Another Day, More Trump Racism, More Bomb Threats
And more silence from our MAGA aligned commenters
For this entire week, former President Donald Trump’s entire campaign staff and surrogate network has leaned into making daily unsubstantiated racist and xenophobic attacks on the legal Haitian migrant community in the small city of Springfield, Ohio.
Yesterday, I covered how this led to a bomb scare that emptied city buildings and schools. Today, Trump and Vance once again attacked those legal Haitian migrants. In fact, today Trump pledged to illegally conduct a mass deportation of those LEGAL Haitian migrants.
Ans once again, schools were closed due to bomb threats.
Perhaps the explanation is that the former President, always a coward, chickened out of another debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, he needed to reestablish his tough guy bonafide. His mental state is so fragile he had to invent reasons why she won, when the real answer is his own lack of knowledge of his own policies (which he’s been running on for 9 years) and his utter lack of self control.
So he does the only thing a coward can do to regain face: continue to bully a vulnerable, Black immigrant community by spreading lies. Yet our posters claim Trump is the man who can stand up to domestic and foreign enemies. Except they’ve suddenly gone silent about that, haven’t they?
Let me not mince words: the people engaging in these bomb threats and other acts of violence against the Haitian community are engaging in terrorism. Full stop.
Terrorism is the use of violence and intimidation against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. MAGA has made the political goals clear: to win the White House. MAGA has also made the ideological goals clear: to create an environment so hostile to those migrants that they leave.
And Vance and Trump know the violent environment they are creating. Nevertheless, they persist with this intentional racism.
They are also disrupting the businesses that are hiring, once again, lawful migrants. This requires a parent to leave work in homes where both parents work. Contra J D Vance, not everyone has the privilege of having older relatives who can be emergency caregivers. That disrupts manufacturing. That disrupts business. That adds stress to families who are being attack for no other reason that being the wrong type of legal migrant.
Trump supporters say they want to see jobs and manufacturing return to the United States. Yet when Black migrants fill those jobs, they scream: NOT THAT WAY!
Some Trump supporters want to see more Christians come to this country because they think we’re a Christian nation. But Christians who are Black and Haitian don’t count. Again, they scream: NOT THAT WAY!
Many Trump Supporters claim that they support legal immigration. But again, when legal Haitian Migrants come legally to the US, they scream: NOT THAT WAY!
After a summer of rightfully calling out the overly aggressive and threatening protests on college campuses and a “clear example” of Democrats siding with antisemitism, those same commenters are treating this topic like kryptonite. Our MAGA commentators have posted here since all this started, and yet they remain silent on this topic.
Moral cowardice knows no bounds–especially when they know they will still be voting for the Bully platform in the fall. After all, the Leopards Eating People’s Faces party will never turn on them.
BTW, I will keep this posting up until Trump backs down. So Trump supports get used to coming to terms with the racism you are supporting.
This times infinity (and beyond!)!!!!!
Craven effing cowards one and all. From the top (Trump) to the abyss. Worthless imitations of Christians, humans, or anything at all. Wolverines in a chicken coop show more humanity.
Jamelle Bouie says that it is blood libel.
https://www.tiktok.com/@jamellebouie/video/7414108128113052974?lang=en
I’m not sure pet blood ranks as high as Christian Baby(tm) blood, so I think that it might be slightly hyperbolic, but I also think a lot more people have empathy for dogs and cats than children, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.*
It’s definitely playing in the same space as blood libel.
——
*: Reminds me of the line “I can excuse racism, but I draw the line at animal cruelty.”
(Matt: Paragraphs 9 and 10 are duplicates.)
Trump voters and apologists will continue to deflect, dissemble, and point the figure at everybody but meanspirited crybaby bigot Trump. He’s always the innocent martyred victim to them. And when blacks again vote ~90% against Rethuglikkklans, they’ll blame something something Democratic plantation instead of conservatives doggedly (hehe) nominating, catering to, and enabling racist assholes.
MAGA: It’s Always Somebody’s Else’s Fault.
Thanks, @Joe!
@DK:
MAGA: More Angry Grievances, Again.
Is there any law under which Vance, El Felon and all the many others can be charged with or sued?
In the past, I could understand the GOPers who are somewhat reasonable folks saying they wouldn’t vote for Trump but would write in some name vs. endorsing/voting for Kamala.
But with this scapegoating of the Haitian community that is simply not going to cut it. If former GOP leaders like W, Romney, etc. want to show that they have any respect for the Constitution and the nation, it is time for them to step up and endorse Kamala. Anything less than that is a betrayal of the nation. Period.
It is amazing that !Dick Cheney! is on the right side of history on this and these other folks can’t do the right thing.
@Kathy:
To date, while racist and reprehensible, nothing I have seen from Trump, Vance, or any other campaign surrogate passes the “True Threats” standard set by Brandenburg v Ohio.
In fact that ruling specially protects racist speech so long as it doesn’t call for imminent harm.
So much like Trump’s January 6th address, the speech will remain protected so long as there is no evidence that it was knowingly said with the intent to cause immediate violence.
Brandenburg, for good reason, sets the bar very high.
There might be an opportunity for civil damages, see the Alex Jones and Rudy Giuliani cases. However I’m both of those cases they ignored/fought disclosure and ended up with summary judgements. If either one was competent and mentally stable (i.e. listened to their attorneys) it was entirely possible that they might not have been convicted.
One big hurdle would be the need to prove real harm as defined in the civil system.
@James R Ehrler: “It is amazing that !Dick Cheney! is on the right side of history on this and these other folks can’t do the right thing.”
QFT. QFE.
@Kathy: No.
For the reasons stated in the first part of Matt’s comment – though I would quibble a bit and note that Brandenberg requires that there in addition to a “call for imminent harm” it must be likely to result in that harm in order to fall outside First Amendment protections. You can call for violence all you want if it is unlikely to actually result in anyone doing anything (shit talking half a country away for example).
@Matt Bernius:
True but I’m not sure it is applicable as an example as defamation is a very different standard than criminal prosecution.
@SKI!:
Thanks for adding the additional nuance! Both comments are on the money and show the difference between informed lay folks and trained lawyers.
The silence of JKB, etc., is beyond deafening.
I almost thought you, Steven, and James blocked them from posting, but apparently not.
There is a reason so many folks who hold down grueling manufacturing jobs (the type of job that has Foxconn putting up nets to prevent employees from ending up dead when they attempt to kill themselves by jumping out a window or off the top of a building) are immigrants, they are willing to do the work the vast majority of us would only do if the barrel of a gun was pointed at us.
Honestly, I bet if a billionaire proposed something wacky like an experiment where all the immigrants in Springfield (and other places like this city) were told that they would be put up at at least a 3 star hotel for a month, all expenses paid, so the jobs they were performing could now be handled by all those MAGA critters howling to the moon about immigrants stealing their jobs during that month, many of those same MAGA would be persistently and loudly be begging the immigrants to cut short their all-paid vacation and please come back to work.
Everyone says their job sucks, but let us be real, some jobs really do suck more than others.
Anyway, folks say this is turning into a vibes election, and I have already gone on the record that the vibe I have been getting post Kamala / Trump debate is that the GOP’s stress that Trump may lose is real and not just a dog and pony show put on to make liberals feel like we have a chance.
The blow-up between MTG, Loomis, and Graham really was extreme and I feel happened because the stress being put on the GOP party is causing folks to lash out at each other.
I also read that Kamala is not letting Project 2025 hide in the shadows and continues to get this project to stick to Trump like gorilla glue, she is being relentless in her quest to place stressors on Trump.
In the end, this attempt to terrorize the Haitian immigrants seems to be on track to blow-up in the GOPS face, but it is so easy for me to make that statement sitting in my kitchen in the East Bay of Northern, CA, I am not in the target zone of locations that Trump and J.D. are trying to terrorize.
Godspeed to all of the brave Haitian immigrants trying to just go about their day and live their life and work during these calamitous times.
@inhumans99:
For the sake of transparency, here is everyone I can think of’s stands:
Jack, if he is who everyone believes he is, had been banned in the past. That said, to my knowledge he is not currently blocked.
JKB is definitely still a poster and commented yesterday.
Depending on which email/handle he is using, Paul L has either been blocked or has a moderation flag on him meaning we (usually I) preview his posts first to prevent off topic gish gallops. Most of his recent posts have passed through without edits. When I edit him I also clearly signal I have. He also posted within the last few days.
I am pretty sure lower case joe vs (@Joe), TheRyGuy, and all of the other various commenters are still able to post.
My personal preference is so long as people are not totally disrupting threads, I prefer to let them post. That said, this is James sure and he ultimately make the rules .
I am not an OTB regular, so this opinion should be weighted accordingly.
With a few exceptions, the missing posters of reference make for worse “discussion.” And a worse OTB.
They derail topics and bring out the worst in others.
I wish people would not engage with them when they are acting on-brand.
And I doubly wish that people would not beckon them to join a “discussion” they’ve been absent from.
ps, Thank you Matt for your writings on this topic. Seriously, thank you.
There was a period many years back, when OTB was suddenly infested with a prolific troll who commented on almost any thread appealing to his supposed authority as an entrepreneur with a Ph.D from the London School of Economics. I forget what the exact thread was, but one glorious day another commentator (HarvardLawyer93 I think?) and I tag-teamed a complete filleting of the troll dissecting his total ignorance of law, business, and history. (We also managed to show his total ignorance of Ph.D programs and the LSE at the same time, just for funsies.)
Moral of the story: don’t claim to be a rocket scientist if you can’t do celestial mechanics.
@Grumpy realist:
Side note, Hal1000 is a legit PhD rocket scientist
@inhumans99: The complaints are not about MAGAts wanting those jobs; the complaints are about Haitians coming and getting any sorts of jobs at all.. The MAGAts want these jobs done by already resident nKKKlannnggs, somebody else’s kids, po’ white trash, robots, elves, anyone else. It doesn’t matter. As long as they’re not brown and foreign.
And it’s STILL POSSIBLE that being able to complain about furriners commin’ in and takin’ our jobs is more important than any other element in this issue. Some people are just never happy unless they got sumptin’ to gripe about.
@Matt Bernius:
Matt, this question is completely sincere: How are you expecting any of these commenters to respond in this instance?
Do you think you will get any contrition from them? An apology, maybe?
Or are you expecting some unique deflection they haven’t tried before? A new whataboutism?
Or are you hoping they’ll defend this latest (worst yet?) MAGA rhetorical outrage?
I know you enjoy engaging these MAGA regulars, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. They’ve got nothing.
@Matt Bernius:
@SKI!:
Thank you.
It’s too bad there’s no way to prevent such egregious behavior, even when it causes real harm to real people.
@Mimai:
There are exceptions?
I’ve learned to ignore their “comments” entirely, especially if they reply to one of my comments. I’ve more than enough aggravation in my life.
When there was a downvote button, I’d just downvote them before ignoring them. That’s no longer possible.
@inhumans99:
Then praise the Lord for beyond defeaning. Personally, I have no nostlagia for Russian propaganda and far right falderal.
@DK:
They aren’t brave boys. They only come around when they think they’ve seen something on Newsmax that will crush all of us. Then we point out that they’ve fallen for yet another lie and we laugh at them for being morons. Rinse and repeat.
Their absence is proof they’ve not gotten the Hannity/Watters talking sauce drizzled over their parched brains. They’re all-in on a vicious cult of personality and no longer have independent thoughts. Sort of like the Army of the Dead without the Winter King.
@DK:
It’s just a personal bias, but I prefer my enemies noisy and/or visible. Makes it easier to hit your target.
And make no mistake, these a-holes are, IMO, enemies of humanity, society, and America. But as always, YMMV.
And Matt, thanks again for saying this out loud.
@Kathy:
I’ve observed exceptions, though sometimes they are buried.
Attention is among the most potent reinforcers. Spend it on the things you want more of. Withhold it from the things you want less of.
Maybe commenters are doing that — it’s just that we have different preferences. I don’t know, it’s not my site, so it’s not my place to (mis)interpret or make demands.
Another good post, Matt, keep it up! (but you might want to change that one word to supporters in the last sentence)
Anytime Republican claims are scrutinized, the entire thing falls apart — no tide raising everyone’s boat, no WMD’s, no evidence of voter fraud that isn’t committed by Republicans, no stolen election, no Haitian pet killing.
Someone let James know that it’s been far too long since Barry Goldwater was nominated for President [his campaign started the lie that The News Media Is Liberal] and that the moderate Republicans do not exist any more. I submit to the proprietors of this blog that the view/belief that Republicans ever were normal and reasonable is the Republican version of “lying for Jesus”.. they have always been this extreme, they just haven’t been as openly obvious about it.
As just 1 example, David Frum led the charge against Harriet Miers being nominated to USSC by pushing the clearly normal Sam Alito, but is now attempting to reposition himself as some kind of anti-Trumpist even though he enabled and furthered all the worst Republican personality traits right up to DJT. This isn’t the party of Lincoln, this is the party of Jefferson Davis.
This vile racism isn’t an aberration, this is normal everyday Republican governance.
Get used to it —— or vote them out.
It seems to me somewhat sterile to debate the MAGAesque (courageous, not courageous, lazy and only posting when they think they can entertain themselves….)
Rather more of the reflection challenge is how you sell the threat outside of your own Lefty and already anti-Trump circles. This sort of Heathen Sinners @Gavin: reflection (see Frum comment) – well yes, anti-Trump who are not Lefties Opposition will have pasts that are in opposition to you and they are not Converts to Your Cause – any alignment with you is without doubt temporary.
From the other side of the Atlantic what I see you people doing is a repeat (as farce or tragedy, depending on your Marxian preference) the errors of the 1930s committed on this side of the Atlantic by the political fractions of both Left and Right, each rather too much focused on the impurities and heathen positions of the near-centres versus the threat of both Nazis and Bolsheviks to non-totalitarian paths. You are in a dangerous moment yet in fact don’t really process the structure of that danger, the structure, not the labels.
Your weak party institutions – indeed as Pr Taylor has ably laid out I am not sure you can even be said to have actual political parties in the sense I normally understand them, rather than very American style “brand groups” under no real control. And that is profoundly dangerous.
So lessons of Europe of the 30s in my mind, the proper focus is selling the threat – labeling all the Republicans as the enemy is simply a tactical error, rather positioning as either the Heathen Converts or they are unwelcome.
The efforts of Wallz notably to use ordinary langauge (weird) rather than your collective tendency to use heavily academe-inflected and arch language that Uni educated got familiar with in dorm rooms, but not beyond, and not particularly identarian coded to open the sale of common ID of discomfort.
Bomb threats, threats to Haitian immigrants…. reflecting via this side lens and the lessons of the deep errors of the 30s, on Left and Right, these are things that can be profitably sold as general threats – not just racism (yes it is profoundly that but I rather suspect everyone moved by this lever has been moved) but bullying of all others. How long before it is extended to the contraception using soccer-mom for example. Selling the threat broadly to sell commonality of the threat. (and from reading you all, no you don’t really do that – whatever you think – a reading other than your own, it obviously exists else you would be crushing it in the polls. You are not ergo…)
I almost wonder if this has not risen to the level of a kind of extortion by the MAGA types. You keep the spotlight on something awful we are doing and we will get someone killed by pushing it even harder.
@Mimai:
Everyday I read actual news aggregators, lefty sites and rights sites.
You are spot on as to attention. A leaning site will just flat out ignore damaging news, or have a piece or two trying to explain it away.
The go-to move is to distract away from damaging news – ABC News fed the Harris campaign the questions in advance is a very popular topic on the Right right now. Evidence? Zero. People keep wanting to direct your attention away from Trump’s debate performance and how it was received.
There are huge blind spots on both sides where one side will trumpet a story to high heaven and the other side ignores it entirely, or puts up a token piece explaining why it’s not a big deal.
Partisan media exists to direct your attention to X and away from Y.
Even if you agree with their leaning they are not to be trusted.
For the base, the veracity of the story is immaterial. It feeds a narrative they want to believe: Others we have been taught to hate are criminal, subhuman, degenerate scum.
What bothers me is that our possible future President believes a random, unsupported, no evidence rumor and campaigns on it. Falling for an unsupported rumor.
I’m perfectly fine with most campaign BS, it’s expected.
But this “Haitian illegals are eating pets in Springfield” is miles past fudging employment gains. This is made-up directed hate against an Other for political gain.
Everybody is bringing up The Simpsons, but I think Cher’s class presentation from Clueless about Haitian immigrants is more on the nose. It’s right there, people! (Oddly, Alicia Silverstone is/was a Kennedy supporter.)
We’ll need to see how it plays out amongst the so-call “undecided” voters.
Matt I think your points are good but I don’t think many people on the right, including he ones who accasioanlly post here really care about this. Most people on the right arent actively racist but they dont care that much about racism when it does happen. Most really do believe that the real racism in this country is against white people.
Steve
@Flat Earth Luddite:
I prefer my enemies crushed. But then again, I am a McCain Republican turned Clinton Democrat:
“When someone is beating you over the head with a hammer, don’t just sit there and take it. Take out a meat cleaver, and cut off their hand.”
~ William Jefferson Clinton, 1981