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Donald Trump’s Disrespect For John Lewis May Be The Worst Fight That He’s Ever Picked

By Lisa Sanchez
Published on: 08:26 PST, Jan 15, 2017

Donald Trump took a swipe at U.S. Representative John Lewis on Friday and insulted Lewis’s congressional district as “crime infested” and “falling apart.” Although insults are common for Trump, the president-elect insulted Lewis, a well-respected civil rights leader, a large southern metropolitan area, and widened the cultural divide between Trump and his future constituents.

Trump’s attacks on Lewis began after Lewis told “Meet the Press” on NBC that he didn’t believe Trump was a “legitimate president.” Lewis said, “I think it was a conspiracy on the part of the Russians and others to help him get elected. That’s not right. That’s not fair. That’s not the open democratic process.” Lewis also said that he will not attend Trump’s inauguration, which numerous democratic politicians have planned to miss.

John Lewis plans to miss Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20. [Image by David Ake/AP Images]

Lewis represents the fifth district of Georgia, an area that includes the bustling city of Atlanta and, as Huffington Post reported, the Centers for Disease Control and Georgia Institute of Technology. Trump may not realize the damage he has done by insulting the population of 750,000 that live in the fifth district. Georgia is a red state, filled with people who voted for Trump in the 2016 election, but in the pursuit of insulting Lewis, Trump may have alienated a large group of Georgians.

Donald Trump insulted John Lewis via Twitter saying the representative’s district was “crime infested.” [Image by Evan Vucci/AP Images]

When he tweeted his insult at representative Lewis, Trump didn’t even try and paint the fifth district accurately. It’s fair to assume that Trump doesn’t know anything about Georgia’s fifth district because people who live in Lewis’s area began tweeting rebuttals to the president-elect using the #defendthefifth hashtag to show the beauty and vitality of Atlanta and the surrounding areas.

In addition to insulting a population that is 60 percent African American, Trump also bemoaned Lewis’ comments on Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend. Lewis, a lifetime civil rights advocate who marched with Dr. King, garners significantly more respect than Trump when it comes to social issues and equal rights. Lewis visits the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama every year to commemorate the historic march Lewis and Dr. King made on that bridge in 1965.

The 1965 Selma march symbolized the importance of equal voting rights for all American citizens, not just white people. The marchers, along with Lewis, were beat by deputized civilians and the police force of Selma. Lewis was arrested more than 40 times in his life for standing up for civil rights and went on to become involved in politics in order to make continued change in the United States.

Since Trump insulted Lewis, numerous people on Twitter have called out the president-elect for his hypocrisy. Saying Lewis is “all talk, talk, talk, – no action” is categorically untrue when you look at the work representative Lewis has done. People have shared photos of Lewis being beaten by police compared to photos of Trump taken around the same time period.

Lewis did not specifically respond to Trump’s comments, but he did tell Chuck Todd that it would be almost impossible for him to work with the president-elect. Lewis said, “You know, I’ve had an opportunity to meet with every president since President Kennedy, except President Nixon. I met with President Nixon when he was out of the White House. And it’s painful. It is hard. It is difficult to see our country come to where it is today.”

[Featured Image by Mark Humphrey/AP Images]

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