The parents of a Springfield, Ohio boy whose death last year became fodder for the anti-immigrant right told national Republican politicians on Tuesday to stop abusing their son’s memory.
“This needs to stop now,” Nathan Clark, the father of Aiden Clark, said at a Springfield city commission meeting on Tuesday.
Clark called Donald Trump, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), and other GOP politicians, including Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno and Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) “morally bankrupt” for using his son as a “political tool.”
“I wish that my son, Aiden Clark, was killed by a 60-year old white man,” Clark said. ” I bet you never thought anyone would ever say something so blunt. But if that guy killed my 11-year old son, the incessant group of hate-spewing people would leave us alone.”
The national right-wing media machine set its sights on Springfield, Ohio this week. Apart from being located in a state with a competitive Senate race, Springfield’s recent history presents a narrative useful to the right: the town has, by its own estimates, seen around 20,000 Haitian immigrant arrive since 2020; the Census last year recorded its population as around 56,000.
Tensions between immigrants and longtime residents began to spike last year after a Haitian immigrant driver sideswiped a school bus. The bus crashed, killing Aiden Clark. The driver was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
The combination of the significant, non-white immigrant population and the death of a child in an accident involving an immigrant set off right-wing politicians.
Vance mentioned Springfield during a speech at the National Conservatism Conference in July. This week, he tweeted a false rumor that Haitians in the town had “abducted and eaten” house pets. On Tuesday, Vance conceded that that may be incorrect, while using Clarks’ death to say that Haitians in Springfield had already committed a far more heinous offense.
“Do you know what’s confirmed? That a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant who had no right to be here,” Vance wrote.
Nathan Clark, Aiden’s father, singled out Vance among other politicians for having “spoken my son’s name and used his death for political gain.”
“I will listen to them one more time to hear their apologies to clear the air,” Clark said. “My son Aiden Clark was not murdered, he was accidentally killed by an immigrant from Haiti. This tragedy is felt all over this community, the state and even the nation but don’t spin this towards hate.”
Vance’s intervention brought maximum public attention to the Clarks, though various right-wing, anti-immigrant groups have used Aiden’s death over the past year for their purposes. Stephen Miller posted a Breitbart article about the case in August 2023; the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank, included Clark’s name in a list of “senseless murders committed by illegals.”
But it wasn’t until the right-wing internet seized on Springfield last week — a fixation Vance elevated — that the Clarks faced the full breadth of right-wing
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) asked whether Harris would “apologize” to Clark’s family at the debate. The Center for Renewing America, a think tank run by an influential former Trump OMB chief, blamed Clark’s death on the “Biden Administration’s catch-and-release policy.”
The Trump campaign posted on X about Clark’s death on Monday.
Hours after Clark’s remarks, Trump name-checked Springfield, saying “They’re taking over the towns. They’re taking over buildings. They’re going in violently. These are the people that she and Biden led into our country, and they’re destroying our country. They’re dangerous. They’re at the highest level of criminality.”
Clark demanded at the meeting that people stop using his son’s death “for any political purpose.”
“They can vomit all the hate they want about illegal immigrants, the border crisis, and even untrue claims about fluffy pets being ravaged and eaten by community members, ” Clark said. “However, they are not allowed or have they ever been allowed to mention Aiden Clark from Springfield, Ohio.”
Clark wasn’t the only Springfield resident who had been featured in the right-wing media frenzy over the town to express revulsion at what’s taken place.
Noelle Bales spoke at a meeting in August, saying that she and her husband were considering moving from the area while complaining about “men that cannot speak English” throwing “mattresses” into her front yard.
The remarks received national attention. The Daily Mail did a story about it, while online influencers and former Trump officials like Sebastian Gorka boosted the clip of Bales speaking to a national audience.
But at the Tuesday city commission meeting, Bales sounded regretful.
“I did not mean to bring any ill will to my city,” Bales said, before adding: “And about the ducks and the cats — I’m the crazy cat lady in my town and I’m not missing any. Everybody is present and accounted for. And if they were coming out of our park with geese or ducks I would be one of the first people to see it. I’m telling you, it’s not happening.”
This poor family. To lose a child is the worst tragedy. Twisting it into a hateful, political meme is horrific.
My heartfelt sorrow for his loss, as a dad I can’t imagine his sadness and anger at these people.
On a more cynical note, does he think he can really appeal to the better nature of the MAGA types? Has the poor man been in a coma for the last 8 years? There are subway rats that have more character than JD Vance or Trump.
Had you been told yesterday morning that Trump and Vance would be talking about pets being eaten, and that Trump would bring this up in the debate, you’d have laughed out loud and spit your coffee. The Trump/Vance campaign has now officially jumped the cats, cat ladies and dogs in addition to the sharks.
They’ve gone full Grandpa Simpson, lol.
Organized Money keeps trying to co-opt and exploit the things that belong to its victims, and the victims aren’t having it any more.
None of this would be possible without Fox News.