Three United States cities are now sovereign nations after a declaration by President Donald Trump. The president issued the edict removing Cincinnati, Detroit, and New York City from the United States today in a series of tweets which also expressed support for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1150381394234941448

This, of course, means the President is now from a foreign country so he will now have to go through the onerous process of getting a visa before he can apply for American citizenship. It will also be interesting to see how the tax issues work out since everyone who works in New York City is technically working in a foreign country. It probably means the end of Bill de Blasio’s run for president – which isn’t a bad thing – since he now runs a foreign government.

All kidding aside, Trump’s tweets this morning are highly disrespectful of four elected congresswomen – Representatives Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib – who are all American citizens. Three of them were born in the United States.

Their policy positions are things which advocates of smaller, weaker government disagree with – except Ocasio-Cortez’ occasional disagreement with government subsidies – but this question of, “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” is just appalling. It does nothing to advance any sort of discussion on the issues, whether they be immigration or justice reform or government spending.

The attempted defense on Trump’s comments appears to be two-fold. The first is the claim Trump didn’t tell anyone to leave the United States because he also wrote, “Then come back and show us how it is done.” The second defense is Trump was accidentally inarticulate. Except Trump was far from incoherent and he specifically called for them to get out of national politics and go back to their home countries. Which doesn’t work when they’re all American citizens and all but one was born here.

There’s also a chance it will actually bring more people towards the quartet’s line of thinking and boost their national profile. Ocasio-Cortez is supposed to be debuting some sort of new version of her Green New Deal on Tuesday with Senator Bernie Sanders which Mother Jones suggests will be in the form of a national emergency resolution. Pressley isn’t well known but her name will get more attention because she’s now linked to Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, and Tlaib. She could end up being the least controversial of all of them and end up on a higher career arc than the rest.

The entire thing is avoidable. All four of the congresswomen who were mentioned have positions which should be rejected by the American public. However, going off half-cocked and telling them to “go back” won’t solve anything. It’s just another example of the ridiculousness of tribalism.