President Trump blistered Representative Elijah Cummings on Twitter, calling out the chairman of the House Oversight committee for raising the hue and cry over conditions on the Mexican border, “when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous. His district is considered the Worst in the USA.” Trump went on to describe Cummings’s West Baltimore constituency as “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place.”
Predictably, the Left—including most of cable news—rushed to condemn Trump as a racist. Speaker Nancy Pelosi — whose father was once mayor of Baltimore — called Cummings “a beloved leader in Baltimore, and deeply valued colleague. We all reject racist attacks against him and support his steadfast leadership.” Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted, “Donald Trump’s tweets are ugly and racist.” Beto O’Rourke called him“the most openly racist president we’ve had in modern history.” Senator Bernie Sanders chimed in, too.
The operative rule in politics these days seems to be that any criticism of a non-white politician from anywhere to their right is, by definition, a racist attack. 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. The real question is: Is he right?
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Seth Barron is associate editor of City Journal and director of the NYC Initiative at the Manhattan Institute.
This piece originally appeared in New York Post