In the predator’s mind, the worst thing that can happen is that you can become the prey,” he said. And so, according to Trump, electrocution seems preferable to dying in the clutches of the Great White.
“And he connects the dots with ‘the late, great Hannibal Lecter.’ Gartner continued. “He’s a man-eater. He’s abused their trust and eaten them.”