In “Always Be My Maybe,” a romantic comedy that was released on Netflix in May, Marcus Kim, the Korean-American male protagonist, is the front man for a hip-hop band called “Hello Peril.” No one in the movie explains the name, but it seems obvious that the intent is to make fun of “Yellow Peril,” a phrase racists once employed to make others afraid of an Asian takeover.

One might have believed that we were past the “Yellow Peril” era of American history, past the point where we talked about Asian populations as if they were out to harm and subsume everybody else. But a flyer disseminated by Ohioans who want the state’s nuclear plants to be bailed out claims that voters who sign a petition opposing the bail-out are surrendering their sovereignty to the Chinese.

“DON’T GIVE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION TO THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT,” the mailer screams in all-capital letters. “DON’T SIGN THEIR PETITION allowing China control over Ohio!” And then, just in case you didn’t get it the first two times, Ohioans for Energy Security, the group responsible for this bigoted nonsense, go to the “Yellow Peril” well once more, imploring voters to “Keep Ohio’s power grid out of the hands of the Chinese Government.”

The flyer doesn’t just make China our enemy. It makes people who are exercising their freedom to express a political opinion our enemies, too. Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts has until Oct. 21 to get enough signatures on a petition to put a repeal of the bailout on the ballot. The group’s members have every right to ask other Ohioans to express their opposition to HB6 by affixing their name to a petition. A petition drive is one of the purest examples of democracy there is.

But Ohioans for Energy Security would have us believe that the people gathering those signatures are akin to terrorists. You know how when we’re at the airport we’ve been told to say something if we see something? Well, Ohioans for Energy Security suggests that we say something whenever we see anybody gathering signatures to put a repeal of HB6 on the 2020 ballot.

A mailer from Ohioans For Energy Security, the main group opposing a proposed referendum to overturn the state's new nuclear power plant bailout law, warns voters not to sign referendum petitions. "Don't give your personal information to the Chinese government," the mailer says, a thin claim based on the fact that one of the referendum backers obtained loans from a Chinese government-run bank to open natural gas power plants.

We are told to report the people gathering petitions to a hotline owned by the people who want the nuclear plants to be rescued. Who are they to be receiving reports? And who are they to be suggesting that there is something nefarious about a petition drive?

The petition drive shouldn’t worry us, but the dishonest and xenophobic campaign to make it fail certainly should.

But the campaign’s awfulness isn’t confined to dishonesty and xenophobia. There’s a heaping helping of hypocrisy in it, too. Ohioans for Energy Security claims that it’s within bounds to say that China will have access to all the personal information of the petition’s signatories and have control over Ohio because the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China is one of the banks that has provided financing for multiple new gas projects developed by Clean Energy Future, a company that opposes the bail-out of the nuclear plants. But the same Chinese bank has committed millions of dollars to FirstEnergyCorp., the parent company of FirstEnergy Solutions, which would be bailed out by HB6.

If it’s OK that the nuclear plant receive money from Chinese lenders, then it ought to be OK that gas-powered plants do, too. It can’t be true that Chinese involvement is worrisome for one kind of power plant, but no big deal for another kind.

Ohioans for Energy Security probably would have had to try a different scare tactic if President Donald Trump hadn’t spent so much time whipping up resentment against the Chinese. China has been spending big money around the world for a long time now, but Americans haven’t been inclined to think of that country as our enemy.

But Trump started a trade war with China. And, as should be expected, China retaliated. Rather than admit that putting tariffs on Chinese imports was a bad idea, Trump has chosen instead to cast them as an enemy. It’s not a coincidence that it’s at this moment that Ohioans for Energy Security are pushing flyers that seek to exploit newly emergent feelings of resentment toward the Chinese.

The mailer from Ohioans for Energy Security purports to be looking out for America and American interests, but what is more American than giving the people a say in how their tax dollars are spent? What’s more American than people who feel passionately about an issue, walking the streets and knocking on doors in the attempt to persuade other people to feel the same?

That’s the irony in the bail-out supporters’ mailer. By suggesting that their political opponents ought to be reported for their political activity, they’re acting like the repressive government they’re pushing us to fear.

If we accept the group’s position that it’s OK to report our political adversaries, then all is already lost. There’d be no need for any foreign power to control us.

Jarvis DeBerry is a columnist at cleveland.com and a member of the editorial board. Reach him at jdeberry@cleveland.com or on Twitter at @jarvisdeberry.