Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot knows precisely what to do about the violence surge in her city. It’s not increased funding for police, more proactive policing measures, cracking down on illegal gun sales, or anything of sort.

Oh no, that’s what most mayors would do, but Lightfoot has a better idea.

You see, she just blames every other state in the country for her city becoming even more of a dystopian nightmare. Her most recent victim is the state of Mississippi.

This really shouldn’t surprise anyone, of course. Lightfoot has never believed Chicago’s problems were because of Chicago. Oh no, someone else has to be to blame. Nevermind that most of the people she blames for Chicago’s violence are places that are hardly ever as violent as Chicago despite falling under the same gun laws Lightfoot argues are the issue.

Well, after blaming Mississippi, the governor of that state was less than pleased.

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves said Wednesday that Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s suggestion that gun laws in Mississippi are partially to blame for the city’s gun violence was a “pathetic excuse.”

Reeves responded on Twitter to comments that Lightfoot made during an interview on Tuesday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

“The Chicago mayor says Mississippians are to blame for the out-of-control violence plaguing her city,” Reeves’ Twitter post said. “It’s a pathetic excuse for the failure of left-wing experiments in undermining police and letting criminals run free.”

The Chicago mayor says Mississippians are to blame for the out-of-control violence plaguing her city. It’s a pathetic excuse for the failure of left-wing experiments in undermining police and letting criminals run free. https://t.co/AwM3lvx1c0

— Tate Reeves (@tatereeves) August 19, 2020

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Reeves appeared to side with Trump’s criticism of Lightfoot’s handling of the protesters in his Twitter post and referred to her comment about seized guns from out of state as a “conspiracy theory” in an interview with Y’all Politics that he later retweeted.

“This ridiculous conspiracy theory from the Chicago mayor—that Mississippians are to blame for the violence in her own city—is bizarre and pathetic,” Reeves told the conservative political blog. “No serious person could think that murders are out of control and people are burning police cars in Chicago because of Mississippi’s commitment to the constitution.”

The thing to remember about Lightfoot, though, is her deep commitment to political narcissism. Nothing is ever her fault or her city’s fault. The fault has to lie somewhere else because there’s no way they could be responsible for what’s going on.

Of course, the voters eat it up because it means the measures they backed aren’t responsible either. They can shift the blame to Indiana and Mississippi and not have to take responsibility for their own city. “It’s not our fault, it’s all these other places. They’re the ones responsible.”

Yet if that were true, if the access to guns were the only issue, then why aren’t these other states just as violent on a per capita basis as Chicago? They’re not. Even their urban areas aren’t as violent as Chicago.

Yet the glory of political narcissism is that you simply don’t have to acknowledge your own faults. It means you don’t have to dig deep and figure out what you’re doing wrong.

Reeves is right to question Lightfoot’s claims. It’s only too bad that Lightfoot is unable to question her own claims. If she did and did so honestly, maybe she could fix the mess that is Chicago for a change.

But that would require thoughtfulness I doubt she is capable of.