Trump and Vance Are Harming the People They Claim to Care About. The Atlantic - Politics by David A. Graham

Sep 17, 2024 at 1:43 AM//keep unread//hide

Springfield, Ohio, is just the sort of beleaguered heartland manufacturing town that Donald Trump and J. D. Vance say the MAGA movement wants to help. Instead, the Republican ticket has chosen to make life miserable for the town and its residents for the sake of political gain.

The thing to remember is not just that Trump and Vance are lying about immigrants eating pets in Springfield. It’s that Vance is happy to admit that they’re lying. He’s done that twice, first in an X post last week and then once more on CNN yesterday. The senator from Ohio and Republican vice-presidential nominee insisted that he had to lie in order to get people to pay attention to the truth.

“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 said, an admission so brazen, it briefly dumbfounded Dana Bash, a veteran host who isn’t easily stunned.

Vance’s reply contains layers of cynicism.To lie for a political purpose—and then to admit to it—is to practice a politics so dishonest and so manipulative, it demonstrates pure contempt for the American public. Every local authority has said that no evidence supports the claims Trump and Vance are making; Vance has said reports are coming to his Senate office, though he admits they’re unverified—if they even exist. Reporters have tracked the origin of the rumors down to hearsay social-media posts. But Vance says nonsensically that to stop lying would be to allow a “heckler’s veto.”

Vance’s claim that they’re doing this to ease the suffering of the American people is equally cynical. Vance isn’t helping the people of Springfield—his own constituents. He’s making their lives much worse. Just ask them.

Ever since Vance started spotlighting the claims last week, and Trump repeated them during the presidential debate, life in the city has been severely disrupted. City Hall and several other buildings, including two schools and a DMV office, have been evacuated because of bomb threats, which used hate-filled language about Haitian immigrants in Springfield. Officials today canceled an annual celebration because of safety threats. (Trump has declined to denounce bomb threats, while Vance says the media should simply ignore them—much easier for him to say than the Springfield residents forced to leave their schools and offices.)

“Springfield is a community that needs help,” Mayor Rob Rue told The Washington Post; he told The New York Times that “it’s frustrating when national politicians, on the national stage, mischaracterize what is actually going on and misrepresent our community.”

Last week, City Manager Bryan Heck released a video touting the positive impact of immigration. “It is disappointing that some of the narratives surrounding our city has [sic] been skewed by misinformation circulating on social media and further amplified by the political rhetoric in the current, highly charged presidential election cycle,” he said.

The town has been flooded with political operatives and Trump-friendly journalists, searching for any evidence they can to retroactively justify the claims he made without evidence, and turning fender benders into national news stories. Local Republican officeholders and GOP Governor Mike DeWine have pushed back on rumors, defended residents, and expressed frustration with Trump—a stark and welcome contrast with the sorts of Republican local politicians who have made headlines since Trump’s rise.

Perhaps most moving, the father of a child who died in a school-bus accident caused by a Haitian immigrant has pleaded with politicians to stop exploiting his son’s death. “This needs to stop now,” Nathan Clark said at a city-commission meeting. “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.”

The residents of Springfield are the people Vance, as an Ohio senator, is supposed to represent and help. He has pointed to a letter from Heck, the city manager, in July, in which he asked for federal help with housing. “The City of Springfield, Ohio is facing a significant housing crisis in our community,” Heck wrote, citing “many factors,” including “a surge in population through immigration that has significantly impacted our ability as a community to produce enough housing opportunities for all.”

But Heck wasn’t asking the federal government to banish the immigrants. By nearly every local account, the influx of Haitians and other immigrants has been a godsend for the local economy. The city, which sits between Columbus and Dayton, was historically a blue-collar factory town, but many of the factories closed. In 2016, NPR reported on Springfield as an archetype of the kind of small cities being left behind in the 21st-century American economy. “Back in the 19th century, Springfield made more farm equipment than anyplace in the world,” the story noted. By 1960, there were more than 80,000 residents. However, “median incomes fell an astounding 27 percent in Springfield between 1999 and 2014.” The town’s population sank below 60,000.

Since then, fueled in part by immigrants who came to the United States legally, the town’s fortunes have turned. New manufacturers have arrived, offering well-paying jobs. One downside of a thriving economy is that some things, like housing, become scarcer and more expensive. That was Heck’s subject.

Instead, Vance has claimed, falsely, that the town is overrun by “illegal migrants.” Trump on Friday promised a mass deportation from Springfield, even though the new residents are mostly in the country legally. It is as though the city of Springfield asked for a bandage, and the Trump campaign responded by spraying mace in its eyes and calling it first aid.

Springfield poses a real challenge for Trump’s political project. The former president says he will kick immigrants out of the country and revitalize manufacturing. But towns like Springfield show that immigration and revitalized manufacturing often travel hand in hand. Trump has no answer for that. His mass deportation would return Springfield to where it was a decade ago—shrinking in size, with median incomes dropping and future prospects bleak. Lacking a better idea, he turns to bogus stories about people eating pets.

Now Trump reportedly plans to campaign in Springfield. If you think that’s going to make things any better for the city’s residents, then you’re probably credulous enough to believe the lies about immigrants there. Just remember: Trump and Vance know they’re lies.