Chicago Still Eager to Hear From You, Mr. Trump
As one who loves Chicago, I hope President Donald Trump is not toying with my affections.
So far, the native New Yorker had been treating Chicago like the weather; he can't stop talking about it, but is there really much he can do about it?
He's been talking about Chicago's violence epidemic since a June 29, 2015 meeting with the Chicago Tribune editorial board, which he addressed as if he was bringing news of which Chicagoans already were not painfully aware:
"Crime in Chicago is out of control, and I will tell you, outside of Chicago, it's a huge negative and a huge talking point, a huge negative for Chicago," he said. "You've got to stop it. You're not going to stop it by being nice. You're going to stop it by being one tough son of a bitch."
Right. This is the same Big Apple city slicker who had so poor of a grasp of the obvious that he refused to accept President Barack Obama's birth certificate until it became a political liability.
Trump has made numerous other references to Chicago's homicide problems as a candidate and nominee -- and at least four more times in the first three weeks after his inauguration.
In each instance he sounds sympathetic, bemoaning how terribly "sad" Chicago's situation is. Hosting a meeting of county sheriffs in the White House Tuesday, he segued into how Chicago's "hundreds of shootings a month" are "worse than some of the places that we read about in the Middle East, where you have wars going on."
The problem is bad, although Trump's numbers are inflated. Chicago did record more than 700 homicides last year for the first time in 19 years. That was more than New York's and Los Angeles' numbers combined.
The reasons are multiple, an imperfect storm of long-simmering distrust between police and civilians, a flood of guns from neighboring suburbs and states, huge financial deficits in city and state budgets, political gridlock holding up funding for violence reduction programs -- you name it.
There's plenty of blame to go around with city and state government leaders -- and plenty are blaming. Trump has joined in the chorus, prompted at least partly by the commentators on his favorite news network, Fox News.
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