What's happening in Springfield, Ohio is the story of the election

CONTENT NOTE: this article contains discussions of violence, racist language, and sexual assault

Springfield, Ohio was not a town that occupied a prominent place in the consciousness of America until very recently.

Then came Donald Trump. He was armed with a conspiracy that was unashamedly racist.

And what has happened there since is, to me, is the true story of the 2024 US presidential election - even if institutional media won't report on it that way.

Like many working class towns in the Midwest of the US, Springfield, Ohio has struggled with a loss of manufacturing jobs and subsequent population decline. For about 60 years, the population has slowly but surely declined - from a high of 82,723 in 1960, to 58,662 people as of the 2020 US Census. You'd have to go back over a century - to the census of 1910 - to find a lower population amount reported for Springfield. This is one of the easiest ways to answer the question: how healthy is the economic arc of a community? And if you see steady population loss, that bodes poorly.

Recently, though, the town has seen a bit of an upswing economically. The reason? An influx of 1000s of immigrants from the strife-torn country of Haiti. The big secret of immigration that the likes of Donald Trump and JD Vance don't want you to know is that, economically speaking, it's high-octane fuel. Immigrants fill jobs that would otherwise be vacant. They stimulate the economy in their community by spending their money there. They pay more in taxes than they receive in public services. They stem the devastating tide of population loss in struggling communities.

But we're not talking about Springfield, Ohio because of some sort of economic miracle it's undergone.

We're talking about Springfield because of the fact that it is a town being terrorized as we speak. And it's thanks to Ohio Senator JD Vance and former President Donald Trump, who are campaigning for the White House on a racist conspiracy theory.

For the purposes of our story, this sordid saga began in earnest a few weeks ago with comments from JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee. Vance posted to Twitter repeating lies that Haitian immigrants to Springfield had been abducting and eating pets from other locals. These claims, obviously, are unfounded. Despite this, the lying from Vance persisted, with Vance posting a defiant and racist defense of his lying on Twitter. Among other things, he said that Haitians are importing diseases to the community. But here's a fuller quote from his post, for your edification:

Do you know what's confirmed? That a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant who had no right to be here. That local health services have been overwhelmed. That communicable diseases--like TB and HIV--have been on the rise. That local schools have struggled to keep up with newcomers who don't know English. That rents have risen so fast that many Springfield families can't afford to put a roof over their head. Here is Kamala Harris bragging about giving amnesty to thousands of Haitian migrants. https://x.com/i/status/1833147988765478944

If you're a reporter, or an activist, who didn't give a shit about these suffering Americans until yesterday, I have some advice: Spare your outrage for your fellow citizens suffering under Kamala Harris's policies. Be outraged at yourself for letting this happen.

Can you believe that this guy is the least-liked vice presidential pick for either party in over 40 years? He seems so kind-hearted, so tempered in what he says for public consumption. Definitely doesn't give off the energy of a guy who talks to a woman at a bar endlessly as he can't take the hint - or maybe just doesn't care - that she just isn't into him. I think what strikes me most about JD is that we've all met guys like him - guys who talk about themselves to excess, about how accomplished and smart they are, how he saw a fascinating YouTube video the other day about how the immigrants are ruining everything, and hey, by the way, have you heard about this new thing called crypto?

Oh, and about that claim he made about a child being murdered...

Last summer, there was indeed a terrible accident in Springfield where a mini van driver, who was a Haitian immigrant, struck a school bus. Two dozen children were injured, and one of them tragically died after he was thrown from the school bus. His name was Aiden Clark, and he was only 11. The driver, who was sober, was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter, and faces up to 9 years in prison.

Mr. Vance, with typical tact, decided to use Aiden's death to highlight the supposed criminality of the community's Haitian immigrants - who, incidentally, are in the United States legally, regardless of lies to the contrary. The Trump campaign even posted Aiden's image on social media, juxtaposed alongside the driver who killed him.

Yet Vance and the Trump campaign-at-large forgot - or, let's be honest, just didn't care - to ask two very important people about whether they were okay with having their son's tragic death used to gin up a racist panic about Haitians: his mother, Danielle Clark, and his father, Nathan Clark. Aiden's father in fact eloquently testified to the Clark County commission regarding the use of his son's death to stoke anger and panic about Haitians. In his testimony, he spoke of the kind-hearted person his son was, and of how Republican attempts to use the tragedy of his death for political gain have salted the family's wounds. Read what he said, and sit with it for a second:

I wish that my son, Aiden Clark, was killed by a 60 year old white man. I bet you never thought anybody would ever say something so blunt. But if that guy killed my 11 year old son, the incessant group of hate-spewing people would leave us alone. The last thing we need is the worst day of our lives violently and constantly shoved in our faces...

He goes on to name check four Republican politicians who have used his son's death to stoke hatred toward Haitians and hostility to immigration: Chip Roy, Bernie Moreno, JD Vance, and Donald Trump. Of this, he says:

This needs to stop now. They can vomit all the hate they want about illegal immigrants, the border crisis and even untrue claims about fluffy pets being ravaged and eaten by community members. However, they are not allowed, nor have they ever been allowed, to mention Aiden Clark from Springfield, Ohio. I will listen to them one more time to hear their apologies.

Before we continue, I want to us to think about the incredible power of this statement. Nathan and Danielle Clark lost their precious child at the age of 11. They are experiencing a loss of visceral devastation. They are still in the terrible doldrums of fresh grief - Aiden was taken from them just a bit over a year ago.

In the dark mists of loss, they could have succumbed to hate. They could have allowed their son's death to be turned into a weapon to bludgeon immigrants with, fostering a climate of fear, paranoia, and violent intolerance. They pointedly and defiantly refused. We could all use more people like the Clark family in our communities.

And regarding Vance's sleazy claim about their son being murdered? He addresses this directly,

My son, Aiden Clark, was not murdered. He was accidentally killed by an immigrant from Haiti. This tragedy was felt all over this community, this state, and even the nation.

But he goes on to emphasize that to use his death for the purposes of hate is not to live like his late son - that his son was a compassionate person who loved to research different cultures and people in order to better understand them, and that he would not want his memory used to further hatred. He ends his impassioned testimony with a simple imperative: live like Aiden.

Maybe Donald Trump and JD Vance should take Nathan Clark's advice.

It's important for us to realize that spreading lies like this has a purpose beyond Donald Trump being able to post inane AI-generated slop to his social media of him holding puppies and cats - and it should be noted that the subtext for that kind of thing, really, is just plain text. Donald Trump will protect your beloved family pets from those scary Black immigrants!

But the point of stating these overt lies is quite sinister. It's clear to me that the Trump-Vance campaign sees political advantage here: not in terms of issue polling, but that they believe that these conspiracies can be used to drive turnout and a surge of energy on the Republican side. The lie's purpose is the mobilization of the most staunch Trump supporters in the name of racism and hostility to immigrants.

And what of the immense potential for violence created by promoting lies like, "Haitian immigrants are stealing your pets so that they can eat your family's furry friend"? That's fine. Who cares? Springfield didn't vote for him either time anyway. They get what they get for taking in a bunch of Black immigrants from a place Trump once called a "shithole." This is the logic at the heart of Trump and Vance's shameless lying: a community of tens of thousands of people gets to live in fear, a bereft family gets constant reminders of the loss of their son, and the vast ecosystem that signal boosts blatantly untrue bullshit from Republican politicians will work overtime to make these claims seem fair and credible.

People have correctly invoked the possibility of a pogrom here; it certainly is reminiscent of that dark, ugly history. What is a pogrom? Pogroms, historically, have referred to outbreaks of antisemitic violence toward Jewish people, often based on conspiracies stoked by government authorities themselves. These pogroms would often began with lurid, baseless claims about Jews murdering children or raping women. Sometimes the "blood libel" was used - the conspiracy that Jews make matzoh bread with the blood of sacrificed Christian children.

But the word "pogrom" can also be a general term to describe outbreaks of violence toward a targeted, disfavored group, like immigrants or ethnic minorities - certainly the various outbreaks of racist violence toward Black people in America's history could be described as pogroms. Remember, the spark for the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 began with a racist conspiracy about a Black teenager sexually assaulting a white girl.

According to Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (who, incidentally, is a Republican), Springfield has received 33 bomb threats to its schools as of last week. Elementary schools targeted by the threats had to be evacuated, and now schools undergo daily police sweeps to ensure no bombs are present on the premises. Many other community events have been cancelled owing to security concerns.

It is worth noting the timeline here. These threats to Springfield surged after Donald Trump mentioned these conspiracies not once, but twice at the presidential debate two weeks ago. So let's be clear: Donald Trump did this. He may not have said directly, "Go call in bomb threats and intimidate the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio," but he didn't need to do that overtly. He knew his most militant supporters would take care of that part for him. He could have made the choice to decry this kind of bigotry, but instead saw an opportunity to stoke it for his own purposes. This is not to say my expectations of him would be any different than how he's behaved, of course. Rather, it's that Trump consciously chooses to stoke the worst impulses of people in this country, and that this is central to understanding him as a political figure.

The Haitian Times, a newspaper that focuses on Haiti and the Haitian diaspora in the United States, has been relentlessly covering the stories out of Springfield. The overwhelming sentiment you hear from the Haitian community there? Fear. Some families have been keeping their children from school, owing to fears of violence. This quote from the linked article above is quite telling:

Meanwhile, area residents say, many Haitians are feeling more afraid as each day passes. The viral posts are being amplified across social media and by international news organizations, which spread the claims even farther. S.P., a community activist, said families have been calling her all morning saying they are scared. 

“People are very afraid for their lives,” S.P. said. “Many families are starting to think of leaving Springfield after last night and some kids aren’t even going to school because of fear of being attacked.”

In interviews over the past week and through a Zoom call of concerned Haitians rapidly organized by Haiti’s Minister of Haitians Living Abroad on Tuesday, local Haitians continue to share instances of bullying, intimidation that the city is not addressing.

This is really why I don't feel at all comfortable with the memes mocking Trump's pet-eating claims. When I saw someone on social media share one, I got the impression the person sharing it was trying to make fun of the patent absurdity of Trump's lie here - but it seemed almost indistinguishable from the stuff Trump and Vance and their supporters had been sharing. I often use humor as a way to cope with the absurdity and frustration of contemporary politics as they exist in this country - I love a good politics joke. Trump is certainly a risible figure. But: people are being menaced in their homes as a result of what Trump and Vance have been saying - I just can't really find humor in a community being terrorized.

And just to bring home that point home here, a Neo-Nazi group called Blood Tribe marched through Springfield back in August in order to intimidate the Haitian community there. A KKK chapter has been circulating fliers in Springfield that call for "Haitians out." Remember what I said about this mobilizing Trump's biggest fans? It already is. The leader of the Neo-Nazi group that marched through Springfield gave deeply racist testimony to the Springfield city council recently - giving his name as Nathaniel Higgers, a more formal-sounding version of the name Nate Higgers. Reverse the letters - this is emblematic of the way that these Nazis, thinking they're oh-so-clever, use in-references and memes to promote their vicious racism. The Nazi's actual name is Drake Bentz, and in addition to the deeply racist things he said about Haitians in his testimony, he also promised violence if the city did not stop the immigration of Haitians to it.

These are the types of people Trump and Vance seem perfectly fine with courting. Trump has no qualms about promoting conspiracies endorsed by literal Nazis. But Trump's history of being supported by far-right Nazi and KKK groups is well-established - just see J6 and the attack on Charlottesville as examples - so I won't be belaboring this point here.

All of this is to repeat the point that I truly do think this is the story of the election, even if others would rather pretend it is not happening. When you talk to big Trump fans, you often get a litany of excuses for why he says the plainly racist stuff that he says. "That's how he works," or "you need to understand the full context," or - my personal fave - "you just have Trump Derangement Syndrome!"

I do, indeed, think the orange man is bad. And he is bad for exactly this reason: an entire community of tens of thousands of people cannot send their kids to school without the need for police protection. They have to live on edge as a direct result of lies he has willfully promoted in front of tens of millions of Americans. I cannot overlook this, even if his biggest fans will.

The Republicans don't really have policies to offer us, but what they do have in copious amount is fear. Fear of LGBTQ people. Fear of Black people. Fear of immigrants. Fear of the other. But they won't offer anything to improve your life. Just see Trump's debate comment about how he has "concepts of a plan" for healthcare, after already being president for 4 whole years (not to mention his various efforts at trying to repeal a healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act AKA Obamacare, that has expanded healthcare to tens of millions of people in this country). Trump doesn't care about whether you and your family have healthcare or are doing well economically, and anyone believing otherwise is deeply mistaken.

But what Trump does offer is the classic Republican playbook of frightening voters. Remember the migrant caravans of 2018? This is like that, but trumped up on steroids. He won't do anything for the vast majority of the tens of millions of people who vote for him, but what he will say is: yes. Be scared. Be frightened. Suspend all rational thinking, and give in to me. I will protect you from the bad people. This is the essence of dictatorship - and of fascism.

Initially, I was disappointed by the Democratic response to all of this. The Democrats have been trying to portray themselves as also "tough on the border," in response to Republican fearmongering over immigrants. For a bit, I worried that they wanted to simply laugh off the absurdity of these conspiracies and move on, all the while a town of 60,000 people was living in fear. Immigration, after all, tends to be one of Trump's strongest polling issues among the broader public - perhaps the Democrats were not keen on raising its salience, and wanted the news cycle to just flame out.

But this transcends polling and horse race politics: communities like Springfield need our solidarity, not our silence. If you care about opposing the rising tide of hatred, white supremacy, and fascism in this country, then we all have an obligation to condemn this kind of fearmongering for what it is.

President Joe Biden did eventually come out with a statement that was unequivocal regarding these conspiracies, and of their purpose:

"Right now, lies and hate are being spread about Haitian Americans in Ohio. It is wrong, it is simply wrong, and it must stop. There are those who want a country for some of us, but not for all of us... I've always believed that the promise of America is big enough for everyone to succeed."

And Vice President and Democratic candidate for president Kamala Harris, speaking before the National Association of Black Journalists, also eventually condemned the remarks. She decried the tragedy of elementary schoolchildren, dressed in their best for picture day, having to be evacuated owing to bomb threats being called in to their schools. But she also noted what Trump had said in the broader context of his history of racism:

"It's a crying shame - my heart breaks for this community... This is not new in terms of these tropes. This is not new in terms of where it's coming from. Whether it is refusing to rent to Black families or whether it is taking out a full-page ad in the New York Times against 5 innocent Black and Latino teenagers, the Central Park Five, calling for their execution. Whether it's referring to the first Black president with a lie - birther lies... It's gotta stop."

She also remarked that Donald Trump's rhetoric is designed to make people point fingers at each other. Indeed it is, and we should recognize it as such.

I want to close by first emphasizing that many people in Springfield have come together to show solidarity to the community's Haitians - patronizing businesses, offering words of support (shown most poignantly by Aiden Clark's father's testimony). I think most people, both there and in the country-at-large, know Trump and Vance's claims are total bullshit. That this is serving a sinister purpose, and it not about the uplift of Springfield or other communities like it.

So what this shows is that we can choose to reject this. We can exorcise these old ghosts in new garments. And what's happened in Springfield, Ohio shows exactly why we must do that. It is an incredibly foreboding omen of what will wash over this country if Trump becomes president again. A riptide of hatred, conspiracies, bomb threats - and worse. It is in so many ways to me the story of this election, and what will happen on an even greater scale if Donald Trump wins it.

I want to call back one more time to the Clark family, who have served as living examples of rejecting Trump's anti-Haitian bile, despite the Trump campaign shamefully abusing their son's memory. At the end of Nathan Clark's testimony before the county commission about his late son, his wife, Danielle, unfurled a red t-shirt. On the back of it, a simple message was written: live like Aiden.

The room erupted into thunderous applause.