If Americans want to make a clear assessment of the “Schitt’s Creek” level of intergovernmental cooperation these days, they need look no further than the mighty Potomac River and the flood of sewage that has inundated it.

Last month, a major sewage pipeline known as the Potomac Interceptor collapsed, causing at least 234 million gallons of untreated wastewater to pour into the river in Montgomery County within a few miles of the District of Columbia line. How have top leaders responded to this environmental disaster? Well, at least two of them are spending an obscene amount of time wallowing in the excrement (figuratively speaking, of course).

Let’s start with where crap talking always seems to find a home — at President Donald Trump’s social media account. The nation’s commander in chief spent no small amount of time blasting the response by Gov. Wes Moore and “Local Democrat Leaders” to the “Ecological Disaster” so near 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

By Tuesday (weeks after the spill started), Trump was talking about federal intervention, with his press secretary later explaining that odiferous sewage smells wouldn’t mix well with White House plans to mark the 250th celebration of the Fourth of July.

Cue Gov. Moore and his staff, who pointed out that the 64-year-old pipe in question is not only owned by the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water) but that Trump’s own U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has some oversight of that substandard infrastructure as well.

Oh, and that Maryland has been helping clean up the mess despite all that. His message to the White House? “Mr. President, yes, I had to do your job for the past month, but please, will you please start doing your job?”

No doubt this kind of partisan toilet talk can (and probably will) be kept up for weeks to come. But at some point, those shoving the crap around need to look at themselves in the mirror. Trump may just be delighted to get in his shots and get media attention. After all, how many people not living anywhere near the Mid-Atlantic give a Schitt’s Creek about who is responsible for a pipe sitting in Cabin John, Maryland?

But perhaps at some point someone will gently remind him of how the EPA shares responsibility for this pipe’s condition— and of the broader problem of aging infrastructure nationally — and how other communities may soon find themselves in similarly unhappy circumstances.

As for Moore, he can be confident a majority of his supporters are only too pleased to see their governor push back on a Republican president they did not elect (Trump lost Maryland by a nearly 2-to-1 margin in 2024). Many are probably rooting for their media-savvy governor as a possible presidential contender himself in 2028.

But there is also the practical matter of getting things done under an administration that has almost three years to go running the executive branch. That’s not an invitation to kowtow to Trump, but one wonders how much Moore’s approach will ultimately cost Marylanders.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s failure to declare Western Maryland a federal disaster area last May after severe storm-related flooding may well have been a response to Moore and the state’s Democratic-leaning politics.

Enough is enough. Whether you are serving as governor of a state or in the highest office in the land, your chief job isn’t to pose or preen or post messages with scatological references. It’s to advance the interests of your constituents. In the case of Trump, that’s all Americans, including those living anywhere near the Potomac River. It’s bad enough when we can’t keep the crap in the pipes; shouldn’t our leaders take a break from spewing it around in public as well?

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