A National Disgrace

Everyone knows Hurricane Maria caused catastrophic damage to Puerto Rico, a sovereign part of the United States. Entire towns have been destroyed, countless tens of thousands have lost their homes, and most of the infrastructure is still in ruins twelve days after the hurricane mowed over the island.

The news has been filled with reports about how relief is very slow and often held up because of blocked roads and bureaucratic confusion. The mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico's capital and largest city, has publicly pleaded with Washington for more and faster help, but she has not condemned any specific individual.

Nevertheless, as public criticism mounted against the Trump administration's slow and feckless response to Maria (details here), Donald Trump focused instead on trash-tweeting the San Juan mayor from the calm, sumptuous luxury of his golf resort. As Politico notes, his Twitter tirade "drew harsh condemnations, new charges of insensitivity, and warnings about political fallout."

NBC published a withering critique of Trump (link here) with the title "Trump’s Tweets on Puerto Rico Are a National Disgrace." The piece nicely summarizes how Trump's outrage is not about the island's devastation; it's all about his fragile ego.

This paragraph is particularly notable: "Trump’s response to the mayor of San Juan reveals how unfit he is for office. He apparently cannot handle pressure without resorting to personal attacks on others. He seems to lack any sense of personal accountability. He is easily angered. Even when lives are literally at stake, he is still in his element behaving like a bully. As of today, Trump has hit a new point for unacceptable behavior – and provided his fellow Republicans with more opportunities to distance themselves from him."

The piece concludes with the most damning sentence of all: "At a time of major national emergency, he has -- again -- shown the world just how small he really is."

Read the piece and share it. Everyone needs to see this man for who and what he really is.