Springfield, Ohio, Is a Microcosm of American Political Violence

Over the past two weeks, after former President Trump and running mate J.D. Vance espoused false claims about Haitian migrants, a wave of more than 33 bomb threats targeting schools, hospitals, and government buildings rocked Springfield, Ohio. The FBI started investigating threats of shootings at Wittenberg University in Springfield. Some of the town’s Haitian residents found their car windows smashed, and some cars were even doused in acid. Local leaders made the difficult decision to cancel the small Ohio town’s annual festival due to safety concerns, and parents have been keeping their children home from school out of fear. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, called in members of the Ohio State Highway Patrol to protect some Springfield schools. Garry Pierre-Pierre, founder and publisher of the Haitian Times, said that his staff received racist threats for sending journalists to cover the incident. 

Marked by polarization, disinformation, and foreign interference, this latest incident of political violence in Springfield demonstrates that a clear playbook for violent extremists has emerged. Seize upon an incident—real or fabricated—with a racial, religious, or ethnic component; push to make it go viral; and then bridge the offline-online divide by showing up in person and intimidating the target population with threats and physical violence.

But how did Springfield, a typical Rust Belt town of roughly 60,000 inhabitants between Dayton and Columbus, become the epicenter of disinformation-fueled political violence over the past several weeks? The story is sadly all too familiar. What happened in Springfield epitomizes many of the challenges eroding the social fabric of towns, cities, and villages across the country, subsequently giving rise to polarization and political extremism. 

A false claim about Haitian migrants eating cats made by a local Springfield woman went viral online, became amplified by neo-Nazi groups, most prominently the Blood Tribe, and even after being debunked made its way into the U.S. presidential debate, where Republican candidate and former President Trump recycled the disinformation to 67 million viewers. Trump himself knows all too well the potentially deadly consequences of political violence, having been the victim of two assassination attempts in the past few months. Nonetheless, that has not stopped him from fanning the narratives that created that very context in which two individuals radicalized to plot the assassination of the former U.S. president. On the other side of the aisle, the threats posed by the former president have been framed as existential, further breaking the trust in the electoral process that sustains U.S. democracy.

Like many American towns and cities, Springfield experienced a decades-long heavy economic downturn: High-paying blue-collar jobs disappeared, median household income plummeted, and wages never caught up with inflation. Its population dropped from approximately 80,000 in the late 1960s and early 1970s to roughly 60,000 in 2020. Against this backdrop, the small Ohio town near the Mad River made concerted efforts to bring back manufacturing jobs, and successfully so. The town’s economy is growing, and an expanding immigrant population has followed and taken advantage of the new manufacturing positions. Around 15,000 Haitians moved to Springfield since 2018, many of them having settled under the Temporary Protected Status program after fleeing the gang violence and political instability plaguing their home country. Ironically, those who fled gang violence in their native country found themselves the target of a different type of political instability and vitriol in the United States over the past few weeks.

The outrage against Haitians was manufactured online using disinformation, further evidence of just how easy it is today to terrorize certain populations. The internet is a force multiplier in spreading disinformation rapidly. Whereas pogroms historically have been instigated through word-of-mouth and radio, the proliferation of disinformation at scale is a modern phenomenon. A similar situation played out recently in the United Kingdom’s Southport riots, where falsehoods spread rapidly online and resulted in immigrant communities targeted with arson, vandalism, and physical violence. The rumor that the stabbing of three children at a dance studio in Southport on July 29 was perpetrated by a Muslim asylum-seeker was started by a Chester-based woman online and was quickly amplified by controversial online figures with substantial followings such as Andrew Tate. Not long after, foreign state media, including Russia-owned RT, started to amplify the claim. The English Defence League (EDL), Patriotic Alternative, and other extremist organizations used the narrative to stage protests. Yet, because law enforcement and government officials generally see disinformation and political violence as separate categories, authorities have been slow to recognize the nexus between the two and, accordingly, have been slow to formulate a comprehensive response. 

But what should we call what’s happening in Springfield? Some have labeled it a pogrom: large-scale, organized violence against a local ethnic enclave. Historically, pogroms have been carried out with the tacit approval or active complicity of government and/or law enforcement, which, thankfully, is not the case in Springfield. To others who don’t find the pogrom characterization accurate, it may meet the threshold for domestic terrorism, often defined as the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in pursuit of political aims. Another critical component of terrorism is that it includes a psychological element, the goal of instilling fear into a target population. In essence, one of the primary goals of terrorism, unsurprisingly, is to terrorize. For others, recent events in Springfield better fit into the category of political violence.

For the authors, the most accurate description of what occurred in Springfield might be racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism, which the FBI defines as “the potentially unlawful use or threat of force or violence in furtherance of ideological agendas derived from bias, often related to race or ethnicity, held by the actor against others or a given population group.” While some observers find the terminology debate tedious, it remains essential to have these conversations so that law enforcement and intelligence services can first agree on a common operating picture, without which an effective and well-resourced response becomes far more challenging. 

The neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe, led by two former Marines, organized a protest in Springfield weeks before the presidential debate, with the aim of fanning xenophobic sentiments. The Proud Boys, designated as a terrorist group in Canada, have also allegedly descended on Springfield. These groups were fundamentally important in spreading the false accusation against Haitians about eating pets, a claim first made by a local woman who now regrets the impact her post has had on the Haitian immigrant community. 

After the recent presidential debate, Christopher Pohlhaus, the leader of the Blood Tribe, celebrated on his Telegram channel that former President Trump brought attention to Springfield and emphasized the group’s influence in shaping U.S. public perception of the impact of immigration. In August, members of the Blood Tribe started to amplify the rumor about the Haitian Springfield community engaging in the eating of cats on Gab, an alt-right microblogging platform, and Telegram, an unregulated and encrypted messaging application. Ohio ranks sixth in the country for the state with the largest number of hate groups and anti-government organizations, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

The constellation of alternative social media platforms and unregulated messaging applications has boomed in recent years among extremists of all convictions as traditional social media, video-sharing, and messaging platforms such as those from Google and Meta have cracked down on disinformation, hate speech, and foreign information manipulation and interference. The second-order effect of occasional purges of extremists is that they tend to flock to more fringe sites, with little to no content moderation. Researchers and law enforcement also have fewer tools available to gather intelligence and detect potential foreign interference on these fringe sites. In the case of the neo-Nazi Blood Tribe, their reliance on alternative social media platforms and encrypted messaging applications has made it nearly impossible to crack down on their content. This environment allows conspiracies, like the pet-eating rumor, to thrive within the information ecosystem without any pushback.

Other factors may have played a role in the vitriol directed against the Haitian community in Springfield. DeWine stated that at least some of the bomb threats originated from outside the United States, potentially indicating a concerted foreign effort to inflame the crisis even further. In addition to foreign interference, AI-generated images of Haitian immigrants chasing domestic pets highlights the role of technology. The prevention and mitigation of political violence can no longer be disentangled from the online sphere and the use of new technologies by extremists. While researchers have spilled much ink on this ever-prominent nexus, actual mitigation measures and policies remain sparse: Both misconstrued and politicized concerns about civil liberties and hate speech, as well as the slow pace of policymaking on ever-evolving technologies and platforms, are painful reminders of how woefully underprepared we remain to redress this phase of political violence. 

With the growth and mainstreaming of far-right extremism in the American body politic, exemplified most poignantly on Jan. 6, 2021, with the storming of the U.S. Capitol, there now exists a roving band of racists, vigilantes, and provocateurs that travels throughout the country looking to insert itself in a range of local protests, on everything from Gaza to guns to anti-LGBTQ demonstrations. The goal is often to intimidate different groups, and the motivation fueling this intimidation is often anti-Semitic, xenophobic, and/or racist in nature. 

Perhaps it is the importance of this online component in the Springfield crisis—marking its origins, amplification, and coordination of offline actions—that renders this recent incident the epitome of contemporary political violence in the United States. That also makes it foreboding for local political authorities as they attempt to grapple with how to prevent something similar from happening again. 

With immigration among the most hotly contested issues in American domestic politics today, it seems almost inevitable that a similar incident could occur again between now and the presidential election in November. Next time, however, the violence could be worse.