Pundits spent the days in the run-up to Donald Trump’s first debate with Kamala Harris trying their best to predict which Trump would show up on Tuesday night. Few could have predicted the dizzying variety of unhinged rants the former president would put on display — including one very memorable line about cats.

In one of the most humiliating moments of his political career, Trump amplified a debunked conspiracy theory that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, had been caught stealing and eating local pets.

When moderator David Muir fact-checked this lie with a statement from Springfield city officials, Trump went into full-on meltdown mode. “I’ve seen people on television! The people on television saying ‘my dog has been taken and used for food!’” he barked.

That moment was a victory for the small circle of right-wing Internet weirdos who first advanced Trump’s pet-eating hoax. For the millions of Americans who don’t live their lives online, it seemed like the former president had finally lost his mind.

Trump’s very public breakdown on the debate stage is just the latest example of how the far-right social media influencer sphere........

© The Hill