Springfield is a town on edge. It’s been five days since it was thrust into the national spotlight…
— from a story by Alicia Victoria Lozano and Corky Siemaszko on NBCNews.com, September 15. 2024.
Earlier this month, a certain Republican Vice Presidential nominee who was born about 50 miles outside of Springfield, Ohio — and who will remain nameless — told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that immigrants in Springfield were eating people’s pets.
He later appeared on CNN and explained that he had spread these rumors to bring attention to immigration.
“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” said the unidentified Vice Presidential candidate.
Oh, what the heck. You probably guessed anyway… it was J.D. Vance. And that’s because of the job he’s applying for. The main job of the Vice President is to spread rumors like that… about immigrants eating pets… to help reduce our suffering.
Hopefully, the pets were cats belonging to childless cat ladies who are making America miserable.
Ha. That’s just a joke. No one was actually eating pets in Springfield. Springfield’s Mayor Rob Rue says the city of nearly 59,000 is now being “torn apart” by hate and vitriol. “There has been a lie that’s been posted and said about Springfield, and then it’s been repeated, double repeated, and triple repeated, and we’d like that to stop,” he said.
Good luck with that one, Mayor. None other than former President Donald Trump had announced it to a TV and streaming audience of 67 million people during the debate:
And look at what’s happening to the towns all over the United States. And a lot of towns don’t want to talk — not going to be Aurora or Springfield. A lot of towns don’t want to talk about it because they’re so embarrassed by it. In 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 this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame…
Most of those 67 million people have Facebook accounts and nothing better to do than tell their friends about the nasty eating habits in Springfield. You can even find humor columnists discussing it on small town websites.
I can make jokes about people eating cats — even though no one is actually eating cats — even though I live with my cat, Roscoe. He gets my sense of humor, such as it is. As a matter of fact, I once had a pet goldfish. Roscoe himself took care of that situation.
From the NBCNews article:
Like other Rust Belt communities, Springfield suffered from years of job losses that ate away at its economic base as well as its shared identity. Now, it’s one of many towns across the U.S. that are enjoying a resurgence. The return of manufacturing jobs has reinvigorated the area,..
Betty Jones, who moved to Springfield in 1963 with her coal miner husband, found a city with plentiful job opportunities. But then American manufacturing started relocating offshore. She estimates some 13 factories have gone out of business since she moved to the area.
Thankfully, this type of thing — years of job losses — couldn’t happen in Pagosa Springs. We’ve never had 13 factories.
Springfield’s fortunes have recently turned the corner, however. New houses is getting built. Businesses are opening. Downtown Springfield after dark is growing more lively. Betty Jones credits some of the revitalization to the arrival of Haitians and other immigrants.
12,000 to 15,000 Haitians who fled political turmoil and violence in their home country have landed in Springfield over the past five years. No one knows the exact number, apparently.
“Many of them are professionals, medical doctors, attorneys, teachers, engineers, you name it,” said Sophia Pierrelus, an immigration advocate who immigrated from Haiti 20 years ago.
Now, I can imagine an attorney eating someone’s cat, if it would help him win a case in court. I can even imagine a candidate for Vice President eating a cat, if it belonged to a childless cat lady.
But an engineer? No engineer I’ve ever met would eat a cat. Just wouldn’t happen.
The city has been forced to close schools and municipal buildings because of bomb threats and safety risks tied to the rumors.
Haitian immigrants are afraid to leave their homes because of anger directed at them.
Who’s going to run the engineering department?
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.