WASHINGTON—The hate of Haitians and other people of color, spewed by the Republican presidential ticket of Donald Trump and Sen. J.D. “Childless Cat Lady” Vance, is hurting and endangering other innocent people.
Especially now in Springfield, Ohio, a small city in the Republican senator’s home state.
Vance began the latest spurt of hate with what the VP nominee later acknowledged was “a made-up story” he designed to draw notice to what he claims is the massively negative impact migrants of color have on the U.S. He singled out Haitians—who are overwhelmingly Black.
He did so despite all the evidence otherwise. Vance charges, as did Trump in his debate with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, that the major mainstream media covers up the story of the disastrous impact of what he called out-of-control migration.
“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 interviewer Dana Bash.
Trump labels migrants coming over the U.S.-Mexico border, fleeing wars, gangs, and repression, as murderers, rapists, thieves and drug dealers. Vance declared the Haitians who had migrated and settled in Springfield—and fueled an industrial renaissance there—stole and ate pet dogs and cats.
Pushed, Vance said he was repeating what Springfield residents told him and ducked any response to statements from the mayor, the police chief, and the county sheriff that such tales are outright lies, a point the CNN questioners made to Trump during the debate. Vance ducked the same evidence veteran CNN correspondent Bash offered.
Vance then tried to deflect the question by charging that policies imposed by Democratic President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris produced the migrant surge into Springfield. He also whined that Bash hadn’t toughly quizzed Harris in the one-on-one interview she conducted with the Vice President days before.
But Vance’s outright lies, which Trump repeated on nationwide TV during the debate, produced confrontations, school evacuations, the closure of City Hall, bomb threats, and fear in Springfield.
Haitian parents now instruct their kids on locations of “safe spaces.” CNN reports that many Haitian parents now don’t let their kids go out at night. One couple told CNN they’re so scared, they’re considering moving.
The latest manifestation of hate occurred on September 15. Organizers of a live event meant to be unifying, at the Haitian community center in downtown Springfield, transferred it just hours beforehand to being on Zoom.
A small group of Haitians and their supporters—people of all races—showed up anyway and were confronted by a small hate-filled mob and one person whom police described as an agent provocateur.
Before things got out of hand, the Haitians’ supporters managed to cool tensions on both sides, news reports said. There were no arrests.
The small mob “questioned why so many immigrants had moved into Springfield ‘illegally,’ a claim city officials have repeatedly said is not true,” CNN reported. But Springfield schools and social services are grappling with a surge in students and demand. The resulting strain is taking a toll.
None of this concerned Trump and Vance. The VP nominee kept pounding away at his hate-Haitians theme—which he uses to represent all migrants of color—in a long and testy interview with CNN reporter Bash.
Trump’s hate and lies about people of color in general and migrants in particular date back decades —back to when Trump and his father, Fred, illegally barred African Americans from housing projects their development firm erected in New York City decades ago.
Is Trump reaping what he sowed? The FBI arrested a gunman outside the Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach, Fla., on September 15. And Trump was slightly wounded by a gunman’s bullet in Pennsylvania just before the Republican Convention. He waved his fist in triumph at the end.
Police killed that gunman, but the Secret Service did a poor job of checking the Pennsylvania rally site, and buildings around it, before Trump marched on stage.
That flesh wound on his right ear slowed Trump’s spurts of hate for the first half of his GOP nomination acceptance speech. Then he was back to being the same Trump.
In both assassination attempts, Democrats were quick with denunciations, though few made the connection between Trump’s pro-gun stance—which has won him the endorsement of the notorious gun lobby, the National Rifle Association—and the threats. Democratic President Joe Biden called Trump after both assassination attempts, to find out his condition and pledge a thorough investigation.
In the second attempt, on September 15, the Justice Department announced the arrest of Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, of Hawaii. Routh was charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession and receipt of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
Police have yet to establish a motive for either shooter. FBI agents found a digital camera, a backpack, a loaded SKS-style rifle with a scope, and a plastic bag of food in Routh’s vehicle.
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