‘It looked like a third-world country’: Texas salesman goes on rant about Jackson, calls out politicians

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - A salesman from Texas is describing Mississippi’s capital city as a third-world country after a recent business trip.

Joshua Desha relived his experience in a 12-minute long YouTube “rant” entitled, “My experience in Jackson, Mississippi (Politicians will hate this)”.

Desha, who was visiting Jackson due to work, began the video by saying, “I want to address Jackson, Mississippi. First of all... every single person I came into contact with in Jackson, Mississippi was amazing.”

According to Desha, the business owners, workers and hotel staff that he came into contact with on his visit approached him with a smile and warm words.

“Everyone was nice!” he reemphasized. “There are good people in Jackson, Mississippi.” That was when the video took a turn, with Desha warning, “Here comes the ‘but’.”

He first addressed the “political leaders” of Jackson, asking, “Where the hell are you?” He then confessed that Jackson is “without a shadow of a doubt” the “poorest-run” city he has ever been in.

Desha said he came into contact with giant potholes on major roads and described the downtown area as if a nuclear bomb had been dropped: “It looked like a third-world country.”

“We’re in the middle of the freaking United States of America and I’m walking down a street in the capital city of a state and there are potholes everywhere, there is trash everywhere, businesses not open at all, buildings boarded up.

“And I’m not just talking about one little terrible part of town. All of downtown!” Desha exclaimed. “What is going on?”

While he did decry Jackson’s infrastructure as “embarrassing,” he made a point to restate that the citizens were “freaking amazing.”

He then suggested that Mississippi spend more of its federal and tax dollars on its capital.

Desha, who described himself as a conservative and a capitalist, then criticized both Republican and Democratic state leaders, asking, “How can you sleep at night in a state where the capital is that run down? [...] I don’t understand.”

He wondered aloud why more business owners didn’t move to Texas because, in his view, Texas “knows how to treat businesses” and understands “how to take care of the tax dollars that come in.”

He concluded the video by advising anyone visiting Jackson to stay at the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown and to “elect those fools out of office.”

Desha’s “rant” about Jackson has quickly become the most-watched video on his YouTube channel. When asked why he made the video, he simply stated that number one, to say how great the people were and two, because “someone’s got to do something.”