It has been a month since the island of Puerto Rico has lost power do to a category 5 storm named Jose and another named Maria. The second storm, doomed the island, completely darkening the island of some 3.4 million US citizens. Still to this day, the majority of the people are short of food and without clean drinking water. 74% still do not have electricity. The island remains almost virtually dark at night as the entire power grid was destroyed.
In retrospect, Donald J. Trump believes that he as done an excellent job with Puerto Rico disaster aid as reported by Anderson Cooper of CNN. In a scale of 1 to 10, he gives himself a 10. In his eyes, he can do nothing wrong. To me, his statements mean that he could have done nothing better, and that everything is great. Actually what it does mean is that he is incapable of comprehending what it will take to get Puerto Rico on its feet again. Of course, the entire world knows that this is the farthest from the truth. It’s just another falsehood strewed out by this disaster of a president. The infrastructure has been totally destroyed, leaving towns, roads and bridges in total destruction. Only 28 percent of the total population of the island have clean drinking water, while the rest of the population is getting water from wherever they can find it, including from water that is known to be contaminated. People wait in line for hours upon hours to buy gasoline for their cars and for the gasoline generators that are the only source of electricity many people have. Puerto Rico has turned out to be Trump’s Katrina, but the sad thing this is that he doesn’t even know it yet. His thinking is so far out from reality that many people are now questioning his ability to lead as president.
On the record in a meeting in the oval office with the governor of Puerto Rico, the president asked if the United States did a great job militarily, with first responders and FEMA. He asked the governor the question as Trump expects to receive compliments from just about everyone he deals with. The governor responded that the President was on the phone with him every day since the disaster and he appreciates and praises the Federal government response. So what does that mean? Right out of the gate, everyone knows that it was impossible immediately after the storm passed that the governor could speak to anyone off the the island with a telephone, and with anyone from the island for that matter. The entire phone grid was knocked out. It was reported that it took days before any kind of telephone service was available to anyone, including the governor.
On the other hand, let’s acknowledge that Puerto Rico is making headway, but what is wrong about this whole thing is that the president is already taking credit for the wonderful job he is doing. For the most part, the people are helping themselves. I would love to hear what the suffering people of Puerto Rico have to say about the President. It may be a good thing that Puerto Rico does not participate in the general election, because it is a territory and not a state. Puerto Rico’s residents may not vote in federal elections, except for a nonvoting delegate who has an office on Capitol Hill. There are five non-incorporated territories that send delegates to the United States House of Representatives that participate in the presidential primaries but the U.S. citizens of Puerto Rico cannot vote for members of Congress or of President.
In Donald Trump’s eyes, it may be a good thing that the people of Puerto Rico cannot vote, because he would have only 1 vote from the island, the governor, and 3,999,000 other people to vote for the other person.