.WHEN DONALD TRUMP completed the word "Springfield" thirty three mins into the American presidential argument on September 10th, David Muir, the co-moderator, was prepared. In that little Ohio town, Mr Trump stated, illegal immigrants are "eating the pets, they are actually consuming the pet cats, they're consuming the pets of individuals that stay there". Mr Muir promptly replied that, depending on to Springfield's mayor, there were actually no qualified files of pet-eating. The past president's claim must possess attacked many audiences as strange. But great deals of Mr Trump's supporters were primed for it: the allegation had been moving around in right-wing groups on social media, boosted by Elon Musk, the proprietor of X. How carried out the town happened at the center of a right-wing conspiracy theory?