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Hey there, and happy Tuesday! A little bit of a current events piece today, as Twitter exploded with some awful, awful behavior over the last few days and I feel compelled to talk about it—or at least to get my thoughts down on paper. This piece talks a good bit about fake news, which is a massive issue in our country today. Because of this, I’m very excited to be partnering with 1440 Media on this post! If you’ve interested in a great, unbiased publication that just gives you the facts, check them out below:

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What’s going on in Springfield?

In 2014, the city of Springfield, Ohio was in a tough position. For the past five decades, population was in a steady decline. The town was dying. In 2014, Ohio political leaders pointed to Springfield as a perfect example of the need for immigration reform. In that spirit, they called for immigrants to move to the area.

And the Haitian people listened. Over the past decade, nearly 15,000 Haitians have immigrated to the area. In the age of Trump, this naturally caused Springfield to become the center of heated political debate, laden with fearmongering and fake news.

This debate metastasized over the weekend into an orgy of hatred when Senatorial candidate Bernie Moreno entered the fray, claiming that Haitians were “sucking up social services” and “eating pets”.

Wait… what was that last part?

Republican Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance shared a similar tweet:

These claims were then amplified by the likes of Donald Trump and Elon Mus, and conservative Twitter went WILD.

Ted Cruz shared this meme:

Prominent Pro-Trump accounts made some garbled claims of there being a media conspiracy:

It seemed that overnight, the city of Springfield had devolved into a lawless hellscape haunted by roving packs of voodoo practicing Haitian criminals.

But it was all based on a lie.

All of these reports and rumors were based on a rumor shared by one woman on a neighborhood watch page about a story she was told about her neighbor’s daughter’s friend’s cat.

In reality, the local police state that they have received zero reports of pets being kidnapped or eaten.

Furthermore, the whole “eating cats” story stems from the crime committed by an American woman in Canton, Ohio:

Let me break that down just to be abundantly clear:

• The cat killing was done by a woman in a different town

• That woman is not a Haitian immigrant

• That woman is in fact an American-born citizen

What do the people of Springfield have to say?

We’ve heard the views of the talking heads and the political candidates, but what about of the views of those in the area who work with these Haitian immigrants?

They love them.

In an interview with the local news, one business owner said that he wishes he had more Haitian employees because they are honest, law abiding, hard working people:

And this anecdote lines up with the data! No matter which way you slice the data, native-born Americans commit crimes at a much higher rate. What’s more, Haitians have some of the lowest offense rates of any immigrant group:

This statistic also extends to native-born Americans of Haitian descent:

Simply put, Haitian immigrants and Haitian-Americans are a law-abiding group of people that serve as a model of what we want immigrants to do: come to our country, work hard, have a family that does the same, and contribute to the American project.

So why spread the myth?

In the Twitter hate-frenzy, pro-Trump “Christian” writer Megan Basham gave away the game:

In this tweet, Basham quite clearly draws a line from these stories to the broader issue of immigration policy. She argues that we should change policy to keep undesirable groups of people out of the country.

But there’s a larger theme here, and it has to do with the presidential debate occurring tonight:

Donald Trump needs immigration to be an issue

Simply put, Trump can’t win a direct head-to-head with Kamala Harris. The more he talks, the less voters support him.

With just a few key caveats.

In a recent survey, the Pew research group found that voters trust Kamala Harris more on a few salient issues like abortion, health care policy, and bringing the country closer together. These are all three issues that appear to have motivated anti-Trump voters to get to the polls, and it spells concern for the Trump campaign.

But Trump has a massive advantage on immigration policy:

As the presidential debate unfolds tonight, and as election day gets closer, expect for Harris to focus more on abortion policy, racial equality, and unity, while Trump focuses more on economic policy and immigration.

This is a simple fact of life in electoral politics—campaigns bring up issues more when the electorate takes their side of the debate on those issues. This is nothing new.

What is new, however, is the low to which the Trump campaign and its associates will stoop to gain an edge. Vilifying a law-abiding, model group of immigrants in order to score a few percentage points in midwestern swing states is unacceptable. Parroting random Facebook posts and neo-Nazis who openly wish for a white ethnostate in gaining those few percentage points is vile and disqualifying for anyone seeking the oval office.

Who cares?

Look, I know that this whole issue came up in 2016 and in 2020. I know there’s the trope of the “pearl clutching moderate who complains about mean tweets”, and I know that a lot of Trump supporters will roll their eyes if they read this post.

I’m not going to go full MSNBC host and denounce those who still support him as deplorable or un-American, even if the language his campaign uses is. There is room for disagreement between us as intelligent people.

But if you are undecided—especially if you live in a swing state—I just hope you consider whether you are up for another 4 years of your president sharing outright fabrications as facts, and putting vulnerable communities in harm’s way in order to chalk up another win.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great rest of your week! Expect to get a debate recap or something of the sorts next week. If you enjoyed this post, why don’t you share it with a friend?