Donald Trump is cranking up the politics of outrage, but Baltimore’s problems are all too real
likes to grab the news with a barrage of tweets. Just weeks after insulting four Democratic congresswomen, all from minority backgrounds, the president has found another target. On July 27th it was Elijah Cummings, a black Democratic congressman from Maryland’s seventh district, home to much of the city of Baltimore, who attracted the president’s wrath.
In 2019 the number of murders is likely to surpass 300 for the fifth year in a row, in a city of 602,000 people. Baltimore has more homicides than New York, which has 14 times more people. Last year heroin and fentanyl killed nearly three times as many people as murderers did; the overdose rate is the worst of any big American city. No wonder the population fell last year, by 1.2%.
The city has many problems, from its dilapidated schools to urban deprivation and decrepit infrastructure. The most urgent, though, is the violence: people will not stay where they do not feel safe. And that is the result of appalling policing. The quid pro quo for this funding must be reform. On the right, people such as Mr Trump act as though police can stop crime only if they are allowed to rough up suspects. That is why his government has stopped issuing consent decrees . But thuggery makes police departments less effective. When people do not trust cops, they will not volunteer information about crimes. And until victims are confident of justice, they will resort instead to revenge.
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