In the September 10 nationally-televised presidential debate Donald Trump declared, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating, the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in this country.” This reprehensible, wild, and utterly false claim was directed primarily at Haitian workers who have moved to Springfield in the recent past. It’s an example of the “Big Lie” technique: amplifying a falsehood over and over with the intention of persuading large numbers of people that the lie is the truth.