Of Violence and Betrayal in Ohio

By DON ROLLINS

As with every state in the union, Ohio has been scene to tragic violence. From historic attempts to erase indigenous peoples, to deadly race riots, to the unprovoked murders of four Kent State students, physical violence is part of my home state’s complicated narrative.

But as is also the case with the other 49 states, not every sin against Ohio’s greater good has been manifested with a bullet or a hanging tree. More - exponentially more - have been systemic acts of violence brought to bear by compromised executives, legislatures and high courts. (Read the incessant Republican attempts to redraw district maps, and disenfranchise minority voters.)

Yet sometimes Ohio’s violence is inflicted from without, as evidenced by Donald Trump’s otherworldly presidential debate performance Sept. 10. Melting down midway through the debacle, the former leader of the free world cut loose with a now infamous meme-rant about Haitian immigrants feasting on respectable folks’ kitties up in Springfield.

The fallout for Springfield’s 59,000 inhabitants was almost instant. Within hours local law enforcement and city officials were swamped with bomb and mass shooting threats, some allegedly from foreign sources. Unable to distinguish the empty from the truly ominous messages, schools, hospitals, government buildings and a university were closed. Nearly every sector of the city’s infrastructure was impacted or interrupted, costing Springfield millions in unnecessary spending. One longtime resident likened the scene to COVID 19’s onset, frightening and confusing. But with the threat of bombs.

All because the Republicans’ unmoored, unrestrainable candidate for president regurgitated a loony internet quip in front of 67.1 million viewers.

But credit is due to at least one Ohio Republican willing to call out Trump’s callousness, Gov. Mike DeWine. Although not the moderate progressives often describe (he’s given full throated support for the Republican-friendly gerrymandering described above) DeWine responded with $2.5 million in immediate relief, dispatched dozens of state troopers trained in sweeping for explosives, and is actively lobbying for federal funding to address the longer-term consequences.

Still, there is no silver lining here on the ground, only the specter of one of our own — vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance — selling us out in the service of a second Trump presidency, and his own political future.

When offered the chance for a partial pivot, Vance had no love for the city less than an hour from his boyhood home. What he had was a cold justification for the violence rained down on his own constituents:

“The media didn’t care about the carnage wrought by these policies until we turned it into a meme about cats, and that speaks to the media’s failure to care about what’s going on in these communities. If we have to meme about it to get the media to care, we’re going to keep on doing it…”

Trump’s verbal violence toward Springfield is both shameful and harmful. Shameful, that a would-be president’s party continues to adore him despite this episode; harmful, that the verbal violence he and his Ohioan running mate espouse only raises the stakes for something far worse.

Don Rollins is a retired Unitarian Universalist minister in Jackson, Ohio. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, October 15, 2024

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