Is Charleroi the Next Springfield? It Will Be if Trump Keeps Lying.

In this episode of the Keystone Reckoning Podcast, Jesse White draws alarming comparisons between the fear-driven narrative unfolding in Charleroi, PA, and the discredited claims in Springfield, OH, where Trump and J.D. Vance falsely accused Haitian immigrants of eating pets. Jesse highlights how these lies are sowing division and stoking hate, while urging listeners to take action by registering voters and pushing back against MAGA’s dangerous rhetoric. With the election fast approaching, this episode is a timely reminder of what’s at stake for Pennsylvania and the nation.

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Chapters

• 0:31 Small Town Racism in the Media
• 10:39 Rampant Right-Wing Fearmongering and Xenophobia

Transcript

Jesse White: 0:31

They say, talk about what you know. Well, this is one of those rare occasions where I can say that I actually know something. Hi and welcome to the Keystone Reckoning podcast for September 18th 2024. I'm your host, jesse White, so I know it's been a while, but I don't know about you. But I've got this sense of frustration and fury and existential dread. This sense of frustration and fury and existential dread, and I think I've basically taken my wife to the limit as to what she's willing to listen to over breakfast every morning.

Jesse White: 1:02

So I decided I needed a positive way to talk about what I'm feeling and seeing and hopefully we can use this as a way to kind of vent a little bit and kind of get through these next 49 days together and whatever shenanigans come afterwards. Because I could tell you I've been in politics for a long time, 46 years old. I've been doing this since I was 18. And I can say without question and those of you that are familiar with me know I've been in some, and those of you that are familiar with me know I've been in some sticky, interesting situations in my time in politics. I've never felt more and I thought about if there's another word to describe it and there really isn't of what I'm seeing, because not only have we watched Donald Trump and JD Vance just go to places that are so beyond the pale of what anybody would have ever considered the norms in American politics I mean, we're way, way, way past it but the fact that people are are buying into it or looking the other way or finding ways to rationalize it, and that's a discussion we're going to have moving forward. But today I want to talk about an extension of what happened in Springfield at the debate, because to me this one hits a lot closer to home and it's just kind of developing now, and that has to do with what's happening in the town of Charleroi in Washington County, pennsylvania, and to give you a little context, I actually know Charleroi.

Jesse White: 2:47

When I was in high school I, shockingly, was not an athlete, I didn't play any sports, but I was in the gifted program and one of the things we did we competed in what they called academic league or, as we affectionately called it, geek league, and this was way before it was cool to be a geek or a nerd, but the way it worked is we would go to a school maybe once or twice a month and we'd have academic competition and I will say, to toot my own horn a little bit, I wasn't all-star, but we'd go there and we'd have these competitions and then we'd have lunch afterwards somewhere nearby, which you know so, like Pizza Hut, mcdonald's you know the really healthy places for high schoolers to eat Well, that was Charleroi. Charleroi either middle school or high school. So I remember going to Charlotte Roy at a young age. I lived like maybe 20 minutes away, a little bit further south in Washington County. So I knew Charlotte Roy, went to college in Washington County, worked for newspapers in Washington County and really got to know Washington County in a real tangible way. Then, when I was elected to the state legislature, a big chunk of my district was Washington County in a real tangible way. Then, when I was elected to the state legislature, a big chunk of my district was Washington County. Now I didn't have Charleroi, but I had a lot of the areas around it and one of the things that we did was we got the gaming money from when the Meadows Casino opened. We were in kind of a unique position in the county because we were smaller but had a big casino. The point is we had about eight or nine or $10 million every year to spend on community projects. I was on the board that oversaw and decided and determined where that money went and we had presentations and everybody came in and wanted something out of it and a lot of it was community revitalization and things like that and I pushed very hard to keep it out of just the big developers, mainly because of communities like charleroi they are.

Jesse White: 4:46

For those of you that don't know, charleroi is kind of the post rust belt boom era little town. It's not a city, it's a borough and there are a lot of challenges there because there were, you know, a lot of the. You know there are men on a hill river, there's a lot of. There was a lot of the. You know the steel coal industry that you know that was, you know, went through there. Uh, then there was a glass plant that had closed that cost about 300 jobs. They were good union jobs for the most part.

Jesse White: 5:21

And as they're a borough, for those of you that don't know, boroughs have unique challenges because they're landlocked, there's only so much room. It's not like they're townships where there's a lot of room, where they can bring in housing, developments and things like that Pretty much everything in a borough that can be developed, has already been developed. So you've got that problem and it's just an area that is in desperate need of revitalization. And they were trying all sorts of things. There was, you know, there were, uh, they were trying to bring like a local theater back and do anything they could to kind of spur revitalization in this community. Yeah, they were working hard, it just wasn't happening. So and I'll admit I've been out of Washington County for five years now and to which I have no regrets, and so I missed this when it happened but apparently a couple of years ago there was an influx of Haitian migrants that came into Charleroi legally that's the key word and found work, and there have been.

Jesse White: 6:22

You know, there was an interview with one of the borough council members with some right wing media source, and they were talking to him about it, and the guy, who is admittedly a Republican he's on Trump's campaign team, so to speak, he's a supporter talked about the challenges that this migration has brought, but he did it in a way that was very genuine and very honest, where he said look, there are challenges here with things like, you know, careless driving and things like that, and that got picked up and they ran with it, and I think it was the Daily Wire. I could be wrong, but I'll put it in the show notes. But there was an article right after the debate where they said oh look, here's another place where there's a migrant invasion, right. And so now you know, all eyes are turning to it. And there was a and I'll put the link to this in the show notes too.

Jesse White: 7:20

There was a story by the CBS affiliate, who I have no love for whatsoever, katie Kaye, but they did it as basically a straight news story and they interviewed three people. Two of the three people were just like straight up racist. I mean, the one guy was like I don't, you know, I don't, they're everywhere I go, they are, they're bothering us, you know. And then there was another lady and she's like well, they have their own stores, but I would never go into them. And then the third lady was a woman named nancy ellis, who I've known for a long time and I believe she was the mayor or was on council one or the other, but she's formally, I don't think she still is. But she called it as it was and she said look, these people are a bunch of racists, right, right.

Jesse White: 8:07

The problem is is that if you see what's happened in Springfield, ohio, where it's there's a whole list of all the places that have been on lockdown and bomb threats, it's like every government building all the schools, elementary schools, on lockdown and you have it's been clearly debunked that this is just not true in Springfield and it's now been debunked in Charleroi, and this is something I have to every now and again. I have to admit that someone's doing the right thing. On the Republican side it's rare, but the state senator down there, cameron Bartolotta, who I can't stand. She represents a lot of my old district of Washington County. I think she's totally sold out to the shale industry. She's a fraud. I think she's totally sold out to the shale industry. She's a fraud. I think she's a terrible public servant. It's just plain and simple. But I have to give her credit because she did go out in the paper today and say this is absolutely not true. These are legal migrants. They are here as people doing work. They're just trying to live their lives. This has been closely distorted and misrepresented and it needs to stop. And I was like where the hell did you go, girl? Okay, but it also told me it was a barometer of wow, this is how messed up this is. Is that now you've got me saying good job, kimber Bartolotta, which I don't know if I've ever said out loud or privately, and the reason being you look at what's happening in Springfield, it's terrifying, it's absolutely terrifying.

Jesse White: 9:41

And when, given the opportunity to walk it back, you've got JD Vance going on the Sunday shows saying they're creating stories. I mean, I watched that live. I could not believe what he said. You know, he said if I have to create, if we have to create stories, that's what we're going to do. And he was being interviewed by Dana Bash on CNN and it was like wait a minute. Even she kind of went past it and then I guess her producer or somebody got in her ear and was like whoa, you need to walk that back for a minute. And she was like wait a minute, did you just say you're creating stories? And he, like I've been a candidate, I've been a consultant, I've done all the things. I don't know of a single candidate on earth that would not have had the wherewithal to be like you know what? I'm sorry, I misspoke. That's not what I meant to say. What I meant to say was blah, blah, blah. This clown just dove right into it head first and was like he repeated it. He's like double, he's doubling, tripling down on it.

Jesse White: 10:40

And it's become so obvious to me that to everybody, right, that they are just all in on racism, the vision, throwing out people, scaring the hell out of people about anybody, quite frankly, with dark skin. We're not hearing this about Swedish immigrants and then saying we're going to get rid of them. And if you look, I've made the mistake of being more active on Twitter because I think it's important to kind of see what the other side's saying. And good God, has Elon Musk rigged that whole algorithm, because nothing but right-wing garbage, but it's only getting worse and worse and worse. And the fact that people are buying into it and are saying like, yeah, and there's, you know, the xenophobia and the racism and the fear, like people that quite frankly, need to know better, like they've gotten people that I frankly need to know better, like they've gotten people that I know are smarter than this or thought I thought were smarter than this. Literally, they're not right, they're buying into it. And it's to the point where I'm looking at this and I'm like I know this town, I know what this is. I know people that still live there.

Jesse White: 11:51

This is not how they should be portrayed, and you're seeing it happen in real time, especially given and I think this is where the pushback is coming from locally, especially given what has happened in springfield, where they realized it was totally baseless, and trump and vance and Magna are just all in on it. You know, and they don't care. They do not care. If you know and think to you know I hate to think this way, but I think to the worst case scenario, right, what's the worst thing that could possibly happen would be you know, someone actually goes beyond calling it a bomb threat and actually, like it, blows up a school. God forbid, it's just. It's as a parent. That's like the worst nightmare, right. If that were to happen, let's say you know, let's go back, let's not make it quite so gruesome, right? Let's say they found like a pipe bomb outside of a school. They found it, they diffused it, nobody got hurt. That's that's the better scenario, right? That's the let's not go the worst place.

Jesse White: 13:31

You know as well as I do that Trump's first response would be well, this is a response to the hateful rhetoric from Kamala Harris, because he did it After the second quote assassination attempt, which I'm sorry didn't happen was not really an assassination attempt. There's nothing about it that rings true, especially given that Trump had was having maybe the worst news sample really an assassination event. There's nothing about it. That rings true, um, especially given that trump had was having maybe the worst news cycle that an american political campaign has had in since the founding of the republic. He immediately doubled down on this was all kamala harris's fault.

Jesse White: 14:06

And then you're seeing the right wing trying to justify it because they're saying like, oh well, this is the uh, you know both, it's the both sides is a kind of thing, and luckily, this time around after the initial assassination, which I also have thoughts on. But you know clearly something, something without it, right, um, there was that whole. We all have to dial it down. We all have to dial it down. Now we're seeing and hearing, and this is the camp I'm firmly in. Um, no, y'all need to dial it down. We all have to dial it down. Now we're seeing and hearing, and this is the camp I'm firmly in. Um, no, y'all need to dial it down because, first of all, both shooters were republicans.

Jesse White: 14:39

Right, both shooters were, were people that couldn't be a were clearly in mental health problems. Both shooters would have not, would not have likely been able to legally possess the firearms they possessed if there were common sense gun control laws in place, right? So this whole well, it's Kamala Harris and the Democrats and the left's fault. It's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous, because you do not see the left or anybody with common sense, right, this isn't really a right or left thing. This is like a sane, insane thing. You don't see anybody calling for political violence on the left. You just don't, whereas on the right it's so prevalent. I mean, then Elon Musk comes out and calls for the assassination of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Hey, how much more brazen do you need to be?

Jesse White: 15:34

Right, this is not an us problem, this is a them problem. Well, actually it's our problem, but this is a their fault thing and we cannot, 49 days after an election, let them off the hook on this. There's just no way, because they are shameless, any sort of attempt at civility as viewed as weakness, and you know when we talk about ending them and and you know and making them go away, whatever, everybody knows what we're talking. We're talking about politically right, like and yes, we should all choose our words carefully, no doubt about it. But the point is, you, it's not even a comparison, right? It's just not a comparison. It's not apples to oranges, it's apples and Goodyear blips, right? It's just not the same. And to pretend that it is is basically letting them off the hook, especially because they just won't stop. They just keep going, going and going.

Jesse White: 16:38

And so, for those reasons, and looking at as we get further along and the polls are coming out and I don't I I'll do a whole other episode about polling and why I think we need to basically ignore the polls this time out um, and this is someone who's has done polling. I've been a pollster, I know how to read these things, I know how to read these things, I know how to run these things. As they get more and more desperate, it's only going to get worse, you know, and that's. I talked earlier about frustration and existential dread. To me, the existential dread is coming not only from where we are and this horrible place that we are, and it's just horrible. I mean, if you, the more I think about it, just the worse I feel, um, but where it's going to end up.

Jesse White: 17:33

And this one with charleroi. I saw it online a couple of days ago and I thought, dear god, please don't let this, don't let this get in traction, don't let this go on you. And, of course, now it is, and I commend the people on the ground for pushing back the you know the, the, the local officials, for being responsible. Even the guy that gave the uh you know who, who was on Trump's campaign team. He said I did not know I was being recorded. That he said for sure, and he kind of paraphrased like this was not what I meant, you know. He said look, there are challenges. Well, you know what that's. Anytime you're, you know, I've been a local elected official, I was a township supervisor. There are always challenges, you know, and they talk about, for example, oh, crime is now out of control and they're making the taxpayers pay for additional police and it's raising your taxes.

Jesse White: 18:27

What they leave out is Charleroi has a regional police department because so many of the municipalities down there are cash-strapped right. They have a municipal, they have a shared regional police department and I believe the budgeted increase because they're about to pass their budget. I think it was something like $73,500. I could be wrong on the exact amount, but that was the ballpark of what it is. Anybody that's ever done municipal budgeting knows that, for police, $73,500 doesn't even get you. It might get you one police officer in terms of salary, benefits, equipment, you know. It's probably even more than that if I looked it up.

Jesse White: 19:06

So they're trying to make it sound like there's this mass. You know that they have to put tanks on the streets right to deal with the Haitian migrants that are overrunning the town. You're talking about the equivalent of probably less than one uniformed police officer or one vehicle, right, like one police car or a regional police department that serves multiple communities that are spread out, you know, around the borough of charleroi. They have to cover some ground because the only other alternative is, if you don't have the local police, then the state police have to cover it and obviously the coverage really, you know, goes downhill. So they're being responsible by providing local police coverage and the budget increase I am certain would be basically the same whether the there is there were Haitian migrants there or not, because, by the way, they didn't show up yesterday. They've been there for two or three years now.

Jesse White: 20:07

Right, they're making it sound like there were, like a bunch of rickety boats that floated up the Mon River and everybody jumped off and basically took over the town. That is not what happened by any stretch of the imagination. That is not what happened by any stretch of the imagination. This is a situation where these folks came here. They were doing all the right things, they are legal, there are you know? I mean, look, if you look at a couple thousand people, are you going to find a bad actor here or there? Sure, but I'd be willing to bet that if you took the crime in Charleroi and you stacked it proportionally by the Haitian migrants versus everybody else, I think it's a pretty clear bet where the higher crime rate would lie. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am.

Jesse White: 20:56

And so you've got this situation where it's being grossly misrepresented and and they're they're trying to make something out of nothing and the the consequences of this go far beyond political. These are lifetime consequences for these people. These people are going to the local elected officials the migrants. People are going to the local elected officials the migrants. They are going to be looking over their shoulders For the rest of their lives Because you have put a spotlight on them. These people get doxxed. Their information gets out there. They didn't ask for this, they didn't want this and they sure as hell did not expect this, the division that is probably already taking place in this community, given the incredibly racist comments made by two of the residents and you really do have to watch them because it was the most insane thing ever. I told a friend, you know, I actually did have Washington County racism on my 2024 bingo card for the election. I told a friend, you know, I actually did have Washington County racism on my 2024 bingo card for the election. I'm honestly kind of surprised it took this long you know that's a story for another day and again, not upset to be out of there.

Jesse White: 22:11

But this is real. There are real life consequences. The children that have come to this country for a better life, like everybody's children did at some point, the parents that brought their kids here for a better life, which almost everybody did at some point they are now going to have to deal with this, explain it these kids who have these racist parents, these kids who have these racist parents and clearly, if they're willing to say it on television, I'm sure they're willing to say it at the dinner table. And what is going to be said in these schools. What is going to be said to these kids, what is going to happen in the cafeteria and the playground and in the classroom is real, and those are seeds that are being planted now that will bear fruit for years and years to come, and that fruit is going to be rotten, and Trump and Vance and his people do not give a damn. The cruelty is the point. We're seeing it unfold in real time. So, yeah, I'm angry, yeah, I'm frustrated, yes, I have a sense of dread because I can see what's coming and it's terrifying. There's no way to sugarcoat it.

Jesse White: 23:36

By the way, today is National Voter Registration Day, although I would assume, if you're listening to this podcast, you're already voting. Here's a challenge Go find three people that you don't think are registered to vote and ask them and if they are not registered, sit down with them, go to voteorg and walk them through the process. It is not illegal to help somebody register. You can't harvest ballots for mail-in voting. You can help them register. Do it. Three people, three people. That's all it takes. If everybody does their part, we can actually turn the tide and make this happen and put an end to this absolute insanity. Thank you for listening. We're going to do this again tomorrow. We're going to do this every day until the election and, I'm sure, for quite a bit afterwards as we deal with what comes next. I'm Jesse White. Thank you and have a great day.