In last weeks final presidential debate, Trump apparently made reference to the suffering of illegal immigrants at the hands of the cartels and coyotes. Apparently dozens, if not hundreds, of blue check twitter semi-celebrities began deriding him for making the claim that the coyote animal represented a real danger to illegal border crossers.
Of course the right then had a field day with the mass display of ignorance on the part of left wing accounts knowing enough to have a strong opinion against Trump but not knowing enough to understand one of the most common terms for human smugglers at the border.
Storm in a tea cup. But I was surprised just how so many people with such strong opinions on border safety could not know about coyotes. It would be like an advocate with a strong opinion on nuclear power not knowing about the role played by uranium. How can you have such a strong opinion with so little knowledge?
Curious, I turned to Google Trends to track the prevalence of "border coyote" over the past sixteen years. Sure enough, it was in much more common usage through 2011. But it has remained in constant use and there was a big spike in its usage as recently as December 2018.
So there was little excuse for not knowing the allusion. Still, a rather surprising display of intergroup knowledge heterogeneity.
Democrats Propose Stopping Coyotes By Distracting Them With Decoy Roadrunners https://t.co/ZuI2B10ptc via @TheBabylonBee
— Charles Bayless (@CharlesBayless) October 25, 2020
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