The following article by Andrew Reeves was posted on the Washington Post website October 2, 2017:
On Sept. 29, President Trump said that “the government of Puerto Rico will have to work with us to determine how this massive rebuilding effort … will be funded and organized and what we will do with the tremendous amount of existing debt already on the island.” (The Washington Post)
Many have criticized the Trump administration for responding slowly to Puerto Rico’s devastation from Hurricane Maria. Critics note that Trump has devoted more tweets to the NFL controversy than to Puerto Rico and its 3.4 million residents.
What explains the Trump administration’s lukewarm reaction? Is it part of the generally unusual nature of the Trump presidency, or a response to Americans’ general ignorancethat Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens? Perhaps. But more generally, presidents tend to respond in proportion to an affected place’s partisan loyalty to the president’s party in previous elections and its political clout in the next presidential election. Continue reading “Donald Trump’s lukewarm response to Puerto Rico was pretty predictable. Here’s why.”