Leftist Tribune columnist uses slavery references to defend against Trump's criticism of Chicago

Abandoned home, Chicago's
South Side

Chicago Tribune left-wing columnist Dahleen Glanton feels it's okay to reach back to the times of slavery in her attempt to rebut Donald Trump's calling attention to the city's out-of-control murder rampage.

Trump's repeated calls for strict law and order hark back to the days of slavery, when blacks were believed to be innately sinister and irrational and had to be whipped into confomity.

Throughout his campaign, Trump has used Chicago to illustrate how crime can permeate neighborhoods that are not reined in. The only way to bring back order, in his opinion, is to appoint police officers as overseers in communities that can't manage themselves.

On Southern plantations, armed overseers had the power to do whatever was necessary to bring wayward slaves into line. Under Trump's plan, police officers likewise would have unconstitutional powers like stop and frisk, meaning they could pull people over at a whim, throw them against the hood of a car and search them without cause.

Let me remind Glanton that not only were the Democrats the party of slavery, they were also the party of Jim Crow and segregation. Hillary Clinton once hosted a birthday party for Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), a onetime Ku Klux Klan leader.

Rampant violent crime isn't Chicago's only problem. Once every 18 months or so a Chicago alderman goes to prison. Ald. Willie Cochran (20th) is currently under federal investigation. Because of unfulfilled pension obligations, bribes really, to public-sector unions, Chicago bonds, Chicago Park District bonds, and Chicago Public School bonds are rated as junk. Last year's property tax hike, the largest in city history, hasn't helped.

Chicago's population is at the lowest level it has been in nearly a century. The city hasn't had a Republican mayor since 1931, it has no GOP members on its City Council.

It's all Trump's fault, right?

Black, white, and Hispanic Chicagoans clearly, to use Glanton's words, are unable to manage themselves.