What People In Springfield, Ohio, Agree On
What People In Springfield, Ohio, Agree On
Yep, Dom went there.
To be perfectly honest, I did not want to go to Springfield, Ohio.
When the story started breaking before the debate, I rolled my eyes. It sounded like a shiny object that had been cast out into the ether in the hope the press would spend a week running around before realizing it was another distraction. Then Trump said it during the debate, the internet memes took on a life of their own, and we were all strapping on our parachutes to drop into a small town that didn’t ask for any of this.
”[A producer] tells me Comrade Kamala's CANADIAN-Castro geese have INVADED AMERICA,” I texted a colleague who covers the extreme and militant right-wing. That was Sept. 15, right around the same time Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance was admitting on CNN that he knew the story was bullshit, but rolled with it anyway.
“It’s true,” my colleague replied sarcastically. “And they are eating the lambs out here!”
They had flown out to Springfield because the town had already been a target for harassment by militant neo-Nazi groups, like Blood Tribe. And Trump’s comments at the debate had triggered a grift-o-sphere invasion of Springfield’s downtown area in a desperate attempt to record a video of someone eating a fried dog.
So when the call came to drive six hours from the farm where I was taking a few days off to celebrate my belated birthday in silence, serenity, fresh produce, and adorable animals, I begrudgingly said yes. My rationale was simple: My photos would further debunk the conspiracy that Haitian immigrants were capturing and eating small animals. And I needed the money.
Vivek Ramaswamy, the former Republican presidential candidate-turned-unemployed social media addict, had announced a town hall to “have open & honest dialogue about mass migration.” My assignment was to photograph the town hall and members of the local Haitian community for a good friend’s story in a foreign publication.
It wasn't my job to report what was said, and that publication owns all my photos (even the ones they don't print), but if you want to watch the whole thing, the local broadcast affiliate recorded it all. The local paper, the Springfield News-Sun, has a good write-up, and Politico has a decent national perspective.
What I can tell you is that it was a circus. A mobile Skywatch tower sat in a parking lot opposite City Hall. Bomb threats had left many uneasy.
A long line stretched down the block from the event space, a rehabbed basement of a bistro. Social media try-hards were walking up to random people asking if they lived in Springfield, including me and my colleague. Cops from across the state had been brought to stand around as security guards for the night. Major streets were shutdown to accommodate … whomever.
I laughed rather loudly when a police officer guarding the entrance to the room where Ramaswamy was set to speak informed the gaggle of print, photo, and broadcast press that the room was at capacity. The officer said we could stand outside and listen, and take turns shooting photos and video, go to an overflow room, or leave.
A large, angry man in sunglasses waving a cellphone on a stick began demanding to speak to a supervisor only to get a crash course on local fire codes by the town's rather friendly fire marshal.
“But I'm with the New York Times,” claimed a tall, lanky man from the crowd.
“That doesn’t mean shit out here, bud,” I blurted out. There was an audible amount of giggling from the scrum, and the phalanx of cops lined up against the wall.
Organizers have claimed there were around 300 people in attendance, but that's just not possible. I counted the heads from my photos and videos and estimate no more than 150 in the main room, not including the two dozen or so in the overflow room. It’s possible that there were 300 people in attendance if you also count the people who left pissed off after seeing the overflow room, the police stationed inside and outside, the house production crew, Ramaswamy’s personal security and video crew, and all the press — but I still have reservations about that count.
For what it’s worth, the capacity room where Ramaswamy spoke, the Bushnell Center’s Edward Wren Room, has an advertised capacity of 175.
That was a week ago, Thursday. By Sunday, the circus had left town. Things had started to turn back to whatever amounts to normal in Springfield: Elderly women in the Panera Bread were gossiping about their friend's … congeniality with the bartender at the Olive Garden. The unhoused could wash a shirt in the library bathroom. Poor families along the south side were sitting on sagging porches, talking about “the Haitian problem” while drinking cheap beer.
Well, everyone except the Haitian community.
Many of them were at work, I was told. And since I don't speak French or Creole, my ability to communicate was limited. The Haitian restaurants were still packed with locals and supporters — Rose Goute still had a line out the door, and servers at Keket Bon Gut were running around into the evening. Someone was still in the booth at New Diaspora Live, an internet radio station for the town’s growing Haitian diaspora. And when I walked around the south side of town, around Oakwood and Liberty streets, people were still running off the porches to lock their doors and shut their windows.
On Tuesday, Springfield held its regularly scheduled city commission meeting. Every other week residents can come sound off before the mayor and city commissioners. The Skywatch tower was still across the street, its generator was still purring. Drones circled city hall as uniformed and “off-duty” police in plain-clothes kept an eye on the crowd.
Many of the residents who attended yelled forcefully about being called racist. They repeated rhetoric that featured phrases like “them,” and “those people,” and “our town.” Others used the time to spread new rumors, like mass straw purchases of firearms through the Gun Show Loophole, misinformation about police letting immigrants leave the scenes of traffic accidents, an impassioned ignorance of the United States’ asylum and immigration processes, and the definition of racism.
Some of the people who spoke were regular characters — the type who frequent town meetings to bemoan whatever bug recently crawled up their ass. One might call them “childless pet owners,” “grumpy old men,” or “the drunk at the bar who wouldn’t shut the fuck up about Alex Garland’s Civil War when I was trying to eat my chicken sandwich the other night.” But those would be derogatory slurs that make broad inferences about complicated people who still have a First Amendment right to be ignorant, obnoxious or just assholes.
Others were trolls. Comedians Maximilian Clark and Walt Masters, wearing a suit and a Heritage Foundation hat, respectively, had several people struggling to contain their laughter as they skewered Ohio Republican Senator and vice presidential nominee JD Vance for perpetuating falsehoods that were debunked by Springfield Commissioner Bryan Heck. There was also a failed politician who claims veteran status (despite serving less than a year of military service) who mumbled his way through a speech that included his social media handle and an alleged number of followers (that he lied about).
But there were also people like Jacob Payen, a Persian Gulf Navy veteran, Haitian immigrant, and spox for the Haitian Community Alliance. Payen thanked Springfield Mayor Rob Rue and city officials for doing what they could to help. “We need to come together as a city,” Payen said. “We need to come together as Americans. We need to stop the nonsense.”
After Payen spoke, I watched several police officers approach Payen to shake his hand, and thank him for his service.
Local attorney Randall Comer invoked former president Ronald Reagan’s “shining city on a hill” speech, saying, “It was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace.” He added, “We must strive with all our might to reach the higher ideals of our humanity — courage, compassion, love and kindness. We must set the example. In this moment, we must be the shining city on the hill.”
Reagan also granted amnesty to undocumented immigrants with the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, and used executive action in 1987 to extend the act’s provisions to children.
At the end of the meeting, city and state officials attempted to dispel some of the misinformation and genuine bullshit that had been brought up by people who had already stormed out of the meeting. Commissioner Bryan Heck, who told Trump officials the pet eating rumors were unfounded, noted the story about firearms was a matter for the ATF, adding that the one reported instance had been investigated by the sheriff's department and debunked. At least one story about police not investigating car accidents stemmed from an accident that happened outside the local police's jurisdiction.
But there are still well-paid and politically motivated provocateurs on the ground. They’re not talking to the Haitian community, aid workers, or city officials. They’re posting videos of paranoid shut-ins from neighboring towns spouting rumors set to dramatic music.
And, looming over everything, is a threat from former president Donald Trump to visit the town and hold a rally — something the mayor, local police, aid workers, residents and members of the Haitian community have all told me that they hope doesn’t happen.
”We don’t need that right now,” they told me.
It’s one thing almost everyone seems to agree on.
Thanks, Dom.
I think we should remove immigrants and all immigrant descendants from this country. Starting with the Pilgrims.