Thom Duda
This month, the estimated death count for Hurricane Maria was roughly 3,000 in Puerto Rico due to several factors, and some of the blame has been justifiably placed upon the Trump administration’s head for its handling of the situation.
On Sept. 13, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to say that the numbers were wrong, citing that it was more along the lines of 16 to 18 deaths since he had been there, and that the studies’ astronomical death tolls were really a ploy by the Democrats to make him look bad.
An independent study, per the BBC’s reporting, by experts of George Washington University Milken Institute, commissioned by the Puerto Rican government, put the death toll up to 2,975 lives.
The President of the United States essentially claims that more than 2,900 people did not really die and that it’s all just a political stunt.
I must ask all Trump supporters this question: Have we crossed the line of decency yet? Because if we have not, I would really like to know where it is quartered off, so we can maybe move it back several thousand yards – or lives – to the point where we are not fulfilling Stalin’s old adage about massive deaths just being a set of numbers.
This is pathetic, disgusting, and dangerously repulsive.
We have the highest official in the country displaying an ego of bargain-bin-quality glass, incapable of accepting the tremendous loss of life that is on our country’s hands. The President’s office must take responsibility for that since it is the high seat.
Whether he or anyone else wants to argue, Puerto Rico is the United States’ responsibility – its people are our people – lord knows we’ve forced them to fight in our wars and help out with revenue, despite a lack of statehood.
Not only did we fail them horribly during this kick in the pants from Mother Nature, we have failed their memory by allowing Trump to discard them so easily on a Twitter rant with two posts of a set character count.
Nearly 3,000 deaths – mothers, fathers, children, neighbors and friends – all gone in one of the worst hurricanes to date, and it’s a stunt from the Democrats to make him look bad.
This is monstrous behavior.
How can anyone defend this?
This isn’t an issue for the teams to hash out – these are our own people dead and largely because we didn’t adequately respond. This is about our “leader” turning their deaths into a prop to shield his fragile ego with a defense as flimsy as those paper towels he threw into the crowd in Puerto Rico – the great success story of a job well done.
Those paper towel rolls were so wonderful, the best paper quality, with deuce-covering absorbency.