So, CNN just published a little exercise in clickbait under the try-hard title “We searched for America’s best towns to visit. Here are the top 10.”

And as is often the case, our very own Queen City made the list for, according to the subhead, “Lovely surroundings, farm-fresh food, community spirit.”

Not mentioned: Violence, insecurity, homelessness, substance use, vandalism. You know, the stuff that consumes the imagination and rhetoric of Gov. Phil Scott and his collaborators in the Burlington Democratic Party, not to mention the “if it bleeds, it leads” world of teevee news.

I know, you can’t put too much stock in these kinds of rankings. They aren’t exactly done with the most scrupulous of journalistic standards, and they do gloss over the faults and failings of the communities listed. (New Haven, which has public safety problems that make Burlington look like a daycare, ranked #2 on the list.)

Burlington does have problems, and I don’t mean to minimize them. But it’s also, as CNN put it, “a close-knit community, where civic engagement runs deep.” And there’s the waterfront and the lake and Church Street and Pine Street and the Old North End and the UVM campus and the nearby mountains, among many other positives about our biggest little city.

So maybe Our Political Betters could spend a bit more time actually helping Burlington with positive language and policies instead of trashing it for short-term political gain.

Or they could even try to address the issues positively and comprehensively instead of reaching for the ever-handy Billy Club O’Justice. Hell, this week the governor continued his effort to duck any responsibility for the problems shared by Burlington and every other community of any size in the state, problems that (stop me if I’ve said this before, no, just kidding, don’t stop me) have gotten worse and worse during Scott’s time in office. At his weekly presser, he cast all the blame on a brief movement THAT HAPPENED WAY BACK IN THE YEAR 2020:

I think defunding the police years ago in Burlington, we’re just still continuing to see the effects of that initiative.

Ah, the rich smell of political bullshit. The Burlington Police Department did incur a modest funding cutback in 2020, but it didn’t last long. It has had far less effect on the problems of 2026 than, say, Scott’s continuing failure to adequately address our most pressing issues.

I’m sure the Burlington Democrats will be more than happy to play Pips to the governor’s Gladys Knight. It’s politically convenient to trash the Progressives with this “defund the police” crap as they desperately try to regain the prize they consider theirs by birthright: the mayoralty. As they keep their eyes on that prize they’ll be lending support to Scott’s re-election bid, which would be just as disastrous for the city they claim to love as his first nine-plus years in office.

Time for a real-life parable. I’m originally from Michigan. We moved east in the year 2000, first to New Hampshire and then to Vermont. This coincided with strikingly parallel happenings with the Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox that led to strikingly divergent outcomes.

The teams played in two of the three oldest ballparks in MLB, Tiger Stadium and Fenway Park. The then-owners spent much of the 90s lobbying furiously for new stadiums and heaping abuse on their historic homes. Tom Monaghan (Detroit) and John Harrington (Boston) claimed that their parks were in advanced stages of decay, hopelessly out of date, and their teams couldn’t possibly compete without shiny new stadia — to be heavily underwritten by public funds, of course.

Before either could carry through their plans, they each sold their teams. Monaghan, founder of Domino’s Pizza, sold the Tigers to Mike Ilitch, founder of Little Caesars Pizza. Harrington and company sold to a consortium run by dead-eyed investment whiz John Henry. That’s where the stories diverge.

Henry changed course, deciding to upgrade Fenway instead of tearing it down. It cost a lot of money and, in many ways, the park is still outmoded. But it’s full of history, and it’s a gem for the city of Boston and for all of baseball. Ilitch pursued a new ballpark and got it built within a decade. The new place, Comerica Park, is beautiful to look at and offers great views of the revitalized downtown. But it’s a giant shallow bowl, which means that spectators are far removed from the field. The players look like ants. The old Tiger Stadium was essentially vertical with two decks all around, so it felt like you were part of the action.

(It would be completely unfair to point out the teams’ subsequent fortunes: The Red Sox finally broke The Curse and went on to win four World Series in 14 years while the Tigers’ last championship was in 1984, more than four decades ago. I’m sure that has nothing to do with the destruction of Tiger Stadium. Right?)

I’ve carried this story beyond its usefulness for this context. My point, as it relates to Our Betters’ campaign of trashing Burlington’s image, is that these efforts have a cost. Monaghan’s organization wanted a new park in the suburbs so they aimed their destructive rhetoric at Tiger Stadium, the surrounding neighborhood, and the entire city, stoking suburbanites’ fears of the big, bad, and predominantly Black metropolis. Those attacks didn’t help Detroit any, and the similar arguments from Scott and the Burlington Dems aren’t helping the Queen City at all either. (Ilitch, to his credit, kept Comerica in downtown Detroit where it belongs.) Henry and company abandoned Harrington’s complaints and pursued a positive course for their home park and their city.

Maybe instead of capitalizing on Burlington’s very real problems for short-term political gain, Our Betters could work across partisan lines on very real solutions. They could also spend a little more time talking about all the good things Burlington has going for it. It’s quite a list, as CNN was happy to report.