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Now please enjoy the show. This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic produced and presented by the DSR Network.

I'm your host, Greg Sergeant. At the debate this week, Donald Trump gave voice to the deranged lie that immigrants are eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio, and since

then things have gotten steadily worse in that small Ohio town.

Tensions have escalated. Haitian immigrants living there say they fear for their safety, and on Thursday Springfield City Hall was evacuated due to a bomb threat.

What if this is exactly what Trump and his MAGA allies want?

Not that they necessarily want anybody to get hurt,

but rather that supercharged social tensions are to them a desirable goal, both because they think this benefits Trump

politically, and because it excites the magam masses. Andrew Egger, a writer for the

bulwark, has a good new piece in which he treats the Springfield story as a window into the darkness

and sheer malevolence of the MAGA movement. We're going to talk about all of this. Great to have you back on,

Andrew. Hey Greg, thank you back on Andrew.

Hey Greg, thank you for having me.

All right, to quickly catch people up, a lot of Haitians, maybe 15,000 have come to Springfield,

...