Trump's blood libel against Haitians is inciting racist pogroms. Where is Biden?
Innocent people in Springfield are being terrorized by violent Nazi militias.
The trouble began in early August this year, when the city of Springfield, Ohio was targeted by a Nazi terror group known as the Blood Tribe. But the current story of Springfield started in 2014, at one of the city’s lowest points.
Due to massive population loss and economic malaise, ten years ago Springfield launched a campaign to welcome immigrants, to help reverse the trend of decline, and make their community grow again. Springfield made an effort to show that their city would be a good home for new Americans, hoping to work hard and raise their families in a welcoming and friendly community.
Haitian immigrants with legal visas began building lives in Springfield in 2017, and the city immediately began to bloom as the Haitian diaspora revived the city’s economy and culture. Haitians didn’t just create their own local businesses to employ people, they also started a popular radio station, and Haitian Flag Day is now an annual celebration in the city each May.
Nonetheless, racists were displeased at the growing diaspora of Haitians and Haitian-Americans that had become a part of Springfield’s community. They seized upon a fatal car accident involving the death of a child, and a Haitian immigrant without a valid Ohio driver’s license. This awful tragedy incited racist violence against Springfield’s Haitian diaspora.
One Springfield man was sentenced to twenty years in prison for violent hate crimes against eight Haitians in December of 2023. The local Haitian church was additionally the target of repeated incidents of vandalism last year. Black residents of Springfield have reported facing verbal abuse on the street.
But things reached a fever pitch last month, during the 2024 edition of the Springfield Jazz & Blues Fest. What should have been an enjoyable celebration for the city to come together, instead became a horrifying act of terrorist violence by an armed group of Nazis.
The Blood Tribe, a Nazi group based in the United States and Canada, have floated around the continent attempting to stoke racial hatred wherever they sense opportunity. They have marched in South Dakota, and Tennessee, and were formerly in Maine last year before being driven out by the residents. In Maine, the leader of the Blood Tribe had indicated on Telegram postings that his intent was to set up a training group for soldiers.
Once they realized that there was brewing hatred against the Haitian diaspora living in Springfield, the Blood Tribe pounced on the city’s Jazz & Blues Fest in an act of extreme violence. They marched through the street, bearing large flags with prominent swastikas, and brandishing their firearms at Springfield’s residents.
While police downplayed this as “just a little peaceful protest”, the Guardian reported that witnesses saw the Blood Tribe pointing their guns directly at cars and telling people to “go the fuck back to Africa”. This was an act of violent terrorism against the community of Springfield by white nationalists openly identifying as Nazis.
Weeks later, on August 27, a leading member of the Blood Tribe attended a Springfield city commission meeting. Using a pseudonym alluding to the n-word epithet, he spoke directly to the Mayor of Springfield, stating:
“I’ve come to bring a word of warning. Stop what you’re doing, before it’s too late. Crime and savagery will only increase with every Haitian you bring in.”
The mayor proceeded to eject the Nazi before his speaking time had concluded, for his threatening language. Nonetheless, white nationalist fervour continued to escalate in Springfield, as these Nazis found a new blood libel they could spread to target Haitians and Haitian-Americans.
A single local resident made an immensely baseless accusation on a Facebook group that Haitians were eating people’s pets, despite admitting herself she had no evidence for her claims. While the mayor and local police both immediately stated there was no evidence to support these outrageously false claims, it was of no effect. Nazis began amplifying the lies on social media, and Republican politicians across the country would quickly follow their lead.
The Arizona Republican Party paid for 12 billboards across the Phoenix metro area, reading “Eat Less Kittens, Vote Republican!” Ted Cruz posted a tweet accumulating hundreds of thousands of likes, showing an image of two cats and the caption “Please vote for Trump so Haitian immigrants don’t eat us.”
But things truly escalated when the lies were repeatedly spread by the US Senator for Ohio, JD Vance. Vance, a Republican, is currently Donald Trump’s nominee for the vice presidency, and infamous for his odious views on women.
Despite openly acknowledging that these vicious, racist lies aren’t true, Vance urged his followers to keep spreading this hateful slander anyways. As a representative for Ohio, he lent credibility to this libel against his own constituents, and eagerly accelerated it’s dissemination to the public.
And then, the evening of September 10th, during the debate against Vice President Kamala Harris moderated by ABC News, Donald Trump spread this rumour to the widest possible audience.
During his speaking time, to Harris’ incredulous laughter, Trump ludicrously claimed that “in Springfield, they’re eating the dogs — the people that came in, they’re eating the cats.” Moderator David Muir explicitly challenged Trump on this, repeating that the city had received no credible reports of this kind of activity. And yet again, the truth did not matter to the public, when the lie was so outrageous.
The violence began almost immediately after the debate. As soon as the morning after the debate, Haitian families living in Springfield reported broken windows and having acid thrown at their cars.
On September 12th, bomb threats closed two schools, Springfield City Hall, and Springview Governmental Center; by the end of the day, Clark County had closed all government buildings in the city. By September 13th, even more schools had been evacuated and closed due to bomb threats.
On September 14th, hospitals were now becoming an additional target for the bomb threats, and began locking down as a result. That same day, the Proud Boys militant group designated as terrorists by the Canadian government, marched in Springfield to spread further hate.
By September 15th, bomb and shooting threats caused the physical closure of Clark Stage College and Wittenberg University, with both institutions switching to remote classes. Finally, on September 16th, more schools were hit with closures due to threats, and the city announced the cancellation of their annual two-day CultureFest celebration due to fears of violence.
At this point, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine claimed Springfield had been hit by “at least 33” separate bomb threats. Governor DeWine finally stepped in, and by September 17th he had sent 36 Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers to conduct bomb sweeps in Springfield’s schools.
Nonetheless, by September 18th the bomb threats had expanded to grocery stores and pregnancy clinics, and by September 19th the mayor was assuming emergency powers in the hope it might enable him to put out the flames. As the crisis continues to spiral out of control, it does not appear that local or state government has the capacity to solve this problem.
The entire community of Springfield, despite assistance from their state government, has become paralyzed by the threat of Nazi violence. Even with daily bomb sweeps in the schools, countless parents do not feel safe sending their children to attend, and the entire Haitian community of Springfield is terrified of further hate crimes against their families.
The Jewish people have seen this before, because we have lived it before. We are blamed for every single wrong in the world, and even when everything is perfect, lies are spun out of whole cloth to slander and defame us. Indeed, the perpetrators of this white nationalist terror are quite literally Nazis themselves, waving swastikas proudly. It feels like history is not merely repeating here, but rhyming.
I see the slander perpetuated against Haitians, with the clear intent to dehumanize them and encourage violence, and I see the same blood libel which the Jewish people, my own people, have been plagued by for centuries. The original lie may begin in one small town, but it spirals out of control, and eventually transcends borders to haunt us everywhere we go.
Across the entire United States, Haitians and Haitian-Americans are reporting an increase in bigotry and violence; they draw comparisons to the demonization of Haitians during the HIV crisis of the 1980s, and to violent hate crimes against Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Far across the Atlantic Ocean, Germany’s foreign affairs office spread the rumour further with a tweet, boasting that unlike the USA, Germany “[doesn’t] eat cats and dogs.”
After defending his blatant lies about Haitians, and doubling down, and then tripling down, Trump has announced his plan to visit Springfield personally, undoubtedly intending to fan the flames further. Trump has pledged to conduct mass deportations of Haitians from the United States, regardless of their legal status, based solely on their ethnicity. Trump has regularly, since his first term as President, dehumanized the Haitian people, appealing to his white nationalist base and their fascist desire for ethnic cleansing.
This blood libel is vicious, and unforgiving, and it will be the cause of immense tragedy and suffering. There is one single defence which can protect against this onslaught, and it requires a commitment to solidarity and intersectionality. We must choose to recognize these repeating patterns of bigotry and hatred, and we must choose to defend not merely our own community, but every single community targeted by Nazi terror.
Immigrants have always been the natural enemy of nationalists, because our very existence contradicts their insular and bigoted worldview. They claim that diversity is a weakness, when the truth is that everything they rely upon in their daily lives is because of the very people they slander and dehumanize.
Our diversity has made us so much stronger than we could ever be alone, and there is nothing more terrifying to me than a world where everyone looks the same and thinks the same. The Nazis preach a distorted and perverse worldview, and to treat it as a matter of debate is to legitimize the unacceptable.
No quarter may be given to the Nazi terrorists, wherever they reincarnate themselves across the expanse of the United States. They have come to Springfield to bring hate and violence and devastation; President Biden must have the courage of President Eisenhower and President Kennedy, and federalize the Ohio National Guard.
In 1957, President Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard, to force them to provide protection for the Little Rock Nine against violence as they desegregated the school. In 1963, President Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard, to force the desegregation of the University of Alabama, against the protests of segregationist hatemonger Governor George Wallace.
The year is 2024, and Haitian children in Ohio now face racist violence preventing them from going to school every day. Grocery stores and hospitals and government buildings are repeatedly shut down due to rampant threats of violence.
President Biden must federalize the Ohio National Guard, so that the Nazi terrorists may be rooted out of Springfield, and so that all children in the community may be protected from the violence of white nationalism.
President Biden is the only person in the United States with the authority to issue that Executive Order. As Ohio’s state government has proven incapable of solving this problem by themselves, President Biden must federalize the Ohio National Guard, and end the violent terrorism against the Haitian community in Springfield.
I fear for what the Haitian people will experience, not just in Springfield but around the world, now that this blood libel has spread so widely. I am terrified by how rapidly this racist fervour has spread not only across America, but is quickly gaining purchase with the global community.
This is the consequence of the failure of progressive politicians to defend immigrants against the racist and xenophobic lies that target us. This is the consequence of our leaders’ capitulation to hatemongers by curtailing immigration programs. By scapegoating our communities as the cause of society’s ills, they fed into the narrative that we are harmful.
If our leaders do not act swiftly to combat this wave of violent terrorism against minority communities, this will spiral out of control. This is not a problem that can be dealt with in half-measures; it must be confronted head-on, as swiftly as possible, with every tool that our leaders have at their disposal.
But I fear they will not act. I fear they will delay, and delay again, as our communities continue to be threatened by Nazi terror. And when they finally realize the seriousness of what they have ignored, when they finally realize how much danger we are truly in?
It will be far too late. And we will be beyond saving.