Scapegoating is the tool of the opportunist — a tactic Donald Trump is utilizing in his presidential campaign to propagate hatred toward immigrants.
This time, he has targeted legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, with the ultimate goal of having Americans embrace him as their anti-immigrant savior. Just as George H.W. Bush’s 1988 campaign made use of Willie Horton’s likeness to represent a purported national black crime wave, Trump is spinning a macabre Hannibal Lecter-like fiction of pet-eating black immigrants.
As with most of his assertions concerning immigrants, Trump is not telling the truth. Springfield’s mayor, Rob Rue, informs us that Trump’s claims are nothing but unfounded rumors. Meanwhile, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) announced that state troopers will be stationed throughout the city as a precaution to protect residents — not from pet-eating mobs, but from bomb threats resulting from the former president’s falsehoods.
To Trump, facts are but an inconvenience. He and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), continue to double down on the tall tale on both the campaign trail and on social media. Most recently, Trump made an absurd promise to deport Springfield Haitians to Venezuela.
Venezuela?
Any such attempt, of course, would be thwarted by our courts, and likely lead to an international incident for violating Venezuela’s sovereignty. But for Trump, baseless attacks and preposterous threats are just part of his winning ways. Demagoguery by demonizing the weak is his answer to legitimate political positions — and it works, as his victory in 2016 demonstrates.
Indeed, these sorts of attacks are relatively easy because immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, are easy targets with little to no political power. They are no politician’s constituents.
Trump is spreading unfounded rumors to motivate his base, even if a side effect is to terrorize his targets. Since he first made the claim, Springfield schools and government buildings have repeatedly been evacuated due to daily bomb threats. Clark State College has made classes remote after bomb and shooting threats. And the local Haitian community is on edge, facing the prospect of violent attacks.
But targeting immigrants is not new for Trump. Recall his inaugural 2016 campaign address, when he said some immigrants comingf to the U.S. “are drug dealers, criminals, and rapists.” Upon taking the White House, Trump’s administration separated immigrant children from their parents at the border, placing them in cages. His family separation policy also led to the death of innocent children and the abuse of thousands of others.
Trump’s hatred doesn’t stop there — he is promising mass deportations of immigrants if elected again.
Many Americans fail to realize that immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, are invaluable to our economy. They are indispensable workers in the agricultural, construction and other service industries. Trump’s goal would not only hurt your pocketbook. His acts in service of that goal would also affect many innocent Americans.
The last time mass deportation was undertaken in the 1950s, during what was shamefully called “Operation Wetback,” it resulted in the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, U.S. citizens and residents of Hispanic descent. The 1950s deportations were marked with deaths and starvation. Now, these dire consequences may very well be repeated under Trump.
In fact, Trump’s xenophobic attacks are a form of stochastic terrorism, which is public demonization of a group that is accomplished by using indirect, vague or coded attacks that allow the speaker to disclaim responsibility for any resulting violence. This terrorism dehumanizes its targets, provoking hate that often leads to deadly results. Leaders of our past, as well some of as the world’s most infamous despots, have stoked the flames of fear with rhetoric to achieve such ends.
Adolf Hitler’s Nuremberg’s Rallies of the 1920s and ’30s, for instance, were highly effective propaganda tools in consolidating power for the Nazi Party, influencing the German people to target and dehumanize German Jews. Those efforts led to the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, making Jews legally inferior to their neighbors, eventually leading to (as well as psychologically facilitating) the atrocities of the Holocaust.
If you think you are safe because you support Trump, you are sadly mistaken. How long will it be before you or someone like you becomes a target of his ire? If not challenged and ultimately defeated on Election Day, Trump will continue to spread hate, giving Americans the license to themselves attack immigrants. These consequences do not reflect the country that is the “beacon of light” by our golden door, as proclaimed by Emma Lazarus’s iconic and inspirational American promise.
Ediberto Roman is professor of law and director of Immigration and Citizenship Initiatives at Florida International University.