Bob Schwartz

“They’re [Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio] eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.” That is disgraced former president Donald Trump, at a presidential debate watched by 70 million people, repeating a right-wing meme. The news outlets felt compelled to fact-check this. Needless to say, it is not based in fact.

What does need repeating, that still isn’t mentioned often enough, is that this is pure racism. The meme-makers know it, the repeaters, like Trump and Vance, know it.

So how is it like the blood libel, in which Jews were historically (and in some insane corners of the hate world still) accused of using the blood of Christian babies in rituals? To answer that, imagine that it was Jews in Springfield, Ohio who were the target of the haters. My guess is that we wouldn’t have fact-checking. My guess is that the nation would be so outraged that there would be calls for Trump to step down as candidate, and there would be Republicans who would support that.

But instead, these are just Haitian immigrants. What do they expect when they are different and, to some Americans, unwelcome strangers? But lest we forget, we Jews were that too.

“Haters gonna, hate, hate, hate” sang recent Harris endorser Taylor Swift. But when the hater is running for president, we should not shake it off.