Politico reports:

In this city thrust unwillingly into the white hot center of Donald Trump’s immigration wars, conspiratorial fervor lept from internet memes into the humdrum tasks of everyday life. Just since Tuesday, bomb threats shuttered city hall, closed a middle school and forced the evacuation of two elementary schools. Even the city’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the Ohio License Bureau closed Thursday.

As its own senator and the former president trafficked baseless claims that immigrants in this blue-collar swath of Ohio have been abducting and eating pets — something the state’s GOP governor on Sunday called “garbage that was not true” — the city found itself turned upside down.

Many residents here had voted for Trump twice: In 2020, he won Clark County with more than 60 percent of the vote. But now, even some Trump-backing Republicans are expressing frustration with the former president, who elevated the hoax in his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday and has repeated it in days since.

By the end of a long week that had seen his city broadsided by the leader of his own party, the mayor, Rob Rue, had had enough.

“Any political leader that takes the national stage and has the national spotlight needs to understand the gravity of the words that they have for cities like ours, and what they say impacts our city,” Rue, who said he was tired and angry, told POLITICO. “And we’ve had bomb threats the last two days. We’ve had personal threats the last two days, and it’s increasing, because the national stage is swirling this up. Springfield, Ohio, is caught in a political vortex, and it is a bit out of control. We are a wonderful city — a beautiful town. And for what it’s worth, your pets are safe in Springfield, Ohio.”

Asked whether he is going to vote for Trump, the 54-year-old mayor said, “I’m just probably not going to answer that question.” He said he is deeply “frustrated” with Trump’s remarks and how Springfield has become collateral damage.

“We have a big-hearted community, and we’re being smeared in a way we don’t deserve,” Rue said.

For Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the amplification of the baseless claims about migrants eating pets represented a guttural appeal to the base on an issue that is politically favorable for the former president. But even some Republicans have warned that peddling anti-immigrant conspiracy theories would serve as a distraction from a more coherent message on immigration. And in Springfield, it also showed the damage Trump’s rhetoric can inflict on even his own supporters. [Continue reading…]