Racist xenophobe Trump seeks second term

Even as the vice president emphasized her warmaking potential at the Sept. 10 debate (see other editorial this issue), #45 reminded everyone that he built his political career by propagating racist lies and that his most persistent political talking point is to underline his racism and xenophobia by scapegoating migrants.

Trump began his political career by attacking the Central Park 5, charging them with murder in advertisements and calling for their executions. The five Black youths were convicted of a 1989 brutal crime and served 5-13 years in prison before being exonerated in 2002 by DNA evidence. Trump’s lies have been consistent.

As he did at his debate with President Joe Biden in June, the former president responded to virtually every question Sept. 10 with an attack on migrants. He had also opened his 2016 campaign with vicious attacks on people of Mexican origin. None of his slanders then or now were even partly true. 

Protest outside Republican National Convention foresaw the Trump/Vance anti-immigrant offensive. Milwaukee, July 2024.

On this debate night, however, #45 had a special target: the Haitian immigrant community in Springfield, Ohio. Haitian migrants are in Springfield legally, as they have a temporary protected status, which gives them a legal right to live and work in the U.S. In addition, local government and employers encouraged Haitians to arrive and supply a workforce necessary to economic growth in Springfield over the past few years.

The need to spread a Big Lie and ignore facts never stopped Trump and didn’t on Sept. 10. He simply took a false story some Nazis allegedly posted on social media and ran with it. The lie that the migrants stole and ate people’s feline and canine pets was aimed to sow hatred against the Haitian community.

Even after some media challenged the lie and the Trump/Vance conspirators had no evidence beyond a Nazi social media post, they kept repeating the Big Lie about cats and dogs and defending their repetitions. It’s apparent the Republican electoral strategy is to campaign against the Democrats by turning migrants into scapegoats, blaming them for whatever is wrong in the capitalist U.S. society. In Europe this strategy has worked for rightist parties in some countries. 

In an interview on CNN on Sept. 15, JD Vance went so far as to claim that even without evidence it was fine to repeat the Big Lie. Why? Because it focused attention on the immigration issue. 

Perhaps Vance’s ability to dredge arguments like this one out of the MAGA cesspool is why Trump chose him to run for vice president. Vance also has turned an accidental traffic death in the Springfield region into another attack on the Haitian community. Vance is showing that when Trump goes low, he’ll go even lower and do it with a straight face.

Bomb threats closed Springfield schools and colleges, forcing evacuations and locking down hospitals. Some in the Haitian community said they were shaken by the threats for the first time since arriving in the United States. Trump and Vance just doubled down, increasing the reactionary repercussions of their lies.  

Reports verify that Springfield residents are dining in Haitian restaurants to counter this poisonous, racist, divisive rhetoric. And the father of the victim of the vehicular accident demanded publicly that the MAGA people stop using his son’s tragedy to mobilize hatred.

Racist and fascist organizations will attempt to use Trump/Vance Big Lies to mobilize against immigrants. It would be foolish to look to the Democrats to counter this racist assault — they barely countered Trump’s debate comments. Under the Biden administration, over one million undocumented migrants have been deported. 

Those who are willing to show their solidarity with the Haitian community and fight against the racist offensive will have to mobilize against it even as they stay independent of the two big capitalist parties.