The hate of it all
"Elections have consequences," as Springfield is about to find out.
The Friday dispatch will be the August mailbag.
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Thank you for your attention to this important matter. Let’s get on with the show.
Springfield is about to suffer some consequences
Those of us at a certain age might remember the bygone era of September 2024, when Donald Trump and then-Senator Boss Baby tried to convince the nation that Haitian immigrants were eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio.
Amid the national hysteria, I biked to Springfield and discovered a town with a rich immigration history that had rejuvenated itself with the influx of legal Haitian labor.
Governor Mike DeWine defended his hometown in the pages of the New York Times, a move that seemed aimed at making sure as few die-hard Republicans as possible saw that defense.
The pleas didn’t stop Trump or Vance from pillaging the Republican-dominated county as an example of Joe Biden’s “open border” policies.
A sensible person might think that a presidential ticket making a town the focal point of an unfounded, racist conspiracy that triggered waves of bomb threats at area schools might hurt the prospects of said ticket in that town.
But Trump understands the hog voter more than any of his political contemporaries, and in the end, Trump increased his margins in Springfield by five percent over the 2020 result while he won the largest Republican share of votes in Clark County in at least 40 years.
And I don’t mean to write off the tens of thousands of voters in Clark County and Springfield who didn’t vote for Trump. I know how that feels whenever I see coastal elites write off states like Ohio, where millions of residents aren’t enthralled by a career white-collar criminal.
But when I look at a majority of that area’s voters, it’s a disturbing reminder about Dying of Whiteness: How Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland, a book that I read and gave away to a subscriber a couple of months ago.
The author interviewed a white male in Tennessee who had predictably suffered some health consequences due to a sedentary life that revolved around working a shitty, threadbare job with no benefits before coming home drinking beer and eating various spreads of fast food and then passing out in his bed.
That dude went to an early grave with pride on his face because at least he wasn’t some moocher who had taken advantage of Obamacare, which was designed for people like him to obtain healthcare.
He had been duped by his ignorance (and a steady diet of billionaire-funded right-wing media) into thinking that Obamacare was an albatross on our national debt that was nothing more than a handout to undesirables.
He literally died of whiteness.
You can’t win over people like that, though then-Senator Sherrod Brown certainly tried in his failed 2024 campaign:
Regardless of the cause, Springfield and Clark County voted for Trump (and Bernie Moreno) in droves. And even though Trump’s approval rating is tanking nationwide—he’s even underwater on immigration—Clark County is about to pay a consequence for its decision.
From Miriam Jordan of the New York Times:
After the election, the Trump administration terminated some humanitarian programs that had allowed Haitians and other immigrants to live and work legally in the United States. Employers in the Springfield area have had to let go of hundreds.
In February 2026, thousands more are expected to lose their jobs when the administration ends Temporary Protected Status, a separate program that shields people from deportation to countries in crisis.
Many Haitian families in Springfield face two bleak options: leave the United States entirely or remain without lawful status, dependent on underground work and vulnerable to arrest and deportation.
There is no official tally of how many Haitians have already left, but pastors, employers and others say dozens of Haitians have already left.
DeWine appears later in the article, calling Springfield “stable,” but admitting that Haitians fleeing the city is “not going to be good” for its overall health.
DeWine is a partisan Republican until the grave, as evidenced by his dutifully deploying 150 Ohio National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., as part of Trump’s fascist crackdown.
But it’s still wild to me, his longtime personal friend and advisor, that he can’t muster more anger over this issue when he’ll never run in another election. The Republican base reviles him. He has nothing to lose, and the best we can get from him on this issue is something like, “Well, that’s not good,” as if he just witnessed a fender-bender in a UDF parking lot.
Springfield would have become a unique American city within a generation. The Haitian influence on a once-dying post-industrial town would have offered a blueprint to the litany of Ohio cities facing a similar plight.
However, that’s all going away now, thanks to the racist hoopla that will somehow look even stupider as time goes on.
I’d say it will befuddle future generations, but that’s not true. White supremacy, at its core, is easy to understand.
Welcome to the Sherrod Brown show
Sherrod Brown officially announced his Senate campaign on Monday.
Former Congressman Tim Ryan wasted little time in announcing that he’ll decide on a possible gubernatorial campaign by Sept. 30.
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