Trump's criticism of Baltimore forces Democrats and the media to defend the indefensible

Monica Showalter:

President Trump has done it again.

Just as he forced Democrats to defend the far-left 'Squad' in his unexpected ambush on Rep. Ilhan Omar and her pals, he's now forcing Democrats to own the urban shambles and filth that characterize one-party blue-city rule, putting all Democrats on their backfoot. That's what's behind his surprise Twitter assault that began with Rep. Elijah Cummings and his rat-infested Baltimore district, which pretty much came out of the blue.
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What's he doing? Forcing a new narrative as election time kicks in, making Democrats have to address the reality that they have been in power for decades in one-party blue districts and cities, and they have left those districts smoking ruins, rat-infested hellholes, "places no human being would want to live," complete with live-action shots. The video of the Baltimore resident decrying the Democratic area's neglect is absolutely deadly.

Obviously, Trump's aim is to cut deep into the black vote, by laying the blame for the decayed urban cities many are forced to live in, on Democrats and forcing them to defend that record. Blacks are Democrats' political base, and they're also the prime victims of blue-city policies as well as all the neglect inherent in them as Democrats focus on saving the earth by banning plastic straws or else offering free health care to every illegal border crosser, so it's an unusually bold attack.

How are Democrats going to defend themselves from this one? In one-party blue cities, states and districts, there's no one to blame but themselves. Trump's tactic is particularly ripe for propagation in solid-blue, shambling expensive California and already Trump is moving his attack onto Pelosi with his latest tweets.

Thus far, Democrats are fighting back by yelling 'racism.' It's a tired, weak weapon, grotesquely overused, and unlikely to rally black voters to Democrats, given the truth of Trump's tweets. What's more, it can't be employed by Pelosi, who's white. The issue and the narrative Trump is pushing out there is that all-blue cities are hellholes and they've been made hellholes because Democrats did it.
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Showalter provides evidence to support Trump's allegations.  She is right about the video which makes his point.  Bogus allegations of racism can't hide the fact that Trump is right about the conditions in Baltimore.

Seth Barron also responds to the Democrats bogus claims of racism.  "...Nothing Trump said pertained in any way to Elijah Cummings’s skin color or ethnicity, only to his failure as a legislator and political leader to do anything to improve his district...."  What the media is trying to do to protect Democrats is create a broad and expansive definition of racism that is totally bogus.

Barron adds:

In May, the New York Times Magazine ran a cover story called, “The Tragedy of Baltimore.” The story details how, in the wake of the 2015 riots—or “uprising” in the view of those who imagine the torching of a neighborhood CVS and the intentional sabotage of the firefighters’ equipment to be revolutionary actions—Baltimore went from bad to horrible: “nothing less than a failure of order and governance the likes of which few American cities have seen in years.”

By any measure of systemic urban collapse, Baltimore is, as Trump said “very dangerous & filthy.” Among the largest 30 American cities, Baltimore has the highest crime rate, and is a close second to Detroit for the highest rate of violent crime. But for murders, Baltimore is second to no other city, with more than 50 homicides per 100,000 people. That puts Charm City in the ranks of Jamaica, Venezuela, and El Salvador in terms of lethality.

Will the NY Times now disavow its own reporting?