Jackie Calmes: JD Vance to Springfield, Ohio: ‘You’re Replaceable’ – West Central Tribune

JD Vance made a huge mistake as a vice presidential candidate, as even some of Donald Trump’s mafia and media cronies at Mar-a-Lago admit.

Vance, a younger version of Trump, isn’t turning out new voters for the Republicans; their ticket is MAGA squared. He’s likely lost more than a few votes by smearing millions of “childless cat ladies” — not least pop icons Taylor Swift and Jennifer Aniston. He spends much of his time on the defensive about past comments, even as he stokes new controversy on his rounds of right-wing podcasts, talk radio shows, and conservative conferences. Instead of cleaning up his mess, he’s doubling down, allergic (like Trump) to excuses. And Trump, confronted more than once about something Vance has said, dismissively notes that he hasn’t spoken to his potential vice president. Ouch.

JD Vance made a huge mistake as a vice presidential candidate, as even some of Donald Trump’s mafia and media cronies at Mar-a-Lago admit.

Vance, a younger version of Trump, isn’t turning out new voters for the Republicans; their ticket is MAGA squared. He’s likely lost more than a few votes by smearing millions of “childless cat ladies” — not least pop icons Taylor Swift and Jennifer Aniston. He spends much of his time on the defensive about past comments, even as he stokes new controversy on his rounds of right-wing podcasts, talk radio shows, and conservative conferences. Instead of cleaning up his mess, he’s doubling down, allergic (like Trump) to excuses. And Trump, confronted more than once about something Vance has said, dismissively notes that he hasn’t spoken to his potential vice president. Ouch.

But as rotten as Vance is, he’s a complete disaster at his day job: senator for Ohio.

Most office holders pride themselves on doing good service to constituents, especially in difficult times. Vance, bizarrely, is suddenly the undisputed master of bad service to constituents, to the point of endangering lives.

The trouble he’s caused for tens of thousands of his constituents in Springfield, Ohio lately — all in the name of demagoguery over immigration — amounts to political malfeasance like nothing we’ve ever seen before, given Trump’s love of talking about just about anything. Only this time, it’s true.

For weeks, Vance has pointed to Springfield as the epitome of a (white) American community being overrun by people of color from another country — in this case, Haitians who have fled their country’s epic poverty and violence to settle legally in Ohio, welcomed by employers desperate for hardworking people. Vance, who once wrote so movingly about “hillbilly” families like his who came to Ohio from Kentucky in search of opportunity but were met with lingering hostility, is so determined to get ahead politically that he is now the hostile one.

(Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)

And when Trump uncovered Vance’s lies about Haitian immigrants stealing and eating cats, dogs, ducks and geese from Springfield residents — and broadcast the conspiracy theory to the 67 million people watching his debate with Kamala Harris last Tuesday — all hell broke loose for Vance’s voters.

Despite assurances from local officials from the start that the reports were hoaxes created by social media, more than 30 bomb threats temporarily closed City Hall, two elementary schools, two hospitals and two universities. The threats, which have continued into the week, turned out to be hoaxes. But the fear and disruption in Springfield were real. On Tuesday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine sent state troopers to Springfield schools to encourage frightened parents to send their children to school, while warning of hate groups that would invade Springfield. “It makes me sad that we have to get to this point,” one mother told a local newspaper.

Indeed. But her senator wasn’t sad, just angry — that he’s getting bad press. Consider this snippy, self-serving tweet from Vance on Tuesday: “Still waiting for a correction and apology from the left wing journalists. They lied about these bomb threats to silence us. Why? Because they don’t want to talk about Kamala Harris’ border policies that are making housing unaffordable for American citizens.”

Apologies? Reporters didn’t lie; there were bomb threats. Those trying to stifle Vance’s fearmongering are not journalists, but Springfield’s police chief, the school superintendent, the Republican mayor and governor. Springfield Mayor Rob Rue has repeatedly begged Vance and Trump to stop: “All these federal politicians who have negatively affected our city need to know that they are hurting our city, and it was their words that did it.”

And “left-wing journalists” aren’t the only ones checking Vance’s lies. Conservative commentator Kevin D. Williamson had the best take on the matter this week in a Dispatch piece subtitled “A Long, Long Story About Something That Didn’t Happen”: “You can send little J.D. to Yale to polish him up, you can send him to Silicon Valley to make him rich, and you can send him to the Senate to make him powerful, but you can’t stop him from being what he apparently wants to be: Cleetus the Gap-Tooth Twitter troll.”

Speaking of apologies, Vance has yet to offer one to Nathan Clark, the father of an 11-year-old boy who died in a bus crash last year. Clark publicly asked Vance for an apology for exploiting his son’s death as a murder by a Haitian immigrant.

DeWine, meanwhile, is all over television checking out Vance’s whoppers. Far from being carnivores, Haitians are valuable employees at Springfield businesses that have helped boost the local economy, the governor said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” He acknowledged: “When you take a population of 58,000 and add 15,000 people, you have challenges” — housing, health care, language and cultural differences. “And we’re addressing them.”

Not the junior senator from Ohio. “If I have to create stories so that the American media will actually pay attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” he defiantly told CNN on Sunday.

The cardinal rule for vice presidential candidates is: do no harm. Vance does enough. That’s why he’s a terrible candidate and an even worse senator.