"He will reap everything he sows": what does Baltimore do with Trump? | American News

TKevins was standing on the steps of a terraced house west of Baltimore, killing time on a hot Monday afternoon. Asked about Donald Trump's racist tweets about the city, they did not mince their words.

"Tell his bad to come here and give some people some work because he never had to live in a non-poverty situation," said Kevin Johnson, 26, a mechanic.

The other Kevin, 25, who survived the shooting death in 2012 and preferred not to give his family name, added: "Trump uses Twitter to try to put everyone down. If you really care, come do something. There is no rec [recreation centre] in sight. There is no pool in sight. The majority of children are probably at home playing video games. If you want to do something, install programs for young people in West Baltimore. "

Trump chose another racial stain this weekend when, unleashed by an article on Fox News, he launched more than a dozen tweets to attack Democratic MP Elijah Cummings, calling his district a black majority "disgusting" , the "worst in the United States", "Mess infested with rats and rodents" and "a dangerous and dirty place" where "no human being would want to live". He was still here Monday night, demanding that Cummings, the chairman of the House oversight committee, to investigate himself.

Attempts to divide America by race go hand in hand with attempts at division by geography. Trump has repeatedly demonized big cities with common characteristics: democratic leadership, large minority populations and few Trump voters. Baltimore is less than 45 km from the White House, but it's safe to badume that it will not hold a 'Make America Great Again' rally (a rally planned for Chicago in March 2016 was canceled when fights have bursts).

Trump said at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in 2016: "This administration has failed in US city centers. All the actions I would do, I'll ask myself: will that make it better for young Americans in Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Ferguson?

Yet Trump's story contains a curious dichotomy. On the one hand, cities are the bastions of the liberal elites who despise the "deplorable" of the center of the country. On the other hand, they are the place of poverty, criminal gangs and illegal immigrants. President Eric Trump's son told Foxity television channel Hannight on Monday: "You are taking the top 10 most dangerous cities in America and they are all controlled by the Democrats."

Anyway, Trump seems to be positioning himself as president of all Americans, but only voters lining up for hours in small towns and rural areas to attend his rallies for the baiting campaign . Despite the fact that many of them face the same problems as the city centers: lack of investment, limited means of transport, endangered main streets, opioid epidemic. Trump has already labeled White New Hampshire a "drug-infested den."

Baltimore is one of the great historic cities of the United States. Some regions thrive thanks to tourism, gastronomy and a thriving arts scene. But others are struggling. The population is decreasing. More than one in five lives in poverty. There have been more than 300 murders a year for four consecutive years – the annual toll is now higher than that of New York, a city 14 times more populous.

The seventh district of Maryland, represented by Cummings, includes wealthy suburbs, the Johns Hopkins University and the Baltimore Museum of Art, as well as West Baltimore, where sidewalks are cracked, shopkeepers protected by panes armored and abandoned terraced houses installed on windows and gardens covered with vegetation. with weeds.

George Foster, eating fries, apple pie and sweet tea at a McDonald's local, recalls being badaulted for $ 5 last year. "Most crimes are drug-related," he said. "It's a drug epidemic. This encourages people to act irrationally.

Foster, 68, a retired butcher, suggested that Trump be disconnected from the real urban experience. "He does not live the reality. He has been a rich man all his life and he does not understand what a poor person living in a big city with cuts, school problems. It is embarrbading for the country. "

Sitting at a nearby table, Christopher Hill is reminded to have left Connecticut in 2016 and bought a large, cheap house in West Baltimore. "My mother was shocked that I chose to live here but I am happy to be at the forefront of gentrification."

At 53, a computer science professional with a master's degree admitted: "It's very slow. The problem of fire blight – abandoned houses – has become uncontrollable. The city has a lot of problems – but which city has no problems? Washington DC was the murder capital of the world at one time.

"Trump knows that New York had the era in the 1980s. Baltimore may arrive late, but Trump has not seen anything yet. The city has potential and he knows it.

The denigration of cities is a politically useful substitute for racism, Hill said. "The cities chosen by Trump have a high proportion of African-Americans. He can hide behind the gray areas and say, "That's not what I meant," but a rural Pennsylvania resident might just know that there are blacks in the city and think that he is the cause of all the deaths and destructions and what he calls dirt. "

Since he became president, Trump has avoided the lights of the city and lived a cloistered existence in the White House. He avoids cultural and sports events in the city and, unlike Barack Obama, does not make surprise visits to bookstores or restaurants – except when dining at his own hotel, Trump International. Weekends are often spent at his golf courses in Bedminster, New Jersey, or in his private club, Mar-a-Lago, in the exclusive Palm Beach, Florida.

The sentiment seems to be reciprocal since the electoral maps show Republican red suburban areas and rural areas surrounding densely populated blue democratic islands.

Few cities feel the division between urban and rural areas more marked than Baltimore, which is one of the poorest cities in America and is in the richest state in America. Liz Cornish, executive director of Bikemore, a local group defending bikes and livable streets, said, "Our real problems are with Governor Hogan."

A Republican, Larry Hogan, abandoned a $ 2.9 billion Underground Railroad project four years ago. Supporters said it would have changed the game for African-American communities in poor areas, creating thousands of jobs. Still, Hogan returned $ 900 million to the federal government while reallocating other funds to highway projects in mostly white rural areas of Maryland.

"It took a lifetime of public transportation in Baltimore," said Cornish. "Racism is so much more than a coded language. It is a system that has kept people of color, essentially apartheid. "

Research into the causes of Baltimore's ills includes local corruption – the mayor resigned in May – and tense relations between the police and the community. After the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African-American, following a neck injury suffered in police custody in 2015, the city erupted under the sign of protest and anger. riot day.

Travis Hunt, 36, owner of the Sidebar Tavern, in downtown, recalled, "During the uprising, I saw Elijah Cummings holding people's hands. He denounced the fact that people do not do it properly and congratulated people for doing it right. It was amazing to see. "

Michael Olesker, a 74-year-old columnist for the Baltimore Sun newspaper and a specialist in the city's history, said, "I've never seen a president give so much division, and I've lived Richard Nixon at the height of Vietnam. I have never seen a president attack an American city. I have never seen a human being, nor a president, so obsessed with self-interest. "

Back in West Baltimore, a high-born, high-speed courier here was planning to leave the city and retire to Orlando, Florida. "It's as if Michelle Obama had said," They're going low, we're going high, "said the 53-year-old girl, who asked to call Miss Priscilla." Later in the years, Trump He will reap all that he sows, but it is my duty to pray for him, and he is still my president. "