James Fallows, a journalist of some renown, says Donald J. Trump’s tweet tirades relating to the criticism he’s taking over the government’s response to Hurricane Maria have taken the president to a “new low.”
I agree. I’ll add this caveat, though. It’s a bad news/worse news scenario. The bad news is that Trump’s criticism of local Puerto Rico officials does constitute a “new low” for the president; the worse news is that he quite likely is capable of taking this presidential petulance to an even lower level.
Fallows wrote this in The Atlantic: But his Twitter outburst this morning — as he has left Washington on another trip to one of his golf courses, as millions of U.S. citizens are without water or electricity after the historic devastation of Hurricane Maria, as by chance it is also Yom Kippur — deserves note. It is a significant step downward for him, and perhaps the first thing he has done in office that, in its coarseness, has actually surprised me.
Donald Trump has taken his presidency to a level none of us has ever seen. He’s dragged it to a point that absolutely nothing this guy says or does publicly henceforth would surprise me. Nothing.
He once boasted that he could “shoot someone” and his voters would still support him. I don’t believe he actually would do such a thing, but he’s demonstrating an astonishing knack for doing anything short of that while still engendering support among his Republican voter “base.”
Hurricane Maria has all but destroyed Puerto Rico. San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz criticized the president and the federal government’s response to the island’s pleas for help. What does Trump do? He fires off tweets over the weekend — while hobnobbing at his posh New Jersey resort. Let that sink in for a moment: 3.5 million U.S. citizens are without food, potable water and other supplies and the president criticizes Puerto Ricans for wanting the feds “to do everything for them.”
His Twitter tirades have become a virtual staple of the president’s daily activities.
As Fallows writes: I can think of no other example of a president publicly demeaning American officials in the middle of coping with disaster. There were nasty “God’s punishment!” remarks about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina, but they did not come from the White House or George W. Bush.
I wish I could believe that there’s no way this president can drag his conduct any farther downward. I am left to wait for the next “new low” to slap us in the face.