The shocking truth about the Hurricane Maria death toll is our Trump nightmare made real

[babylonsister]

https://www.vox.com/2018/5/30/17407750/puerto-rico-maria-death-toll

The shocking truth about the Hurricane Maria death toll is our Trump nightmare made real
An unfit president contributes to an unprecedented catastrophe.
By Matthew Yglesias@[e-mail] May 30, 2018, 10:10am EDT

snip//

Earlier on Tuesday, a highly credible new study in the New England Journal of Medicine suggested that the ultimate fallout from Hurricane Maria was 4,600 “excess deaths” — more than twice the mortality of Hurricane Katrina and the deadliest natural disaster on US soil in more than a century.

Suspicion will, of course, linger for years that there’s a connection between Trump’s habit of weaponizing anti-Latino hysteria as the centerpiece of his politics and the unfolding of an essentially unprecedented human tragedy in a Spanish-speaking US territory. The possibility that Trump and his team simply have no idea what they’re doing should not, however, be dismissed out of hand. The fact of the matter is this is the only real crisis we’ve had occasion to see Trump try to wrestle with, and it’s been a total fiasco — with a high human cost.

Trump turns everything into a culture war

The catastrophe in Puerto Rico has a threefold origin. It starts with the fact that the situation is objectively difficult — it was a large storm, the island’s infrastructure was rickety pre-storm, and the background economic conditions were unfavorable. It continues with the fact that under Trump’s leadership, the federal government was underprepared for the storm and failed to properly position supplies in advance and make provision for the full use of military assets. Last but by no means least, Trump was never willing to admit that the initial response went poorly and try to improve.

After all, admitting wrongdoing isn’t part of Trump’s playbook. Defensiveness and counterpunching is.

snip//

The carnage in Puerto Rico is the most severe manifestation of Trump’s basic unfitness for the job he currently occupies, but it’s far from the only one. And the focus on his various antics has an unfortunate tendency to detract from the basic reality that he doesn’t put in the time or the work to solve problems, when really that’s the core of the issue. If you put a telegenic demagogue in office, you will get some choice moments of televised demagoguery. You won’t get an adequate response to a hurricane, and that means you will get a sky-high death toll. The rest of us can only hope our luck holds up.

[hlthe2b]

1. This should have been the front page (full page) of every major newspaper..

and should have erupted in incriminations and demands for answers/'heads'...

Instead, Trump and his ilck have seeded and numbed the news with so much scandal, it barely made the back pages, much less a major splash on the 24/7 cable news.

This just leaves me aghast and speechless.

[GusBob]

2. What I would like to know: when Dotard went to visit PR after the storm: That friendly crowd he met

That friendly adoring crowd he met with: who are these people?

To me, they blame a share of the blame for the deaths

[babylonsister]

4. The majority were people without power.

I believe they showed up with hope that this admin would help them. Instead they got paper towels thrown at them.

We/they now know how 'helpful' dt and FEMA has been, but nothing was known at that time.

[kcr]

3. It reveals just how much the media plays along to gloss over how unfit he is

It's horrifying.

[Eyeball_Kid]

5. This is what "the spread of evil" looks like.

It shows Trumpy’s true nature. “They’re not white. They’re Democrats. Let them die.”

[global1]

6. TrumpCo Also Made The Conscious Decision To ....

underreport the number of casulties from the storm. In every other disaster - deaths are reported directly 'from' a disaster and those that were caused 'because' of a disaster. They are totaled in the aftermath of the disaster. Think heat waves; floods; vehicle crashes; fires; etc.

TrumpCo knowingly only reported the direct deaths because they knew the death toll would be staggering and wanted to put Trump in the best of light.

PR is Trump's Katrina. The MSM should report it as such.

[RandomAccess]

7. IMO, his dereliction of duty re Puerto Rico is enough reason to impeach