September 19, 2024 10:48 AM UTC

Trump To Bring Hateful Debunked Double-Down To Aurora

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• by: Colorado Pols

That’s the news dominating local political news headlines this morning–after weeks of escalating misinformation, allegations laden with ulterior motives, and pleas by local residents to blame the real bad actors who are not repeat not a cartel of Venezuelan gang members in control of the 400,000 souls inhabiting the city of Aurora, Colorado, former President Donald Trump, who has made a fictional portrayal of the city and promise to begin the largest mass deportation in American history in Aurora a centerpiece of recent stump speeches, will hold a campaign rally…somewhere in Aurora, presumably in an area not occupied by the aforementioned Venezuelan gangs? Is there such an area? It’s complicated, as Denver7’s Sidney Isenberg reports:

During a rally in New York Wednesday, former President Donald Trump said he will visit Aurora “in the next two weeks.”

The Republican presidential nominee has made several references to Aurora on the campaign trail, claiming a Venezuelan gang has “taken over” the city. He first referenced the Colorado city during the presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.

“We have millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums,” he said. “They’re coming in and they’re taking jobs that are occupied right now by African Americans and Hispanics and also unions… You see what’s happening with towns throughout the United States. You look at Springfield, Ohio. You look at Aurora in Colorado. They are taking over the towns. They’re taking over buildings. They’re going in violently. These are the people that [Vice President Kamala Harris] and [President Joe Biden] let into our country. And they’re destroying our country. They’re dangerous. They’re at the highest level of criminality.”

While promising to visit Aurora, Trump actually suggested that he may not escape once he sets foot there:

“I’m going to go there in the next two weeks. I’m going to Springfield and I’m going to Aurora,” Trump said. “You may never see me again. But that’s OK. I got to do what I gotta do.” [Pols emphasis]

Trump’s vow to hold a campaign rally in Aurora sets up a head-on collision between the freewheeling fiction about the state of the city that has dominated conservative news headlines for weeks and the far less dramatic truth of slumlords essentially using (and maybe planting) these wildly overheated rumors as an excuse to neglect a few rundown properties. While local police recently arrested several individuals connected to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, the threat is considered to be much smaller than homegrown gangs who were here years before. Studies consistently show that immigrants commit crimes at a much lower rate than the native-born American population, and the residents of the apartment buildings alleged to have been “taken over” insist it’s not true. Last weekend, the New York Times reported that a “crisis comms” firm working for the property managers pitched local media to write the fake takeover story.

Of course not a word of this matters to Donald Trump, who has installed the “Aurora Has Fallen” narrative into the MAGA canon of Truths to be ReTruthed without question, and has several local conservative talk-radio hosts and podcast prognosticators working overtime to “retroactively validate” the false story. Pushing back against the lies, with somewhat more consistency now after initially helping spread the misinformation, is Aurora’s Republican Mayor Mike Coffman, Gov. Jared Polis, local community groups, and hundreds of thousands of Aurora residents who can look out their front window and assure anyone who wants to know that a migrant gang cartel has not overrun their city.

In a state that Trump has no realistic chance of winning, this rally intended to double down on Trump’s outrageous lies about Aurora could do real damage to Trump’s campaign in other states if the attention he draws to Aurora helps debunk what he’s said about the city. Trump would be better off to let those inclined to believe anything he says go on believing and not invite any further scrutiny–either of the bogus “takeover” of Aurora, or J.D. Vance’s racist lies about the legal Haitian immigrant population in Springfield, Ohio that are now similarly MAGA canon.

Because in both places, the lies fall apart as soon as you set foot there.