Trump took the mic this week and tossed Baltimore into his latest carnival of fear. Called us “so far gone” on crime that we don’t even get mentioned anymore. Like we’re a cautionary tale you speed past with the doors locked and a podcast turned up loud enough to drown out the people who actually live here.
Let’s get something straight: this city has been pronounced dead more times than I can count. Every time, we get back up. Stronger. Meaner. Smarter. And right now? Baltimore is safer than it’s been in over fifty damn years. That’s not boosterism; that’s data. Homicides down big. Non-fatal shootings down. Fewer kids dying. These aren’t “so far gone” numbers. These are “we’re doing the work while the rest of you flap your fucking gums” numbers.
Fear Sells, Truth Gets Ignored
Trump doesn’t care about numbers unless they scare you. Fear sells. Fear keeps the cameras pointed at him instead of the truth. He’s not here for nuance; he’s here for the easy villain edit—the two-second clip you can run on loop until people believe Baltimore is a war zone.
It’s lazy. And it’s bullshit.
The City I Know
I’ve walked these blocks at two in the morning. I’ve eaten corner-store fried chicken under a flickering bulb while an O’s game crackled from a busted radio. I’ve watched cops, corner boys, church ladies, nurses getting off the night shift, and drag queens in heels share the same sidewalk without anyone ending up in an ambulance.
This city isn’t perfect—no city is—but it’s real. It bleeds, it laughs, it throws a shoulder into the world and keeps moving. That’s Baltimore.
Leadership That Works
Mayor Brandon Scott called the remark what it is, and he did it with receipts. Governor Wes Moore backed him up. Leadership that measures twice, cuts once, and spends more time in community rooms than on TV hits.
That’s what progress looks like: not a photo op, but a spreadsheet, a neighborhood meeting, a midnight text chain after another gun buyback. It’s messy. It’s not sexy. But it works.
The Real Conversation We’re Not Having
When the President paints us as a hopeless pit, it’s an insult, sure—but it’s also a tell. It says he doesn’t want to talk about why violence happens in the first place.
Poverty that calcified into policy. Schools starved for decades. Mental health care treated like a luxury. Addiction criminalized until it metastasizes. None of that fits in a fear-mongering chyron. “So far gone” does.
Baltimore’s Way
Here’s the thing about this town: we don’t wait for cavalry that never comes. We make our own. Safety isn’t just cops—it’s summer jobs that don’t feel like punishment, mentors who remember your name, streets that are lit and loved and watched by the block captain on her rowhouse stoop.
It’s violence interrupters who know which couch a kid is sleeping on tonight. It’s a DJ rig in a West Baltimore basement where, for a few hours, the weight slides off people’s shoulders and they remember what it feels like to breathe.
The Heartbeat of the City
The heartbeat of Baltimore doesn’t come from a marble lobby or a harbor cruise. It comes from grit under your nails after a day’s work. From a neighbor who leaves soup on your steps when you’re sick. From a bartender who knows your order and your tell.
From the chef turning a six-burner into a church, the corner carryout that tastes like somebody still gives a damn. This city feeds you—body and soul—if you let it.
My Message to the President
Trump’s take? It’s the culinary equivalent of a microwaved TV dinner passed off as cuisine. A styrofoam plate of fear, reheated and over-salted, served to people who’ve never eaten here, never walked here, never loved here.
If he wanted to understand, he’d ditch the entourage, take a long walk, and listen—really listen—to the folks who were here yesterday and will be here tomorrow, after the cameras leave and the narratives shift to the next convenient target.
We’re Not “So Far Gone”
Baltimore is not a prop. It’s not a punchline. It’s not a backdrop for someone else’s grievance tour. It’s home—complicated, stubborn, loud, and alive. You don’t get to write us off from a podium and expect us to nod along. We refuse the premise.
So here’s my message to the President: if you can’t be bothered to see the work, don’t you dare insult the workers. Don’t spit on the progress because it doesn’t fit your script.
We’ll keep doing what we do—building safety, inch by brutal inch. You can keep running your mouth. And when history looks back, it won’t be you they credit for saving this city. It’ll be the people who never gave up on it in the first place.
Baltimore isn’t “so far gone.” We’re so far from done.
