Bernie Sanders Says Trump is "Racist" for Baltimore Comments. Turns out He Said Nearly Identical Things
It’s good to see that the left’s moved on to a fresh outrage over Donald Trump’s Twitter. It really feels like we’ve been stuck on that whole “the squad” thing for too long.
The current outrage is President Trump’s comments about Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings’ Maryland district, which includes the neighborhood of West Baltimore. After a report on Fox News that named the district the most dangerous in America, the president took to Twitter to lambaste Rep. Cummings, a frequent critic of the president and his border policy
“Rep, Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous,” Trump tweeted Saturday.
“His district is considered the Worst in the USA. As proven last week during a Congressional tour, the Border is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded. Cumming District is 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.”
Rep, Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous. His district is considered the Worst in the USA……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 27, 2019
….As proven last week during a Congressional tour, the Border is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded. Cumming District is 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
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 27, 2019
Well, you can guess where that went. An anchor on CNN almost cried. Elizabeth Warren called it “insulting both to the congressman and the people he represents.” Bernie Sanders said that it was all because Rep. Cummings “has been busy revealing the failures of the Trump administration and exposing the greed of Trump’s friends in the pharmaceutical industry.”
And all three of them made sure to call the president racist, including Sen. Sanders:
Here’s what’s really going on: @RepCummings has been busy revealing the failures of the Trump administration and exposing the greed of Trump’s friends in the pharmaceutical industry, and our racist president doesn’t like it. https://t.co/tlfy2M4mzL https://t.co/6s4ZU6gvlW
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 27, 2019
Well, if these are racist things for a politician to say, Bernie Sanders is in pretty deep water, since it turns out he made many of the same points during a visit to West Baltimore in 2015.
“Anyone who took the walk that we took around this neighborhood would not think you’re in a wealthy nation,” Sanders said, according to the Baltimore Sun. “You would think that you were in a Third World country.”
When a reporter tried to get Sanders to comment on the Islamic State group — one might almost think to save him — he continued down the same path, undeterred.
“But today what we’re talking about is a community in which half of the people don’t have jobs,” he said. “We’re talking about a community in which there are hundreds of buildings that are uninhabitable.”
According to Fox News, he made similar remarks in 2016 on Twitter.
“Residents of Baltimore’s poorest boroughs have lifespans shorter than people living under dictatorship in North Korea,” Sanders said. “That is a disgrace.”
Oh. Well then.
There are two possibilities here. First, Bernie Sanders is a racist for saying that when he was in West Baltimore, his first thought was that “[y]ou would think that you were in a Third World country.” Second, what both were saying may have been on the hyperbolic side but not necessarily untrue.
I’ve never grasped why concern for those stuck in failing neighborhoods represents racism, particularly when their representatives are more concerned with their national stature than with those they serve. Perhaps we ought to go back to the appearance by Republican strategist Kimberly Klacik on “Fox & Friends,” which supposedly touched this whole thing off; Klacik was responding to a claim from Cummings that people in his district were living in fear of the president.
“So, I went into the district to basically ask people if they were scared of Trump,” she said.
“And as I go in and I start talking to people, I realized just what the living conditions are, for not just for the residents but even the children there and what they’ve been playing around,” Klacik continued.
“There’s abandoned rowhomes filled with trash, homeless addicts, empty needles that they have used, and it’s really right next door. So, it’s attracting rodents, cockroaches, you name it.”
Let’s continue to expose the truth. This is a neighborhood filled w/families that have small children. West Baltimore is filled with trash thanks to dumping. A problem city officials should have addressed years ago. This is @RepCummings district. @realDonaldTrump
More to come pic.twitter.com/gFFszjW490
— Kimberly Klacik (@kimKBaltimore) July 27, 2019
Pointing it out now is racist, though. Pointing it out in 2015 was just fine. Yet more proof that once you’re considered a citizen of the left, all of your sins are washed away.
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