What It Means to "Create Stories"

And What JD Vance Distorts

A few of many stories on my bookshelf.

On CNN’s State of the Union last Sunday, Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance made a stunning admission: He had fabricated now-viral claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, OH, eating their neighbors’ pets. “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” he said.

Vance’s words have received widespread condemnation, and rightly so: His defamation of Haitian Ohioans has been racist, xenophobic, and uncannily similar to the blood libel that culminated in the Holocaust. Yet another disturbing aspect of Vance’s remarks has gone unrecognized: his distortion of storytelling.

As a novelist, political speechwriter, and communications strategist, I spend 24 hours a day thinking about stories. From Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s new moniker of “Coach Walz” to former U.S. Representative Liz Cheney’s condemnation of the Jan. 6 insurrection, stories make up our body politic—even as their relationship to fact varies. For instance, Walz did serve as a defensive coordinator for the football team at Minnesota’s Mankato West High School—but few knew this before the Harris-Walz campaign intensified its attempts to reach the working class. As for Cheney, she once embraced the Tea Party movement, whose perversion of populism led directly to the attack on the Capitol.

Observers could challenge the framing and convenience of both Walz’s and Cheney’s narratives. But they cannot deny these claims’ truth: Walz was, indeed, a coach. Cheney has opposed the insurrection. Compare these with Vance’s baseless vilification of Haitians, which even Ohio’s Republican governor has called “a piece of garbage that was simply not true.”

Paradoxically, Vance uses an alleged truth—“the suffering of the American people”—to justify his claims. But he is twisting rhetoric. Truth and fact are not identical: For example, John Doe might in fact weigh 160 pounds, yet he does not truly weigh the same in outer space. However, the Venn diagram of these terms overlaps for a reason. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines truth as “the body of real things, events, and facts” because truth must be factual. Our John Doe does not weigh 160 pounds in space (a truth) because microgravity there keeps him in free fall (a fact). Without this base in reality, a so-called truth is better deemed an opinion or belief.

What Vance’s fabrication attempts to build upon is actually an emotional truth. This term is slippery. Just about every story contains a kernel of emotional truth, which author and journalist Robin Farmer defines as a quality that “allows readers to feel a certain way about the experiences of people who may lead different lives from them . . . transcend[ing] facts.” As she writes—and as I can echo in my own experiences—the most powerful ability of emotional truth is to engender the reader’s empathy.

Vance is twisting this capacity to separate the law-abiding, tax-paying Haitian immigrants in Springfield from “the American people.” He aims to convince listeners to empathize with an imprecise mass over the very real community suffering from vandalization, bomb threats, and other forms of violence directly because of him and Donald Trump.

Emotional truth can sustain fiction by itself: Look no further than Lolita. And its role in politics is widespread. But political narratives cannot divorce emotional truth from fact. Kentucky’s Hadley Duvall can speak to the horrors of child pregnancy because she survived such violence herself. Former First Lady Michelle Obama can call out the racism of Donald Trump’s attacks on her family because the world witnessed his kneejerk disdain of the Obamas’ Blackness.

JD Vance cannot claim facts from the vague “constituents” he claims have shared concerns. Not when every Springfield resident who raises their voice—from factory owners to parents suffering unspeakable tragedy—defends their Haitian neighbors. Not when even the person who started this rumor has the integrity to tell the world she was wrong. In politics, emotional truths without basis in fact are better called by one syllable: lies.

That Vance and Trump have resorted to such falsehoods only goes to show the vacuum in their vision for America. They have no plans to unify or uplift the American people, a body which includes all those who contribute to the well-being of our nation—no matter where they were born. They also have no plan to alleviate suffering, only to distract from its true causes.

All Americans with conscience have a moral duty to stand against the defamation of Haitians. And every person who values storytelling must call out Vance’s so-called emotional truth as the lie it is. I always tell readers to persevere to the last page. But this is one book we can, and should, close before the end.

Abby’s Pop Culture Pop-Up

In a write-up on the contestants of the upcoming Washington, DC season of Love Is Blind*, Netflix describes the DC dating scene as “appearance-driven,” “status-obsessed,” and “‘useless and disappointing.’” I’m not sure what these contestants expect to be different about dating on a TV show, but fair shakes to them for trying. Cast your bets on how many of them live in Maryland in 3… 2… 1…

*I can’t be the only Jew who noticed this is premiering on Erev Rosh Hashanah. Antisemitism at its finest.

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D.J.’s Digest

Are you Jewish? Sorry, fraught question. But Yom Kippur is coming up. I used to spend the whole service trying to stay awake—at least, until the Torah portion we read on Yom Kippur became my Bat Mitzvah parsha. (Turns out we read some Torah portions twice a year. Who knew?) ((The rabbis, probably.)) (((OK, and Jews more observant than me. Details.)))

Now, I have a new appreciation for this parsha. It’s called Acharei Mot. This year, while you’re trying to ignore your stomach, give it a read.

God, I sound like Rabbi Flores. Ugh.

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Julie’s Jams

“Viva Forever” – Spice Girls

Do you still remember
How we used to be?
Feeling together
Believing whatever

[…] Hasta mañana
Always be mine

“Girl power” is feminism, right?

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This Month’s Favorites

Coziest Coffee Shop goes to… the late Slipstream in Logan Circle. It’s moving two blocks closer to me, inside Studio Theater, but I’ll still miss the original spot.

My Kind of Kidlit goes to… A tie! Between Christopher Paul Curtis’ Bud, Not Buddy and Nina LaCour’s We Are Okay. Both of these were re-reads for me, and boy, do they ever hold up. Buy them for every young person in your life.

The Most Excellent Elephant goes to… The beautiful figurine you see in the picture, which my dear friend Natachi Mez got for me in Kenya. She’s an extraordinary writer and performer, and you should reorganize your lives to witness her brilliance.

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Announcements

I finished line edits! That means the text of D.J. Rosenblum Becomes the G.O.A.T. is close to done—pending copyedits, a sensitivity read, typesetting, and all that good stuff.

It also means I get to start thinking about the cover… So, what do you look for when you shop for books? Let me know in the comments!