For months, Springfield, Ohio, officials touted its annual CultureFest as an opportunity to “celebrate the rich ethnic diversity and heritage in our city, collaborate with global-minded Springfield residents,” and “cultivate a welcoming city for people from around the world.”
That was before Donald Trump and Republican Senator JD Vance of Ohio began spewing the disgustingly racist lie that Haitian immigrants are eating their neighbors’ pets. During last week’s presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump babbled this lunacy to more than 67 million television viewers.
But instead of that nonsense being discarded like the trash that it is, in the past week Springfield has endured dozens of bomb or mass shooting threats that have forced closures or evacuations of city schools, local colleges, hospitals, and city and county facilities.
Although all threats have been hoaxes, CultureFest, which was scheduled for next weekend, has been canceled.
“We deeply regret having to cancel CultureFest, as we know it is a beloved event for our community,” Bryan Heck, Springfield’s city manager, said in a statement. “However, the safety of our residents and visitors must come first.”
Springfield city leaders have strenuously debunked Trump’s and Vance’s absurd allegations, which Vance has all but admitted are untrue. But despite — or perhaps because of — Trump’s long history of mendacity, racism, and mayhem, tens of millions of Americans are still supporting him. He has spent so many years undermining even the most basic acceptance of truth and facts that pet-devouring immigrants apparently sound more possible than outlandish to many of his followers.
During the 1992 presidential campaign, Dan Quayle, then George H.W. Bush’s vice president, made a gaffe for the ages during a routine visit to an elementary school when a student wrote the word “potato” on a blackboard. Quayle insisted that the word had been misspelled. Reluctantly, the child added an erroneous “e” at the end.
Quayle was ridiculed for weeks and no one defended his misspelling. But if Trump did something similar today, his followers — many of whom already have a problem with books — would no doubt inundate dictionary publishers with threats insisting that “potatoe” is the correct spelling simply because Trump said so.
Trump is running his presidential campaign as a clearinghouse for far-right conspiracy theories, racism, fear, and grievances. It’s anti-immigrant, anti-Black, anti-democracy, and anti-humanity. He’s verbally attacking Haitians in Springfield who are living there legally and contributing to their adopted community.
During a “PBS NewsHour” story last week about the positive impact of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Jamie McGregor, CEO of McGregor Metal, said 10 percent of his employees are Haitian immigrants and praised their work ethic.
“They don’t have a drug problem,” he said. “They’ll stay at theirmachine, they’ll achieve their numbers. They are here to work and … that’s a stark difference from what we’re used to in this community.”
If he’s elected president again, Trump has said he will deport them in what he claimed would be “the largest deportation in the history of our country.”
After the first assassination attempt in July, Trump gave very brief lip service to the idea of unity. With a second attempt on his life on Sunday, this time he can’t be bothered with even a minimal effort.
Resorting to his old tactic of accusing others of exactly what he himself is doing, Trump claimed without evidence in a Monday interview with Fox News Digital that it’s Harris’s and President Biden’s “rhetoric” that’s “causing me to be shot at,” and that they are the “ones that are destroying the country — both from the inside and out.” (The second alleged gunman never fired a shot at Trump, who was at his Palm Beach golf course.)
Like an unnatural disaster, Trump is indifferent to what he demolishes in his path. He has refused to denounce the bomb threats. He doesn’t care about the lives he’s upending or endangering, or the insidious afterlife of a lie he and Vance continue to amplify while Ohio officials, including Republican Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio, refute his falsehoods and beg him to stop.
Now Springfield’s 17 schools are being patrolled by Ohio state troopers and two of its colleges have shifted to remote learning because of Trump. Congresswill receive increased security for its electoral vote certification on Jan. 6, 2025, for the same reason.
Trump’s presidency left scars on this nation. Even out of the White House, he has continued to inflict wounds indiscriminately, whether he’s targeting a Midwestern city of 58,000 or democratic institutions foundational to American life.
At its CultureFest, Springfield officials had invited visitors to “experience the world right here in our neighborhood.” Instead those neighborhoods have become the latest casualty of Trump’s lies and hateful pursuit of power. They certainly won’t be the last.
Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at renee.graham@globe.com. Follow her @reneeygraham.
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Publish date : 2024-09-17 20:00:00
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