The U.S. president is declaring war on cities because they represent a positive, multicultural alternative to MAGA

Trump’s war on cities is part of his ugly vision for America
The U.S. president is declaring war on cities because they represent a positive, multicultural alternative to MAGA

By Charles R. Davis
News Editor
Published October 2, 2025 6:30AM (EDT)


(Salon) He is not a complicated man, the president of the United States. Donald Trump is a 79-year-old who is going on 14, displaying without filter all the disordered thinking of a child reared in the insular bubble of wealthy, white America.

“I call it the N-word,” the American head of state said in remarks to the nation’s admirals and generals, speaking about a decision to deploy nuclear-powered submarines off the coast of Russia. “There are two N-words, and you can’t use either of them.”

He was greeted with steely silence, but the joke, if it was that, might well have killed in the classroom of a suburban high school.

To say that Trump operates on the level of a median racist adolescent is not intended as a cheap shot, but analysis that goes further in contextualizing his actions — and his success in politics — than the sort of explainers-for-liberals popular in his first term. We are well beyond the point of credibly arguing this is all about NAFTA.

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It is more difficult to appeal to people’s better natures. But that also isn’t reason to despair: in cities across America, whatever their faults, majorities have assembled multiracial coalitions based on tolerance and mutual respect. And while American history is defined by swings between its progressive and reactionary ids ֫— the latter now putting on a pathetic show of its dominance — comfort can be taken, for now, in that these swings do not last forever.

Still, the future is not now. Trump and his coalition may only have the approval of the 4 in 10 Americans who view life through the dynamics and slights of the high school cafeteria, but the fragility of its power does not appear to be recognized at the top. A majority of white Americans is the only majority that appears to matter and for whom this administration is governing. And it is mobilizing the full force of the federal government in a self-described “war” against the “enemy within,” as Trump told those he perceives as his own generals, to ensure that minority majority can remain in power in the absence of true popular support. .....................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/10/02/trumps-war-on-cities-is-part-of-his-ugly-vision-for-america/