In trying to politicize the disaster in Puerto Rico, the left overlooks the obvious

By Matt Palumbo2:31pm September 26, 2017

Now that everything is politicized, always be suspect when you see a narrative forming. The latest? That after recent hurricanes have wrought their damage, Trump is ignoring the devastation on Puerto Rico.

“The Trump administration is ignoring Puerto Rico’s suffering,” reported Slate Magazine wherein they tried to argue Trump’s response was analogous to that of George W. Bush’s to Hurricane Katrina. Mother Jones complained that Trump has been “mainly ignoring” Puerto Rico because he’s too preoccupied with tweeting about the NFL.

Elite Daily reported that “Trump finally tweets about Puerto Rico, but people are pissed at what he said,” because Trump dared to mention the island’s massive debt. In context however, Trump really appears to be acknowledging that island’s debt to illustrate the tragedy of the situation they’re in — that they’re more than broke, and somehow need to repair all that’s been destroyed.

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Lest we forget — and, it’s clear, much of the media has — just because Trump hasn’t tweeted about something, doesn’t mean he’s ignoring it. While we didn’t see a tweet on the situation in Puerto Rico from him until Monday, the Federal government had already taken action by then. As the National Review‘s Charles Cooke noted:

Tweeting does not a rescue operation make, and until about five minutes ago, everyone in America seemed to know that. Without question, the administration will make mistakes. That is the nature of government. Thus far, however, there is no evidence that those mistakes will be the product of arrogance, of neglect, or of racism against the non-white. Here’s a transcript of an interview with Puerto Rico’s governor that ran on PBS last night:

JOHN YANG: Governor, are you getting all the aid you need or getting it fast enough from the states?

GOV. RICARDO ROSSELLO: First of all, we are very grateful for the administration. They have responded quickly. The president has been very attentive to the situation, personally calling me several times. FEMA and the FEMA director have been here in Puerto Rico twice. As a matter of fact, they were here with us today, making sure that all the resources in FEMA were working in conjunction with the central government. We have been working together. We have been getting results. The magnitude of this catastrophe is enormous. This is going to take a lot of help, a lot of collaboration. So, my call is to congressmen and congresswomen to take action quickly and conclusively with an aid package for Puerto Rico.

This morning, the mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz, echoed Rossello’s sentiments. As NBC reports, Cruz called into CNN to share “harrowing details of rescue efforts in her city,” and to “[praise] the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s ‘great job’ and ‘logistics help.’” Meanwhile, FEMA is running a live-stream of its activities on Twitter. Among the work being documented: “10k+ federal staff are on the ground in PR/USVI assisting with search & rescue, restoring power, & moving commodities”; “86 generators in PR & St. Thomas with 186+”; “@USCG continues hurricane #Maria response with 13 cutters, 10 aircraft, partners @fema @USNavy @prffa”; “today, 2,500+ National Guard members are responding in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico to support relief efforts.”

How neglectful! Oh, and Trump will be visiting Puerto Rico next Tuesday.

Doesn’t it seem like the media was trying to create a narrative out of thin air, then hope the rest piled on due to the anti-Trump nature of the lie?

You bet.

[Note: This post was written by Matt Palumbo. He is a co-author of the new book A Paradoxical Alliance: Islam and the Left, and can be found on Twitter @MattPalumbo12]

Allen B. West