JD Vance is embarrassing Ohio. Our senator should be helping Springfield, not harming it.
Vance isn't listening to his constituents; he is focused on doing any and everything — selling out his voters included — to help Donald Trump win the White House.
What does Ohio mean to you? In the Seneca language, it means large creek, good river or great river. To me, it means family, friends, fun, opportunity and innovation.
U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice presidential nominee, is doing his very best to make the definition embraced by Generation Alpha — the youngest among us born since 2010 — stick.
Ask an Alpha what "Ohio" means in slang, and they will tell you "strange, weird, cringe or dumb."
"Ohio the Heart of the Weird, Cringe and Dumb" is not a slogan that will attract new businesses and residents to reverse the fact that our aging state is shrinking.
JD Vance doesn't care if Ohio looks weird
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, famously labeled Vance and his presidential running mate, former President Donald Trump, "weird."
The Middletown native seemingly wants you, I and the rest of the Buckeye State to bear that label.
The truth about Springfield, Ohio: Are immigrants eating dogs as Trump says? What to know
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine — a future Vance and Trump voter — spent a good chunk of his Sunday trying to reject that label after the party's nominees spread unfunded claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield are eating dogs and cats. Haitians have been moving to Springfield for jobs in recent years.
"There's a lot of garbage on the internet and this is a piece of garbage that was simply not true, there's no evidence of this at all," he told ABC's "This Week." "These are positive influences on our community in Springfield and any comment about that otherwise I think is hurtful and is not helpful to the city of Springfield and the people of Springfield."
While DeWine tried to clean up Ohio's lie drenched reputation, Vance spent the weekend gleefully slamming the media and Ohio officials — Democrats and fellow Republicans alike — for refuting his flat-out lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield eating cats, dogs and park geese.
The claims have been debunked a million ways and Vance, Trump, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan and other have provided no fact-based evidence to back up their hurtful claims. There have been memes, bogus videos, easily debunked pictures and nasty comments but no verifiable receipts.
Where is their proof?
As Vance admitted, there is none.
JD Vance attacks the Buckeye State
In fact, in an interview Sunday morning on CNN's "State of the Union with Jake Tapper and Dana Bash," Vance admitted what he's saying is BS to get the media's attention.
"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, Dana, because you guys are completely letting Kamala Harris coast," Vance said, before Bash pointed out that he just admitted he made up the story.
"We are creating — we are — Dana, it comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents," Vance said. "I say that we're creating a story, meaning we're creating the American media focusing on it. I didn't create 20,000 illegal migrants coming into Springfield, thanks to Kamala Harris' policies. Her policies did that, but yes, we created the actual focus that allowed the American media to talk about this story and the suffering caused by Kamala Harris' policies."
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Vance isn't listening to his constituents he is focused on doing any and everything — selling out his voters included — to help Donald Trump win the White House.
My son wasn't murdered. Stop using Aiden Clark's death to vomit hate about immigrants.
He doesn't care about the real suffering of the people of Springfield or any other Ohio community. If he did, he would be elevating the truth instead of creating dehumanizing lies that should be beneath a senator from the nation's seventh largest state.
The real challenges — housing, traffic, etc. — Springfield is facing due to the influx of roughly 15,000 legal Haitian residents into a city of nearly 60,000 are buried under the burning trash heap that is Vance's politically motivated creation.
Springfield residents are living in terror
Incidentally, lying about one Ohio city was not enough for Vance.
The day before his interview with Bash, our elected U.S. senator threw Dayton — a city a half hour from his hometown — under the bus when he retweeted a video of supposed unspecified Africans posted by Christopher F. Rufo, a prominent conservative activist who initiated the adversarial movement against critical race theory. In the debunked video, a small animal is being grilled while cats walk around it.
"This claim is totally false and dangerously irresponsible of politicians aiming to sow division and fear. There (have) been absolutely zero reports of this type of activity and spreading such misinformation undermines our status as a welcoming city," Dayton Mayor Jeff Mims said in his statement.
The words that come of politicians' mouth can lead to violence. We saw that with Jan. 6 and, to a lesser extent, we are seeing it in Springfield with JD Vance's weird version of the Big Lie.
His creation does more than make Ohio look weird, it hurts a state that is very real despite all the silly memes questioning our very existence.
Vance's back might have went up after Bash — partly using a statement from Springfield Mayor Rob Rue — asked a question about the harm his words have caused to the Ohioans and Haitians paying the price.
Vance may feel like a media spin doctor, but this is not a game.
Threats sparked by JD Vance's lies led Clark State College to hold all classes online this week. All of Wittenberg University's classes were held online on Monday.
Members of the Haitian community — both children and adults — are living in terror, employers have been harassed, there have been bomb threats at hospitals, schools and a slew of other government buildings.
A list of events that includes CultureFest, "celebration of unity through diversity," have been canceled.
JD Vance brushed it off during his interview with Bash, but his lies drew Proud Boys and other extremists to Springfield.
Vance's creative stories about Haitians and Africans stealing and eating cats and dogs are made up.
It's weird, but the Proud Boys and the weapons they carry are very real.
Words have meaning. Ohio can't afford to be a weird laughingstock thanks to our very own senator.