'Pure contempt': Analyst hits Trump campaign for 'spraying mace' in hurt community's eyes

The MAGA movement's inability to help small town America is on full display in Springfield, beset by bomb threats over fake stories involving pets being eaten, according to a new political analysis.

The Ohio town's predicament represents the future support Americans should expect if former President Donald Trump and running mate Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) gain the White House in 2025, writer David A. Graham argued in the Atlantic Monday.

"Springfield, Ohio, is just the sort of beleaguered heartland manufacturing town that Donald Trump and J. D. Vance say the MAGA movement wants to help," Graham wrote Monday.

"Instead, the Republican ticket has chosen to make life miserable for the town and its residents for the sake of political gain."

Trump and Vance for more than a week have been spreading false information that Haitian immigrants have been eating pets as a means of targeting Biden Administration policy they blame on Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.

Vance went so far this weekend as to admit he created the stories — then argued it served a greater good by focusing media attention on the problem of immigration.

ALSO READ: 'I want Vance to apologize': We went to Springfield and found community hurt — and divided

Graham appears to have no patience for this claim which he first lambasts — then issues to a grim fact check.

"To lie for a political purpose — and then to admit to it — is to practice a politics so dishonest and so manipulative, it demonstrates pure contempt for the American public," Graham wrote.

"Ever since Vance started spotlighting the claims last week, and Trump repeated them during the presidential debate, life in the city has been severely disrupted."

In the week since Vance platformed the false claim, violent threats have forced the evacuation of multiple schools and its town hall and the cancellation of a beloved cultural festival slated for later this month.

Despite such reports, Trump has declined to denounce bomb threats targeting Springfield students and municipal workers and Vance argues they should simply be ignored, reports show.

In his column, Graham contrasted the Trump campaign's impact on Springfield with that of the Haitian immigrants, invited to and working legally in Springfield, that the two men condemn.

"By nearly every local account, the influx of Haitians and other immigrants has been a godsend for the local economy," Graham wrote. "New manufacturers have arrived, offering good-paying jobs."

While Vance places emphasis on the problems he argues the new population of working residents have caused, Trump has directed his messaging on the promise of a solution: mass deportations from Springfield, Graham wrote.

This is why, in Graham's view, Springfield presents Trump with a growing political problem.

"The former president says he will kick immigrants out of the country and revitalize manufacturing," Graham wrote. "But towns like Springfield show that immigration and revitalized manufacturing often travel hand in hand. Trump has no answer for that.

"It is as though the city of Springfield asked for a bandage, and the Trump campaign responded by spraying mace in its eyes and calling it first aid."