Pennsylvania Town Now In Trump's Race-Baiting Sights

 

As the vicious lies about legal immigrant families in Springfield, OH, continue to be spewed by the Malignant Loser and his toxic mini- me Junior Demagogue Vance -- resulting in dozens of bomb threats to local schools and other institutions -- they've decided one community terrorized by their violent rhetoric wasn't enough:

When Joe Manning got to work on Wednesday, he sat down and penned an email to a city manager 220 miles away in Springfield, Ohio.

It was the day after the presidential debate in Philadelphia, where former President Donald Trump propagated the repeatedly debunked and incendiary false claim that Haitian migrants in Springfield were eating the town’s pets.

As the borough manager of Charleroi — a small Pennsylvania town about 30 miles south of Pittsburgh — Manning is all too familiar with those types of xenophobic allegations, as similar claims have circulated around his borough. While Springfield’s city manager, Bryan Heck, is dealing with false theories about “people eating domesticated pets,” Manning said in Charleroi, there are baseless claims such as “people on Facebook saying that there’s a government-funded tent city in the Rite Aid parking lot, that there’s people walking down the street carrying live chickens.”

He told Heck in Springfield: “I empathize with you.”

A day later, Trump set his sights on Charleroi.

More than 2,000 miles away from the sleepy Pennsylvania town during a rally in Tucson, Ariz., Thursday, Trump promoted inflammatory rhetoric about Haitian migrants in Charleroi on the national stage, promoting the misleading claim that the Washington County borough’s Haitian immigrant population was costing local taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. He also suggested the town is “virtually bankrupt” and that the immigrants are bringing an increase of crime, neither of which are true. The borough’s crime rate is down, Manning said.

“[Charleroi] experienced a 2,000% increase in the population of Haitian migrants under Kamala Harris. So Pennsylvania, remember this when you have to go to vote ... just remember this 2,000% increase,” Trump said in Tucson. “It’s a small town. All of a sudden they got thousands of people. The schools are scrambling to hire translators for the influx of students who don’t speak not a word of English, costing local taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.” 

Trump’s invocation of the Pennsylvania borough is the latest example in a slew of fearmongering claims the former president has made about immigrant communities across the country, as he and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, continue to attack Vice President Kamala Harris on immigration and the border... (our emphasis)

The Malignant Loser and his white nationalist minions (think Loony Loomer) see dark fearmongering about immigration as their weapon of mass distraction against the rising poll numbers and positive vision of VP Harris and Gov. Walz.  The "immigrant caravans" of their 2020 campaign have become the "immigrants are eating your pets and your tax dollars" in 2024.  Local leaders, as well as State leaders, will tell you differently, of course, because what's coming out of the Malignant Loser's mouth is just what the Inquirer says: "fearmongering," "baseless," and "repeatedly debunked and incendiary false claims."  Calling the Malignant Loser out for his racism, lies, demagoguery, and threat to democracy isn't the problem here.  It's his racism, lies, demagoguery, and threat to democracy.

The contrast between this deranged, chaotic, racist, violence- fanning campaign and that of VP Harris could not be more stark.  Now that people can see the destructive impact on communities -- not from legal immigration but from the Malignant Loser's unhinged, deceitful rhetoric -- they need to get to the ballot box and send the message:  "We're not going back!"

(Photo: via Associated Press)