Better to Have a Few Rats Than to Be One
By Editorial Board, The Baltimore Sun
29 July 19
In case anyone missed it, the president of the United States had some choice
words to describe Maryland's 7th congressional district on Saturday morning.
Here are the key phrases: "no human being would want to live there," it is a
"very dangerous & filthy place," "Worst in the USA" and, our personal
favorite: It is a "rat and rodent infested mess." He wasn't really speaking
of the 7th as a whole. He failed to mention Ellicott City, for example, or
Baldwin or Monkton or Prettyboy, all of which are contained in the sprawling
yet oddly-shaped district that runs from western Howard County to southern
Harford County. No, Donald Trump's wrath was directed at Baltimore and
specifically at Rep. Elijah Cummings, the 68-year-old son of a former South
Carolina sharecropper who has represented the district in the U.S. House of
Representatives since 1996.
It's not hard to see what's going on here. The congressman has been a thorn
in this president's side, and Mr. Trump sees attacking African American
members of Congress as good politics, as it both warms the cockles of the
white supremacists who love him and causes so many of the thoughtful people
who don't to scream. President Trump bad-mouthed Baltimore in order to make
a point that the border camps are "clean, efficient & well run," which, of
course, they are not - unless you are fine with all the overcrowding,
squalor, cages and deprivation to be found in what the Department of
Homeland Security's own inspector-general recently called "a ticking time
bomb."
In pointing to the 7th, the president wasn't hoping his supporters would
recognize landmarks like Johns Hopkins Hospital, perhaps the nation's
leading medical center. He wasn't conjuring images of the U.S. Social
Security Administration, where they write the checks that so many retired
and disabled Americans depend upon. It wasn't about the beauty of the Inner
Harbor or the proud history of Fort McHenry. And it surely wasn't about the
economic standing of a district where the median income is actually above
the national average. No, he was returning to an old standby of attacking an
African American lawmaker from a majority black district on the most
emotional and bigoted of arguments. It was only surprising that there wasn't
room for a few classic phrases like "you people" or "welfare queens" or
"crime-ridden ghettos" or a suggestion that the congressman "go back" to
where he came from.
This is a president who will happily debase himself at the slightest
provocation. And given Mr. Cummings' criticisms of U.S. border policy, the
various investigations he has launched as chairman of the House Oversight
Committee, his willingness to call Mr. Trump a racist for his recent attacks
on the freshmen congresswomen, and the fact that "Fox & Friends" had
recently aired a segment critical of the city, slamming Baltimore must have
been irresistible in a Pavlovian way. Fox News rang the bell, the president
salivated and his thumbs moved across his cell phone into action.
As heartening as it has been to witness public figures rise to Charm City's
defense on Saturday, from native daughter House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to
Mayor Bernard C. "Jack" Young, we would above all remind Mr. Trump that the
7th District, Baltimore included, is part of the United States that he is
supposedly governing. The White House has far more power to effect change in
this city, for good or ill, than any single member of Congress including Mr.
Cummings. If there are problems here, rodents included, they are as much his
responsibility as anyone's, perhaps more because he holds the most powerful
office in the land.
Finally, while we would not sink to name-calling in the Trumpian manner - or
ruefully point out that he failed to spell the congressman's name correctly
(it's Cummings, not Cumming) - we would tell the most dishonest man to ever
occupy the Oval Office, the mocker of war heroes, the gleeful grabber of
women's private parts, the serial bankrupter of businesses, the useful idiot
of Vladimir Putin and the guy who insisted there are "good people" among
murderous neo-Nazis that he's still not fooling most Americans into
believing he's even slightly competent in his current post. Or that he
possesses a scintilla of integrity. Better to have some vermin living in
your neighborhood than to be one.
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