If there is a city that symbolizes the vicissitudes of working-class life in America, it could easily be Springfield, Ohio. In the heart of the Midwest, Springfield's prosperity was built on manufacturing and publishing. His decline began early. The massive Crovell-Collier publishing house closed on Christmas Eve 1956. Three decades later, in 1983, Newsweek devoted an entire issue to Springfield. Entitled "The American Dream," the issue lamented that "times were not kind to dreaming."
The years that followed proved even less favorable, as manufacturers left the city and wages fell. A 2016 report found that Springfield lost more high-income people and gained more low-income people than any major city in America. The city was gripped by the diseases of despair that plague many other post-industrial working-class communities today, from growing addiction to alcohol and opiates, to increasing suicide rates.
And then, ten years ago, the city council devised a program to attract new employers, including those from the food and logistics sector, an Amazon warehouse and a microchip manufacturer. Thousands of new jobs were created, although most of them were still poorly paid. The problem was no longer that there was too little work for workers, but that there were too few workers. And so migrants came to fill the void, mostly Haitians who were legally living elsewhere in America.
The influx of migrants helped revive the dying city, but also created tensions, due to pressure on housing and health services. The problem was seized by racists and the extreme right, who tried to turn the tension into hatred with stories about an "invasion" that would destroy the city. Their stories got crazier and crazier, eventually leading to the accusation against Haitians that they eat dogs and cats, which Donald Trump turned into a national issue in his presidential debate with Kamala Harris last week. "They eat dogs in Springfield," Trump said. "The people who came. They eat cats.” Even before Trump's outburst, leading Republicans—including vice presidential candidate JD Vance, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, the congressional Republican Judiciary Committee, as well as Trump supporters like Elon Musk—did their part to perpetuate the myth. and legitimizes. Many, including Musk, have floated another far-right conspiracy theory that Democrats are deliberately "importing millions of illegal immigrants" as a voting machine to cement "one-party rule."
The case of Springfield could have been an occasion for a fruitful debate about the policies and resources needed to stimulate economic growth, but also to accept a large number of outsiders; debate on how to create decent jobs with decent wages and how to ease the pressure on social infrastructure. Instead, mainstream politicians and public figures have used it to promote vile far-right conspiracy theories and urban myths and fuel racist hatred. Conservatives often argue that the public is being denied a debate on immigration. But when the opportunity arises for such a debate, many of them will rather demonstrate their bigotry than engage in reasoned discussion.
The Springfield debate also illustrates the continuing "memification" of politics - turning politics into a collection of signals and symbols, rather than conversations about decisions. Trump has always insisted on dragging politics into the mud. However, he succeeds in this only because the desire to feed anger, instead of participating in nuanced discussions, has become an integral part of politics.
It is not only a feature of American politics. As far as I know, no British politician has yet accused asylum seekers of eating pets, but mainstream politicians routinely recite far-right conspiracy theories such as the "great swap" and fear that white people will lose their homeland. Decision-making, such as the now-abandoned deportation scheme in Rwanda, is often designed to be more performative than practical.
Nor did signaling become crucial only around immigration. For example, the style of "Iron Finance Minister" Rachel Reeves and Labour's refusal to abandon the end of the winter heating subsidy for all but the lowest-income pensioners, or even to soften the consequences of the end, represents a desire to signal the strength of economic policy even if it means a freeze for millions of pensioners. Symbolism and sending signals have always been part of politics. Today, however, it often seems like politics. The meme became the message. And when that happens, the tribal attachment you want to show or the symbolism you want to represent becomes more important and the signaling less restrained.
Despite the fact that both the Republican mayor and the Republican governor of Ohio denied the lies about the Haitians, many in Springfield not only continued the lies, they reinforced them. At a campaign rally in Tucson, Arizona last Friday, Trump denounced "illegal Haitian migrants who are taking over a beautiful place" and railed against "savage, criminal foreigners who rape and sodomize and kill young American girls," brazenly feeding deep-seated racist myths and fears. . Fueling the anger machinery has inevitable consequences. Springfield City Hall and two schools with large numbers of Haitian children were evacuated last week due to bomb threats made with "hateful language toward immigrants and Haitians in our community."
Just before the presidential debate, local resident Nathan Clark spoke at the Springfield City Commission meeting. His 11-year-old son, Aiden, was killed last August when his school bus was hit by a van driven by Haitian migrant Hermanio Joseph, who has since been sentenced to nine years in prison for manslaughter. It was a terrible tragedy and one of the few true crimes against Haitian migrants in Springfield. Clark began his speech with a seemingly shocking statement: “I wish my son had been killed by a 60-year-old white man.” Why? Because in that case parents "would not be disturbed by a persistent group of people spewing hatred". For Clark, the tragedy of his son's death was compounded by "morally bankrupt politicians" who are using his son to "spew hate" against Haitians. "Please stop the hate," Clark pleaded.
Clark's speech showed not only that many people in Springfield are not what bigots make them out to be, but that even in the midst of personal tragedy, it is possible to feel extraordinary empathy and compassion that transcends race and identity. If only our politics were imbued with such humanity and moral integrity.
(The Guardian; Peščanik.net, translation: M. Jovanović)
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