JD Vance’s shameless lies have terrorized Springfield

The claim by Donald Trump and JD Vance that Haitian immigrants are stealing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, invites comparison with another fear-provoking mega-hoax: the infamous 1938 radio performance of “War of the Worlds” by Orson Welles, which used the format of a news report.

“Those strange beings who landed in the Jersey farmlands tonight,” a CBS radio announcer breathlessly told listeners on Halloween Eve, “are the vanguard of an invading army from the planet Mars.” The performance frightened listeners across the country, who hysterically called police departments, radio stations and newspaper offices, and even got out their shotguns. But it had no lasting impact beyond the single national fright night.

The pet-eating hoax, on the other hand, could conceivably affect the presidential election (half of Trump voters believe it). Vance first made the claim, and Trump amplified it at the presidential debate, using a “War of the Worlds”-style frantic, present-tense description of Haitians invading Springfield. “They’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating…they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.” And then more falsehoods: “They’re taking the geese.”

Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine called the pet-eating claims “garbage.” When asked for evidence, Vance’s staff provided a police report filed by a Springfield resident named Anna Kilgore in which she accused her Haitian neighbors of taking her cat, Miss Sassy. But Kilgore later told a Wall Street Journal reporter that, after filing the report, she had found Miss Sassy, uneaten and in good health, in her basement. Kilgore apologized to the Haitian community.

Here’s the difference between Trump and Vance. Trump never concedes that he makes anything up, even when he’s caught red-handed lying about objective matters such as his crowd sizes or winning Michigan’s “Man of the Year Award,” when no evidence of such an award exists (or that he won the 2020 election).

Vance, on the other hand, is willing to acknowledge lying if he can spin it as a patriotic act. “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people,” Vance said regarding the pet-eating lies, “then that’s what I’m going to do.”

The stories “created” by Trump and Vance have turned the city of Springfield, the alleged victim in their fictional narrative, upside down. The Haitians have boosted Springfield’s economy by filling vacant jobs in businesses and factories, but they have also strained the city’s services. Tensions rose in the city when a child died in a school bus accident involving a Haitian driver, who was later sentenced to prison. But only after Trump and Vance spread their pet-eating falsehoods did Springfield become a terrorized city.

Dozens of bomb threats forced the shutdown of Springfield’s government buildings, lockdowns at two hospitals and the evacuation of elementary schools. State highway policemen had to be posted in each of Springfield’s public schools and security tower cameras were put up. The city cancelled its annual two-day CultureFest “for the safety of our residents.”

Haitians in Springfield have stayed off the streets. “I am really scared for my kids right now,” Bianca Daniels, a beauty supply owner from Haiti, told a reporter.

Let’s be honest about what’s going on here. To JD Vance, if Springfield has to be terrorized by pet-eating lies for the good of his and Trump’s electoral prospects, so be it.

Gregory J. Wallance was a federal prosecutor in the Carter and Reagan administrations and a member of the ABSCAM prosecution team, which convicted a U.S. senator and six representatives of bribery. He is the author of “Into Siberia: George Kennan’s Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia.”