Idiots Are Now Threatening Business Owners In Springfield

Major props to Miriam Jordan of The New York Times for some first-class boots-on-the-ground field reporting from Springfield, Ohio, which is still reeling from the insupportable slanders visited upon it by the Republican presidential ticket. Jordan brings us the story of a local merchant who was minding his own business running his truck-parts franchise, and employing some of the Haitian population that had arrived in Springfield as forklift drivers, machine operators, and other factory-type jobs. Then, the destructive force of the Trump-Vance demolition company came to town.

For Jamie McGregor, a businessman in Springfield, Ohio, speaking favorably about the Haitian immigrants he employs has come to this: death threats, a lockdown at his company and posters around town branding him a traitor for hiring immigrants. To defend himself and his family, Mr. McGregor has had to violate his own vow to never own a gun. “I have struggled with the fact that now we’re going to have firearms in our house — like, what the hell?” said Mr. McGregor, who runs McGregor Metal, which makes parts for cars, trucks and tractors. “And now we’re taking classes, we’re going to shooting ranges, we’re being fitted for handguns,” he said on a recent day, pulling up a photo of his 14-year-old daughter clutching a Glock.

What the hell kind of country are these idiots trying to leave us? We’re going to have to figure it out ourselves because those two don’t give a rat’s ass about it. They’re ruining lives casually, brutally, and of people they don’t even know. It’s a political neutron bomb. It destroys the people and leaves the buildings standing. It destroys the Constitution but leaves the institutions standing, like ghost towns in marble, lonely winds between the pillars.

Mr. McGregor, who had publicly praised his new employees for their hard work and willingness to learn, became a target. A flood of threats was directed not only at him, but his family and his business. They came by the hundreds — phone calls, emails and letters from white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other people they had never met. “The owner of McGregor Metal can take a bullet to the skull and that would be 100 percent justified,” said one message left on the company voice mail. “Why are you importing Third World savages who eat animals and giving them jobs over United States citizens?” another asked.

Also, note to Nicholas Kristof, also of The New York Times—no, I don’t have to understand these people. I don’t have to take their “concerns” seriously.

It has also seemed to me morally offensive, particularly when well-educated and successful elites are scorning disadvantaged, working-class Americans who have been left behind economically and socially and in many cases are dying young. They deserve empathy, not insults. By all means denounce Trump, but don’t stereotype and belittle the nearly half of Americans who have sided with him.

“Stack all 20,000 Haitians inside Jamie McGregor’s factory at once and force him to praise the benefits of foreign labor while being crushed to death by Black bodies themselves being crushed to death,” another said.

To hell with that, Nick, and to hell with you along the way. I will “demean” and “belittle” the people who threaten the lives of McGregor and his family. I will “demean” and “belittle” the people who believe that Haitian immigrants are serving up Rover au poivre, who believe in the vicious lies they are spoonfed and then act on it. I will “demean” and “belittle” them because this isn’t about educated and uneducated. It isn’t about elites and “working class Americans.” This is about meanness and not. This is about cruelty and not. The people making the McGregors’ lives unlivable because something in them wants to do it, loves to do it, lives only to do it. I will “demean” and “belittle” these people because I can’t arrest them.

F.B.I. agents showed up at McGregor Metal out of the blue on Sept. 12. They warned him that they had determined that some of the threats on social media were credible and that he must take precautions. They advised locking the lobby doors at McGregor Metal along with other safety protocols. Security experts also sat the family down. Vary your driving routes to work, school and other places, they advised. Don gloves and use tongs when handling and opening mail. Keep the blinds drawn at your house. The family was also advised to scrub their digital footprints, install cameras, motion sensors and alarms, and start parking rear-first in the garage, keeping the car in drive until the door is all the way down.

[McGregor] said he had always supported people’s right to own firearms. But “I’m not a gun person,” he said, breathing deeply. “I do not like guns. I never liked guns.”

He felt heartbroken when he had to pull his daughter out of school for shooting lessons. “It was a complete loss of innocence,” he said. As the family tried to adjust to their new reality, ominous posters of Mr. McGregor popped up near his plants, outside a grocery store and on poles. They featured quotes from Mr. McGregor praising his immigrant workers, and the word “traitor” scrawled on his forehead in red capital letters.

Jesus, these really are the mole people.

When JD Vance gets up to debate Tim Walz on Tuesday night, the first question should be—what in the hell country are you two trying to leave us? I will guarantee you that his answer will be a lie.