{"id":14383,"date":"2016-04-28T14:30:05","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T18:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=14383"},"modified":"2016-04-28T14:26:54","modified_gmt":"2016-04-28T18:26:54","slug":"good-for-maxwell-for-standing-up-for-downingtown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=14383","title":{"rendered":"Good for Maxwell for standing up for Downingtown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trump’s comment deserved pushback, Mayor deserves support<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong><\/span>, Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"UTMikeColLogoDowningtown Mayor Josh Maxwell called Republican presidential candidate \u2014 and the likely GOP nominee \u2014 a \u201cjerk\u201d this week. Honestly, I would have called him something worse if Mr. Spray Tan had trashed my hometown on Twitter.<\/span><\/p>\n

Far worse.<\/span><\/p>\n

But now Maxwell finds himself in the crosshairs of every Internet troll and mindless Trump supporter for having the temerity to stand up to The Donald \u2014 and point out that, once again, he doesn\u2019t know what the (insert your favorite expletive here) he\u2019s talking about.<\/span><\/p>\n

In case you missed it \u2014 network\u2019s TV\u2019s gain and the political world\u2019s loss tweeted the following while traveling in Pennsylvania the other day: <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPassing what was once a vibrant manufacturing area in Pennsylvania. So sad!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"ScreenSet aside the fact that Trump\u2019s own efforts have converted wide swaths of places like Atlantic City into economic basket cases, the irony of his tweet is this: the old Sonoco Paper plant is about to be demolished and the site redeveloped \u2014 the exact sort of brownfields redevelopment\u00a0 <\/span>where everyone wins. An addition to the tax base, new jobs and no additional sprawl.<\/span><\/p>\n

And when Maxwell dared to push back and defend his hometown, he got hammered. <\/span><\/p>\n

I spoke with him the other day as he was greeting voters at Rainbow Valley Elementary School in Valley \u2014 he\u2019s running for State Representative \u2014 he talked a bit about how his social media accounts have been swamped with vitriol and worse. He went with his instinct to defend his home, his community and almost seemed startled by the anger that came his way.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy phone, my Facebook was blowing up,\u201d he said, between chatting with voters on a myriad of other, arguably more worthy subjects. He allowed that he had to block some accounts and posts because they were so vile.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since then, the Internet blackshirts have continued to stalk Maxwell for daring to criticize Der Trumpster (and yes, that rhymes with \u2018dumpster\u2019 which is amazingly appropriate, here). Maxwell finally had to address it on his Facebook page:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI am a volunteer, essentially. The salary for a Mayor of Downingtown’s size is ~ 2,000 dollars a year,\u201d Maxwell wrote.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI’m trying my best.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my public, personal facebook page. When someone posts something that is profane, intentionally agitating to someone else or abusive in anyway- I delete it. If someone does that multiple times, I block them.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI know dozens (and possibly a lot more) middle school students and up to high school students view my page including probably my nieces. Often I get messages from students or parents asking if I will be interviewed for a class assignment or visit their school.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cFor that reason, I try to keep a positive approach while limiting agitating behavior.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI probably shouldn’t have called Donald Trump a ‘jerk’ for referring to Downingtown or a for-too-long vacant building as ‘sad’. At the time, I didn’t feel the negative attention the comment brought to this community was warranted.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThat being said, please keep in mind, that I am essentially a volunteer trying my best to make our community as good as it can be. Downingtown is amazing, I was raised here and I hope to be here for a long time.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

“It is my hope that we can make our community better by doing what Downingtown has always done ever since we were a milltown; working together, working hard, and never giving up.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNow that I have said that, I have to get to work on getting that train station built quickly. I don’t want any more presidential candidates to think we are a yet-to-be-rehabbed industrial town. Downingtown is #<\/span>smalltownheaven<\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Again, I think the mayor is being far too gracious and polite. I\u2019d have told Trump and his minions to blow it out their portholes \u2014 and then, because it seems fair, I\u2019d point out a litany of Trump\u2019s personal and professional failures that make the old paper plant look like the Taj Mahal. Yes, irony intended. And yes, “sad.”<\/span><\/p>\n

So I say, good for the Josh Maxwell\u2019s of the world, standing up for their hometown\u2019s against Trump and his army of ‘Net bullies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maxwell is showing why America still<\/em> is great \u2014 that we\u2019re still a nation of small towns and the people who love and fight for them, regardless of what the rich guy in the limo says.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trump’s comment deserved pushback, Mayor deserves support By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times Downingtown Mayor Josh Maxwell called Republican presidential candidate \u2014 and the likely GOP nominee \u2014 a \u201cjerk\u201d this week. Honestly, I would have called him something worse if Mr. Spray Tan had trashed my hometown on Twitter. Far worse. But now Maxwell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,7],"tags":[7067,7279,7280,2268],"class_list":["post-14383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","category-featured","tag-donald-j-trump","tag-downingown","tag-jerk","tag-josh-maxwell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14384,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14383\/revisions\/14384"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}