Trump’s Detroit insults are based on old narratives local media are rewriting every day

Michigan’s swing-state status means people are talking about Detroit.

Some have been saying unpleasant things.

Addressing the Detroit Economic Club on Oct. 11, presidential candidate Donald Trump predicted that the “country will end up being like Detroit if (Kamala Harris is) your president. You’re going to have a mess on your hands.”

Later, Trump again disparaged the city, claiming Detroit “makes us a developing nation.”

Trump’s depictions of Detroit are based on outdated narratives about the city. And many Detroiters, including local journalists, politicians and residents, are using the national spotlight to change the story people think they understand about the city.

My research focuses on how the press covers crisis, protests and social struggle and how that media coverage affects the public. For the past year, I’ve been looking at these effects on Black Michiganders, a process that has connected me more closely with Detroit’s communities.

Typically, I find that the dominant narratives used to describe a group of people, a crisis or an event are difficult for journalists to unwind and the public to forget.

Dominant narratives are often derived from History, and the History of Detroit is connected with well-known and consequential moments of unrest and financial struggle.

But Detroit’s more modern history also includes the city’s revival and economic rebound.

We are now at an interesting inflection point where a new framing of the city is emerging. What narrative will dominate is still up for debate.

Gaining a broader audience

Trump’s controversial insults were widely reported by the national press.

The media coverage that follows controversial comments like these amplifies a simple remark past the podium to broader audiences. I’ve written about a similar kind of amplification that happened when Trump made racist comments about immigrants from Haiti in 2019.

And, unfortunately, news audiences may find these negative characterizations of Detroit easy to understand because they align with the narratives that have appeared most prominently in the news for decades. For example, comments connecting Detroit with outdated phrases like “a developing nation” might be linked with the rebuilding needed after the city’s 2013 bankruptcy filing.

Detroit was the largest municipality to ever file for bankruptcy. Over the past decade, that fact has consistently appeared as the subject of news headlines and documentaries. This is not to say the national media never report good news about Detroit – they do – but the bankruptcy narrative is still very much alive even in stories about the city’s progress.

Alluding to 1967

As Trump campaigned in Georgia in late October, he pushed the timeline back even further.

“For 40 years,” he said, “I’ve been hearing about ‘Detroit is coming back.’ Never came back.”

Such comments remind audiences about events like the 1967 Detroit Uprising, also known as the 12th Street Riots.

The uprising officially started as a result of a police raid at an illegal drinking and gambling spot, but it was a symptom of broader issues related to racism, policing and poverty that shaped the realities of Black people in the community. While there is little dispute about the impact of this unrest, which lasted five days and killed dozens of people, the news media played a significant role in shaping how the public would understand it for years to come.

As the Kerner Commission noted in 1967, journalists exaggerated and misrepresented actions of Black protesters in cities around the country, underreported police brutality and, in some cases, staged what we might now describe as “fake news.”

Media coverage, the Kerner report noted, also left core issues that affected Black communities untold, ultimately leaving news audiences with skewed depictions of the realities on the ground. Reports suggested the protesters were killers, and many would not know until later that the police were responsible for at least 35 of the estimated 43 people who were killed during the unrest in Detroit.

The media at the time, and often continuing today, exaggerated the property damage, reporting numbers as high as US$450 million when the right number is closer to $40 million.

These old media narratives make Trump’s comments sound believable but ignore the realities of the city in 2024.

Not just Trump

Trump isn’t the first person to make these claims about Detroit.

Earlier in 2024, ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith dissed Detroit on air, saying the city was “on a respirator.”

Detroit Free Press columnist Darren Nichols pushed back at Smith’s characterization, noting that the comments ignored “the hard work that’s been done by the [Detroit Mayor Mike] Duggan Administration, nonprofits, community development corporations, block clubs, other partners and Detroiters themselves that’s been going on for a decade or more.”

Both Smith and Trump received quick and fierce criticism for their characterizations of the city. Local journalists and commentators described the city’s housing rebound, new industry developments and its urban renewal.

In 2024, the city’s population grew for the first time in decades.

Reporting characterized Trump’s commentary prominently as a “diss” and leaned on the rebuttals from officials such as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who called the city “the epitome of grit.”

Whitmer advised naysayers to “keep Detroit out of your mouth,” joining a chorus of Detroit-born celebrities such as Lizzo and Stevie Wonder who warned against insulting the city.

Retorts to Trump’s comments from Harris and former President Barack Obama also help move narratives of Detroit from a city of ruin to a city of revival.

A local push

The support of national figures likely makes a difference, but the local push to modernize narratives is a critical component of narrative change.

Successful narrative change requires both a cultural understanding of why updated narratives are essential as well as a robust media and information system to push these new narratives into the public’s view.

So, when national news outlets take their eyes off Detroit, the local media largely bear the responsibility for telling the city’s modern story.

And Detroit’s robust local news system provides examples every day of a revival narrative that acknowledges the progress and opportunities in the city, while also highlighting the many ways change is hard-earned, such as the loss of owner-occupied properties and racially unequal homeownership rates.

Importantly, Detroiters trust the local news to take on this role. A recent survey of Black Michiganders showed that residents trust their news organizations to provide accurate information about many of the critical issues that matter most to them.

Understanding Detroit’s history should not be discounted, but history alone is not enough to define the present or the future of the city.

As 2024 presidential election campaigns in Michigan close, look to local media for a more comprehensive perception of what Detroit is now and the various ways it has already made a comeback.