Given his film Hairspray is a love letter to Baltimore, containing the lyrics “I love you, Baltimore”, it’s hardly surprising John Waters is ready to fight when the city gets dragged – particularly when the dragger is Donald Trump.

In a series of tweets over the weekend (July 27), the president attacked Baltimore representative Elijah Cummings, describing his district as “the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the United States”.

Now Waters has hit back, telling ARTnews via email: “Give me the rats and roaches of Baltimore any day over the lies and racism of your Washington, Mr Trump. Come on over to that neighbourhood and see if you have the nerve to say it in person!”

Trump’s Twitter tirade was a response to Cummings’ criticism of the government’s treatment of migrant children being kept in detention centres near the US-Mexico border. The president described him as “a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous”.

The Maryland representative responded later that day, writing: “Mr. President, I go home to my district daily. Each morning, I wake up, and I go and fight for my neighbours.”

It’s not news that Trump’s feelings are easily hurt, especially when he (surely) knows he’s in the wrong. New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez previously described the detention centres as “concentration camps”, expanding in an Instagram Live: “The fact that concentration camps are now an institutionalised practice in the home of the free is extraordinarily disturbing, and we need to do something about it.” 

It’s encouraging to see influential people using their platform to call out the heinous decisions and comments made by people in power. Following Boris Johnson’s election as UK prime minister, we’re going to need more of this over the pond. Though of course there’s also power in numbers, as proven by protesters in London last week who rallied to rightly declare “Fuck Boris”.