Making America Feel Good Again

Our white supremacist President Donald Trump calls Baltimore a rat-infested city because he doesn’t like that Baltimore’s representative in Congress continues to investigate him. And, oh yes, that man — Rep. Elijah Cummings — happens to be a black man. It’s not any stretch to believe that the real rat-infested place right now is the White House, and that it will be just fine once the rat leaves office there.

And we got to hear a defense of Trump’s latest racist remarks from his toady chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, who comes from South Carolina. While asserting that Trump’s allegations were true, Mick failed to account for the district in South Carolina he once represented for six years. His hometown, for instance is Lancaster, which is a black majority town where one-fifth of the residents live below the poverty line, where there are acres of sub-standard housing, and where if portions are not rat-infested at least rats are quite familiar with the territory.

Now, does that make Lancaster truly a rat-infested town? No it doesn’t, not at all, and no more so than Baltimore deserves the same label. There are ugly, dirty places in every town no matter who represents those places in Congress or anywhere else. (except in Trump’s hotels, where cleanliness papers over the bigotry of their namesake). There are a lot of dirty towns in states Trump won in 2016. And has he done anything to help them? Well, he does sell those folks hats that call for making America great again. That must make everyone feel really good.