Let's start with Donald Trump, Jr., who is one of his father's biggest campaign surrogates. At a program broadcast by Charlie Kirk for Real Clear Politics, he had this to say about Haitians: "You look at Haiti, you look at the demographic makeup, you look at the average IQ, if you import the Third World into your country, you're going to become the Third World. That's not racist. That's just fact."
It's racist and not factual at all. It's what is known as pseudoscience and has long been used to justify false claims about the racial superiority or inferiority. Nazis used pseudoscience like eugenics to justify the murder of Jews, blacks, Poles, etc. Now Trump Jr. is using it to dehumanize Haitian immigrants who are in this country legally.
Then there's VP candidate J.D. Vance, who has continued to circulate stories about Haitians eating dogs and cats even though we all know by now that they are false. As George Orwell would say, "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
Vance admitted yesterday that he had to "create stories" to get the media's attention. If his goal was to continue to vilify Haitians, he has succeeded. Springfield, Ohio is now the subject of bomb threats that have resulted in the closure of schools and city hall. But if his goal was to present legal immigrants in a bad light, he has failed. If anything, I now feel far more sympathetic to them than I did before these false stories.
According to Governing, empty downtowns continue to deplete local coffers. This trend is primarily the result of empty office buildings. Many of our industries left long before, including in Springfield, Ohio. That changed in 2017, when Topre, a Japanese auto parts manufacturer, picked the old International Harvester site in which to do business. Other companies like Dole, and of course a few warehouses, followed. A city that had been in decline was revitalized. That brought an influx of legal immigrants who work hard and pay their taxes.
Unfortunately, the nativism and racism displayed by the Trump campaign is nothing new. The Know Nothing Movement, also known as the American Party, was a reaction to a sudden influx of Irish Catholics escaping the Famine.
The MAGA movement, like the Know Nothings before them, is just the latest iteration of nativism, xenophobia and, in the case of Haitians, racism. Both rely on fear and dehumanization.
We can do better, don't you think?
