Over the weekend, outraging most Chicagoans and upending whatever norms remain in this nation, Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social network, \u201cChicago about to find out why they call it the Department of WAR.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the tagline \u201cChipocalypse Now,\u201d he posted a cheesy image Saturday with helicopters flying over the city and with Trump\u2019s face imposed on the body of \u201cApocalypse Now\u201d actor Robert Duvall, who played the crazy Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore in Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s 1979 movie.<\/p>\n
Trump walked back (kinda) the sophomoric war talk Sunday, and, as always, his supporters claimed that his performative bluster was not to be taken literally. One indeed hopes that the president of the United States does not plan to go to war with the nation\u2019s third largest city, but we\u2019ve heard far too much of this man\u2019s disgusting, unhinged and irresponsible nonsense. And we\u2019ve had more than enough of him trashing our reputation around the world.<\/p>\n
Believe us, there is a real economic impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cChicago is a crime-ridden hellhole,\u201d screamed the headline on a Friday column in the Daily Telegraph,<\/a> one of Britain\u2019s most-read daily newspapers. The screed\u2019s writer, Paul du Quenoy, is president of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute in \u2026 guess which state? And if du Quenoy knows anything about Chicago beyond the standard Trumpian talking points from 30,000 feet, there was no evidence of that knowledge anywhere in his column.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a disastrous city,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Charming.<\/p>\n Stupid, too. Du Quenoy owes us an apology. Our letters section stands ready to publish it.<\/p>\n The issue is not so much that du Quenoy holds those views and has been mobilized in support of Trump\u2019s battles with local leadership, for that is to be expected. It\u2019s that Trump\u2019s taunts, even if made in cruel jest, have made the column seem timely and such a headline appear justified in a legitimate media outlet, given that it paraphrases an actual presidential posting. We can just imagine some unimaginative editor scrambling for such a column because Chicago is in the news. Well done. You at least found a writer from the right side of the Atlantic.<\/p>\n This kind of egregious behavior from Trump and his patsies serves only to cause economic damage to a city that foolishly let Trump stick his name atop one of the buildings that make up our gorgeous skyline.<\/p>\n If you are a European tourist planning a trip to Chicago, reading that piece likely will make you think again. We think the Telegraph owes this city an apology too. It\u2019s free to write about Chicago crime, of course, a problem we never have downplayed. But at least get a writer from here, folks. We can recommend a few, and they hardly are all left of center.<\/p>\n Florida? Please.<\/p>\n In our intemperate initial reaction this weekend, we contemplated commissioning a Parisian to trash London. They are not that hard to find.<\/p>\n In the face of all that, we were glad to see the latest effort from the tourism agency Choose Chicago to push back on behalf of the city. We\u2019ve been critical of some of that outfit\u2019s past slogans. \u201cNever Done, Never Outdone,\u201d which is still around, is not one of our favorites since it makes us sound like a burger. And \u201cSecond to None\u201d seemed to parade our collective insecurity. But this new one, \u201cAll for the Love of Chicago,\u201d hits the correct notes for this difficult moment for the city we indeed hold dear in our affections. If the Chicago Tribune cannot support Chicago, even as it notes its faults, then we might as well hang up our laptops.<\/p>\n We got a kick out of watching all of the videos posted both by Chicagoans and visitors on the Choose site, a diverse array of posts made from numerous locations and by those clearly of different walks of life.<\/p>\n No, we are not so naive we think that this rushed marketing effort fully can counter Trump\u2019s attacks or even columns such as the one by du Quenoy, which alas is hardly unique.<\/p>\n But whereas we think our politicians should be controlling their rhetoric and de-escalating tensions in the name of public safely, we believe the city marketers have to push back on all our behalves.<\/p>\n Chicagoans work too hard to let someone else define them and the city they love.<\/p>\n Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here<\/a> or email letters@chicagotribune.co<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the weekend, outraging most Chicagoans and upending whatever norms remain in this nation, Donald Trump wrote on…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":212641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,6083,5386,1818,1269],"class_list":{"0":"post-212640","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-editorials","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois","12":"tag-opinion"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115174005045886044","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}