Sadly, that is not the title of an upcoming episode of The Simpsons. Instead, it is how the citizens of an Ohio town are now feeling, due to the stochastic terrorism coming from the very top of the Republican presidential ticket. People in Springfield are scared because these nationally-known politicians are lying about them, demonizing them, scapegoating them, and dehumanizing them. This is a perfect recipe for some hotheaded deranged individual to commit a random act of violence against them, which is precisely why they are so scared right now.

I should pause here for a definition of terms. "Stochastic terrorism" may not be familiar to everyone, so I include both the definition from Dictionary.com (complete with usage example):

stochastic terrorism

the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted:

The lone-wolf attack was apparently influenced by the rhetoric of stochastic terrorism.

...and the definition from Wikipedia, for good measure:

Stochastic terrorism is political violence that has been instigated by hostile public rhetoric that is directed at a group or an individual. Unlike incitement to terrorism, stochastic terrorism is accomplished by using indirect, vague, or coded language that allows the instigator to plausibly disclaim responsibility for the resulting violence. A key element is the use of social media and other distributed forms of communications where the person who carries out the violence has no direct connection to the users of violent rhetoric.

Sound familiar? It should. It is part and parcel of Donald Trump's propensity for what might be called "mob-boss talk," or the ability to order your minions to do bad things while still retaining the ability to argue in court that that wasn't what you really meant when you said that to them.

I should also admit here my own personal connection to Springfield, Ohio (which will also fully date me). I went to college in a very small town in Ohio which was a relatively short drive away from Springfield. Our college town was so dinky it didn't have much in the way of stores, so if you needed anything more than what was on offer you had to find someone with a car and convince them to drive you to Springfield, to buy what you needed. Mostly, for me, this meant new records and (the brand-new thing on the market) CDs. You couldn't buy new albums in our college town, so I made the trek to Springfield whenever I had some spare money (which wasn't all that often) and whenever I could talk someone with a car into making the trip. I say this dates me, because of the puzzlement I can imagine on younger readers' faces as they wonder: "Well why didn't you just buy it online and have it delivered to you?" Well... this was the 1980s, when such services (not to mention "the internet") didn't actually exist.

Springfield (or, at least, its record stores) was about as normal and nondescript as can be imagined. It was (four decades ago) just another one of those places in the Midwest right off the Interstate highway that fell somewhere between "large town" and "small city." There are lots of these places, as anyone who has driven across Ohio can attest to. If you needed something really big you had to go all the way to Dayton, but for most things we just made the trip to what might be called the quintessential average American Midwestern town.

And now it is hunkered down in a siege mentality, which is absolutely disgraceful and outrageous. The Proud Boys marched their hatred through town recently, and there have been dozens of bomb threats to various places in Springfield, including elementary schools. That is terrorism, folks, plain and simple.

What is equally shocking is that every single politician everywhere isn't forcefully denouncing this terrorism. Donald Trump was directly asked about the bomb threats recently, and he couldn't even bring himself to condemn bomb threats. Against an elementary school. That alone should disqualify him from consideration for any public office anywhere, but sadly it does not.

Political violence (or the threat thereof) used to be universally condemned by American politicians, no matter their party. But Republicans can't bring themselves to do this anymore, because the unquestioned leader of their party is the one responsible for fanning the flames and spreading the lies. Condemning bomb threats against small children might somehow be seen as being disloyal to their Dear Leader, so they stay quiet in a very cowardly way. That is absolutely disgraceful, but it is where the Republican Party now finds itself.

There's another thing going on here (beyond Trump and JD Vance's stochastic terrorism) that is worth mentioning as well. Pre-Trump, most Republicans piously proclaimed that they were only interested in stopping immigrants who were here illegally, while at the same time professing their support for immigrants who came here legally. Trump even occasionally mouths this platitude as well, but he obviously doesn't believe it. To him, all immigrants are bad and should be removed from this country, period. This leaks out every so often, but it's patently obvious in the way he has -- from his very first entry into politics -- demonized immigrants and stoked xenophobia among his supporters. Most of the immigrants in Springfield that now feel they are under siege are here legally. But Trump doesn't care about this distinction one whit.

Springfield is now an absolute tinderbox, and both Trump and Vance are gleefully pouring gasoline on it in the hopes that someone out there might just strike a match to it all. Anyone with any shred of human decency is worried about what could happen, and hoping that no nutjob starts shooting people at random (or even worse).

This is political terrorism, plain and simple. There's just no other way to describe it. An American city feels like it is under siege, and for good reason. The Republican presidential and vice-presidential candidates are spreading disgusting lies about people who live there and they refuse to back down even in the face of there being absolutely no evidence for their inflammatory claims. The mayor and the state's governor are pleading for sanity to return and for Trump and Vance (and all of their ilk) to just stop lying about the situation. But as far as Trump and Vance are concerned, this is all to their benefit because it allows them to shift the media's attention to one of their favorite political issues, immigration. So there's really no incentive for them to stop doing this.

Or, at least, there won't be -- right up until some tragedy happens in Springfield that Donald Trump and JD Vance will immediately distance themselves from and deny any possible responsibility for.

Because that's how stochastic terrorism works.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant