Crying racism won’t improve Baltimore

Here we go again. Another Presidential Tweet, another “racist” controversy. Does the latest criticism of Mr. Trump have any merit? Here’s what the president said: He described the Baltimore district of Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings as “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess … If the congressman spent more time in his district, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place … where no human being would want to live.”

Only two questions need to be asked: 1) Is it true? And 2) Because the congressman is black, and represents a minority-dominated district, is it “racist?”

Here are the facts (as cited by Buzzfeed News):

• According to the Department of Public Health, there are about 22,000 intravenous drug users in the city, or about 470 per square mile. Most of those people are using heroin and prescription opioids, but the use of methamphetamines is on the rise, according to a health department spokesperson.

• Complaints related to drug use have skyrocketed. Between 2009 and 2017, the number of reports of needles and other medical waste on the streets grew from 290 to 6,363 (an increase of 2,194 percent), according to the city’s database of non-emergency calls.

• Complaints about human waste on the streets also have spiked, from 5,771 in 2009, to 20,960 in 2017, a jump of 363 percent.

• And complaints about encampments of homeless people have risen from 586 in 2009 to 42,208 in 2017 – a surge of almost 7,200 percent.

Based on those staggering statistics, is it safe to say that the city is filthy? Given that the homeless population exceeds that of most small towns, addicts discard disease-ridden needles wherever they please, and public sidewalks are their bathroom of choice, the answer is a resounding “yes.”

Critics claim that because both Mr. Cummings and the majority of his constituents are black, the president’s statements referring to Baltimore as a “disgusting place” can only be construed as “racist.” But under that rationale, the president must also be “racist” against both whites and Asians.

Why? Because the city described above isn’t Baltimore, nor is it represented by a black congressman. In fact, it is none other than San Francisco — home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is white. Since her district is 44 percent white, 33 percent Asian, and only 6 percent black – and since the president criticized her district in a related tweet – Leftists, following their “logic,” must therefore also label him “racist” for that attack.

But they didn’t. Instead, they chose silence, once again demonstrating their hypocrisy by selectively choosing that which “offends” them.

Where is the outrage from the Left regarding Bernie Sanders’ take on Baltimore from just a few years ago? That’s right. During a tour of the city, Sanders stated, “Anyone who took the walk that we took around this neighborhood would not think you were in a wealthy nation, you would think that you were in a Third World country … (it’s) a community in which half of the people don’t have jobs … in which there are hundreds of buildings that are uninhabitable … where kids are unable to go to schools that are decent.”

Mr. Trump’s criticisms hit a nerve, because they unwittingly exposed the failed policies of Democrats, who, almost without exception, have unilaterally ruled America’s big cities for decades.

It’s great that Baltimore’s “defenders” are now out in force. But so what? Their rhetoric is meaningless because it ignores the death-spiral in which the city finds itself.

Baltimore was once a manufacturing dynamo and America’s sixth-largest city, but now its population is in freefall, having plummeted to a 100-year low. And it is ranked as one of America’s “least livable cities,” despite receiving $1.8 billion in federal stimulus money during the Obama Administration.

And so it is with most cities – a few nice spots, but the rest to be avoided at all costs. The murder rate, violence, poverty, homelessness and drug problems speak for themselves. But quite frankly, most city leaders are too damn arrogant – and blind – to see why their towns are in demise, so the odds of anything changing are nil.

For places like “Charm City,” it’s only a matter of time before we see the billboard: “Will the last person leaving Baltimore – please turn out the lights?”