Lies from Trump and Vance about Haitians mirror falsehoods about Somalis made in Aberdeen years ago

As JD Vance and Donald Trump poison the political atmosphere with repeated lies about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, Aberdeen’s similar experience over a decade ago comes to mind.

A beef processing plant startup attracted employees who were predominantly immigrants and refugees. Many were individuals and families escaping conflicts in Somalia.

At City Hall, I began fielding angry calls with loony concerns similar to the crazy “eating cats and dogs” lies the Trump campaign pushed this year. One caller said she heard the Somalis were butchering goats in their apartments. Made me laugh — she didn’t appreciate my condescending dismissal.

There was an internet meme with pictures supposedly showing our new residents had trashed the bathrooms at Walmart because they didn’t know how to use the toilets. 

Another Walmart-related fantasy came from a caller asking me to send the police because he heard Somali gangs were accosting people in the parking lot demanding money.

The Walmart manager told me he was spending way too much time dealing with this ignorant stuff and lots more.

Maybe the craziest thing was a rumor there was “a busload of armed Somali men on the way from Fargo.” Never did learn what that was about.

Of course there was the “black men harassing white women” narrative that always gets dusted off and re-used. 

As the Somalis went about working hard and being good neighbors, my mayor’s office phone and email fielded many, many more absurd and racially motivated calls from some really stupid and gullible people. The poison injected into our city then is exactly the same as the lies being pushed into the presidential campaign by Trump and Vance now.

It’s an appeal to the worst in us — characterizing target groups as less than human. It’s the basis of the “Make American Great Again” sentiment.

Lots of people are disappointed and full of regret that their lives didn’t turn out as well as they envisioned. To deal with that, they denigrate others, trying to convince themselves they are not so bad in comparison.  

We even had a local attorney and others organize an “America First” effort that was a thinly disguised hate campaign which included goofball speakers trying to warn us that a few hundred refugees heralded the end of our precious white culture — and the imposition of Sharia Law. Seriously, they actually said that at one of their gatherings. Some of our legislators were eager attendees.

The worst incident was when one or more of our “well regulated militia” twice fired gunshots into apartments where Somalis lived. Still don’t know who. Bizarrely, some immediately and falsely blamed the victims, saying it was rival African gangs shooting at each other. 

So what is the point of this?

Just noting the torrent of lies that our new neighbors (possibly akin to the Somali immigrants pictured above  in nearby Minnesota, members of The Somali Business Community in Minnesota, as posted in a 2015 public domain image on wikimedia commons) had to endure here in that time represented a preview of how transparently cruel and dishonest the Trump/Vance attack on Haitians is. Now we see how those predisposed to go along with the lies here in the past are so easily bamboozled again.

Mike Levsen is a former Aberdeen mayor and a regular contributor to The South Dakota Standard.