In yet another sign of how American politics is often operating in a post-truth era, the town of Springfield, OH and Haitian immigrants have now become ongoing collateral damage as former President Donald Trump and his Vice President pick JD Vance focus on whipping up anti-immigration hysteria.
It is one more sign that Trump’s main goal is to get all existing supporters, MAGA Republicans and MAGA leaning Republicans to go to the polls in survival mode. Although Trump’s debate claim that Haitian immigrants are “eating the dogs..eating the cats” having become one of the hottest lines for parodies on TikTok, there is a method behind what is not political madness.
As The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer notes, Vance had admitted that the fake stories were created for a political reason:
“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,” Vance told CNN on Sunday. Days earlier, Vance had acknowledged that “it’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false”—a confession that implies that he does not care whether they are true.
But why Hatians? He writes:
One reason is Trump has a particular, well-documented hatred toward Haitians. The former president infamously referred to Haiti as one of the “shithole countries” that the United States should reject immigrants from, in favor of those from countries “like Norway.” Trump had also previously complained that Haitians “all have AIDS.” Trump’s hostility to Haitians extends to other Black immigrants—he also reportedly complained that if Nigerian immigrants were allowed to stay, they would “never go back to their huts.” Nigerian Americans are the most highly educated immigrant subgroup in America, and Haitians, as the Cato Institute’s David Bier has documented, have a higher rate of employment than native-born Americans and are much more likely than other immigrants or native-born Americans to join the U.S. military. Trump apologists have repeatedly insisted that Trump simply wants immigrants who can contribute to American society, but Trump himself ignores Black immigrants’ contributions in favor of his own ingrained stereotypes about Black people.
Another reason is Trump and Vance appear not to be interested in helping anyone in Springfield, or anywhere else for that matter. Their actions point to a political theory of the election, which is that fearmongering about immigrants, especially Black immigrants, will scare white people into voting for Trump. They also point to an ideological theory of the nation, which is that America belongs to white people, and that the country would be better if it were poorer and weaker, as long as it were also whiter. Trump and Vance have a specific policy agenda for socially engineering the nation through state force to be whiter than it is now: mass deportation, repealing birthright citizenship, and denaturalization of American citizens. This agenda, in addition to being immoral, would wreck the American economy. Republican elected officials in Ohio are defending the Haitians in Springfield because they understand that removing them would have a terrible effect on their town and state—the same terrible effect that Trump’s agenda would have on the country.
Trump’s and Vance’s statements reveal a belief that it would be better to leave dying towns in the Midwest to wither away than revive them and have to share that prosperity with people who are Black, and they seem to be betting that enough American voters in enough swing states agree that it would be better to be broke than integrated.
In the post-truth era facts are casually tossed and and then ignored like used towel paper. And so it was with Vance and Trump. Vance knew the claims were false because he had checked and found out it was false. The Rolling Stone:
According to a Wednesday report from The Wall Street Journal, on Sept. 9 – the day Vance first posted on X claiming local cats were being eaten by Springfield’s Haitians – most of which are in the town legally – his office called local authorities to verify the claim.
A Vance staffer “asked point-blank, ‘Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten [true]?'” City Manager Bryan Heck told the Journal. “I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.”
By the time that phone call took place, Vance’s post had already gone viral online. The senator did not take it down in response to the denial from Springfield officials. Instead, Vance’s office issued a statement late that night claiming that his office had “received a high volume of calls and emails over the past several weeks from concerned citizens in Springfield: his tweet is based on what he is hearing from them.”
[…]The next day, Sept. 10, Donald Trump repeated the lie during his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris – and propelled Springfield into the center of a right-wing firestorm that has residents fearing for their safety.
Vance and Trump have continued to plow forward with the false narrative. Over the weekend, Vance told CNN’s Dana Bash that he’s willing to “create stories” in service of a narrative, but behind the scenes the senator was still trying to find concrete evidence to back his claims.
Vance’s spokesperson provided the Journal with a copy of a police report made by a Springfield woman who claimed her cat had been abducted by her Haitian neighbors. But when the Journal spoke to the woman who filed the report, she clarified that the cat, Sissy, was found by the woman in her basement.
No such apology has been issued by Vance or the former president, even as dozens of bomb threats have rocked the town. Instead, Trump has promised mass deportations from Springfield and is reportedly planning an in-person visit.
So Vance’s claim was proven false with one phone call.
But the campaign to vilify the immigrants went on — and, according to NBC News, the city endured some 33 bomb threats.
At least 33 bomb threats have been made in Springfield, Ohio, since false claims — which were pushed by former President Donald Trump and his running mate — surfaced about Haitian migrants’ eating people’s pets, the governor said.
All of the threats have been determined to be hoaxes. Some targeted Springfield schools, including elementary school campuses, Gov. Mike DeWine said Tuesday at a news conference after he met with city officials.
“Our children deserve to be in school. Parents deserve to feel that their children are being educated and that their children are safe,” DeWine said.
Last week, schools in the city of around 58,000 were evacuated after bomb threats were reported. City Hall also received a threat against city facilities.
The threats come in the days after Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, spread online a false claim that Haitian migrants were causing problems in Springfield and that “[r]eports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.”
Trump repeated the false claim…
Meanwhile, the city’s Haitian immigrants – who have done nothing wrong but are collateral damage in a presidential ticket’s campaign to whip up race-based hatred — are afraid to leave their houses, ABC News reports:
Haitian migrants residing in Springfield, Ohio, shared with ABC News their harrowing experiences of living in constant fear, expressing deep concerns about their safety that prevent them from venturing outside their homes.
In a town of more than 58,000 residents, threats of bombings and shootings led to the closure of city buildings and schools for several days. Wittenberg University canceled all activities on Sunday and classes on Monday as a precautionary measure.
James Fleurijean, a Haitian Community Help & Support Center member, stated that the continual spread of false and divisive statements from prominent politicians was fostering an environment of fear.=
Vance appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and informed reporters that Ohio locals have been lodging complaints for at least a year now.
“I have heard firsthand from multiple constituents – people who made 911 calls a month ago, a year ago, who were making these complaints,” Vance said. “I trust my constituents more than I do the American media that has shown no interest in what’s happened in Springfield until we started sharing cat memes on the Internet.”
ABC News spoke with a 28-year-old Haitian man who wanted to remain anonymous. He said he had come to Springfield from New Jersey less than a year ago to search for work. While waiting for ABC News, a passerby yelled “TRUMP” at him, he said.
In this atmosphere that he and Vance created, Trump has announced he’ll visit Springfield in a week or so.
UPDATE: Trump has now joked (?) that when he goes to Springfield migrants might try to kill and even eat him.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.