…Most officeholders pride themselves on providing good constituent service, especially in troubled times. Vance, bizarrely, is suddenly the uncontested master of constituent disservice, to the point of putting lives at risk.

The problems he’s made lately for tens of thousands of his constituents in Springfield, Ohio — all to demagogue the immigration issue — amount to political malpractice, the likes of which we’ve never seen before as Trump is so fond of saying about almost anything. Only this time it’s true.

For weeks, Vance has singled out Springfield as the epitome of a (white) American community overrun by people of color from another country — in this case, Haitians who’ve fled their nation’s epic poverty and violence to settle legally in Ohio, welcomed by employers desperate for hard workers. Vance, who once wrote so movingly about “hillbilly” families like his own coming to Ohio from Kentucky, seeking opportunity but enduring hostility, is so intent on advancing politically that he’s now the hostile one.

And once Trump picked up Vance’s lies about Haitian immigrants stealing and eating Springfieldians’ cats, dogs, ducks and geese — broadcasting the conspiracy talk to 67 million people who watched him debate Kamala Harris on Tuesday last week — all hell broke loose for Vance’s constituents.

Despite local officials’ assurances from the start that the reports were social-media-spawned claptrap, more than 30 bomb threats closed city hall, two elementary schools, two hospitals and two universities for a time. The threats, which have continued this week, turned out to be hoaxes. But the fear and disruption in Springfield were real. By Tuesday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine had dispatched state troopers to Springfield schools to encourage frightened parents to send their children to class, even as he warned of hate groups descending on Springfield. “It makes me sad that we have to get to this point,” one mom told the local paper.

Indeed. But her senator wasn’t sad, just mad — that he’s getting bad press. Consider this snippy, selfish tweet from Vance on Tuesday: “I’m still waiting on a correction and apology from the left wing journalists. They lied about these bomb threats to silence us. Why? Because they don’t want to talk about Kamala Harris’s border policies making housing unaffordable for American citizens.”

Apology? Reporters didn’t lie; there were bomb threats. Those trying to silence Vance’s fear-mongering aren’t journalists but Springfield’s police chief, school superintendent, Republican mayor and governor. Springfield Mayor Rob Rue has repeatedly implored Vance and Trump to stop: “All these federal politicians that have negatively spun our city, they need to know they’re hurting our city, and it was their words that did it.”

And “left wing journalists” aren’t the only ones checking Vance’s falsehoods. Conservative commentator Kevin D. Williamson this week had the best take in a Dispatch article subtitled “A pretty long story about a thing that didn’t happen”: “You can send little J.D. to Yale to make him polished, you can send him to Silicon Valley to make him rich, and you can send him to the Senate to make him powerful, but you cannot stop him from being what it is he apparently wants to be: Cleetus the Gap-Toothed Twitter Troll.”

Source: Opinion: JD Vance to Springfield, Ohio: You’re expendable – Los Angeles Times