The first time many Americans heard about Springfield, Ohio, came during the September 2024 presidential debate when Donald Trump falsely claimed that Haitian immigrants in the city were eating other residents’ cats and dogs.

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What has gone mostly overlooked is the effect these racist lies have had on energizing Ohio’s nearly 50 white extremist groups.

Members of the white supremacist group Blood Tribe marched through Springfield on Aug. 10, 2024, with with swastikas on their signs.

Since then, members of the Ku Klux Klan and the right-wing extremist group Proud Boys have each marched in separate demonstrations through Springfield.

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[Researchers] have found that the rapidly changing social conditions in Ohio have played a significant role in the growth of extremism.

Between 1990 and 2019, for instance, manufacturing jobs shrank from 21.7% of all employment in the state to 12.5%, a loss of nearly 360,000 jobs. As a result, income disparities between the professional and working classes have widened – as has the heightened sense among some alienated white men that white conservatives are the real victims of bias in a society growing more racially and culturally diverse.

For many of these alienated men, particularly those in rural areas that lack significant numbers of Black and Hispanic residents, extremist ideologies offer easy answers to complex questions that involve their sense of disenfranchisement

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Though the emergence of white extremist groups goes far beyond the borders of Ohio, [researchers] have found that community-based, educational initiatives are effective in understanding and ultimately eradicating the root causes of racial and ethnic hatred on the local level.

[…] Community engagement that emphasizes dialogue and understanding across different racial groups is crucial for demonstrating the dangers of intolerance – and the benefits of diversity.