SAVING TANGIER
Tangier Island – America’s “soft crab capital” – is in the middle of Chesapeake Bay, about an hour’s boat ride from the Virginia mainland, rises only a few feet above the waterline and has been slowly eroded by the sea since it was first colonized in the 1600s.
Now its 500 remaining residents are desperate for federal support because it is on the verge of disappearing.
When they asked for support from Donald Trump to help them build a wall – a sea wall, this time, to hold back the eroding waves – the President called them to discuss the situation (6/14).
The story about Trump’s call prompted a barrage of hate from outsiders. Their crime, apparently, was to blame the island’s plight on natural erosion and not rising sea levels caused by man-made climate change. And voting 87% for Trump.
















