During his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump was provoked into repeating the debunked claim that migrants in Springfield, Ohio had stolen and eaten pets. Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance, an Ohio native, has doubled down on the debunked pet eating claims. In an interesting move, he admitted that he is willing to “create stories” to bring attention to problems in Springfield.  As a philosophical approach requires applying the principle of charity, it must be noted that Vance attempted to clarify his claim by asserting that “I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it.” Unfortunately for Springfield, the false claim has also focused the attention of people outside the media. Springfield has faced bomb threats that closed schools and the community has been harmed in other ways. Local officials and the Republican governor of Ohio have attempted to convince people that the claims made by Trump and Vance are untrue. But despite the claim being thoroughly debunked, it persists.  In this essay, I will focus on Vance’s view that creating such stories is justified.

One reasonable criticism of Vance’s approach is to argue that if there are real problems, then the truth should suffice. If, as Vance and Trump claim, the situation in Springfield is dire, then they should be able to provide evidence of that dire situation and that should suffice to get media attention.

In support of Vance’s view, it could be argued that the media tends to focus on attention grabbing stories. It is also true that the media and politicians often ignore problems the American people face, such as wage theft. In terms of making a reasonable case for Vance’s view of storytelling to focus media attention, a utilitarian moral argument could be advanced to support the general idea of telling an untrue story to get media attention focused on a real problem. The approach would be a standard utilitarian appeal to consequences in which the likely harms of the untruth would be weighed against its likely benefits. As with any utilitarian calculation, there is also the question of who counts in the calculation of harms and benefits.  If the media is ignoring a real problem and only an untrue story will bring attention to the real problem, then the good done by the falsehood could outweigh the harms of dishonesty. But the untruth about Springfield does not seem to meet these conditions.

Trump and (to a lesser extent) Vance command media attention. Almost everything Trump expresses publicly ends up in the news. As such, there is no lack of media coverage of what Trump and Vance say and if either of them spoke about the “real problems” in Springfield, their speeches and claims would get media attention. They have no need to create stories to get attention and if there are real problems, then the truth should suffice. The only reason for people with such media access to create a story to get attention is that the truth will not suffice to support their claims.

There has also been media coverage of real problems in Springfield, such as the strain put on community resources and the challenges of assimilating migrants. Hence, there is no need to create stories to draw attention to these issues. But these are clearly not the problems that Trump and Vance wish to solve for the people of Springfield. After all, it seems that Trump’s proposed “solution” to the real problems in Springfield is mass deportation. Vance has also claimed, incorrectly, that the migrants are there illegally. His claim seems to be that he disagrees with the legal process by which the migrants are there legally and hence they are, on his view, there illegally. This does not seem to be how the law works. Given this, the pet eating story makes sense: the story was not created to draw attention to real problems, it was created to “justify” the deportation of migrants and to create support for this by making people afraid and angry. If migrants presented a real and significant threat, Vance and Trump would not need to create stories. They could simply present an abundance of evidence to prove their claim. The fact that they need to rely on the debunked story only serves as evidence that they lack evidence to support their view.

If we consider all the people who are likely to be affected by this untruth, then Vance’s approach is clearly morally wrong. As noted above, Springfield has already been harmed by this story. It has also served to fan the flames of racism and prejudice in general, inflicting harm across the United States. This shows that the making up stories of the sort Vance is talking about is not justified on utilitarian grounds.

But if the scope of moral concern is narrowed down to Trump and his supporters, then it can be argued that the story does benefit them. While Trump and Vance might seem foolish, evil and crazy to some for making and doubling down on this repeatedly debunked claim, their anti-migrant stance and this sort of remark could appeal to Trump’s base. While the polls vary, as this is being written Trump is predicted to have at least a 50% chance of winning, which suggests that this story might be benefiting him. In which case, Vance can justify creating stories on the grounds that deceit helps him and Trump while the truth would hurt them. But if Trump loses and this story plays a role, then it would have turned out that it was bad for Trump.