Meanwhile

August 29, 2017

Skeptical

Front pages everywhere have been heavy with rain as hurricane Harvey settles over Texas. Originally a cat 4, over the weekend the storm hit the coast then eased to a category one, trading one-hundred-mile-an-hour winds for pounding pervasive rain. As a result, the lone star state is getting unprecedented flooding with Huston taking the brunt of it. Like all hurricane encounters, it’s not pretty.

Stories of heroism and of cowardice abound as people act like they always do when confronted with disaster – lots help as they can with boats, shelter, money. A few, of course, take advantage while the police are busy with rescue.

Some loot, others exploit a confused frightened population with other, more creative, ways. No doubt, there are get-out-of-town-quick and shelter scams going down – some of us will always try to sell what’s in demand, even during cataclysm. Some of us will always think buying the sure path to fulfillment, so a customer base is assured. So it goes.

Now, the Donald, always on the lookout for new ways to promote the Donald, saw hurricane landfall differently than the rest of us. While we saw cold wet disaster, Trump envisioned a huge media tidal wave, hopped on board, and pardoned sheriff Joe while the winds were still whipping south Texas.

Now that rain and flooding have taken over, the Trumpster’s been bragging about how clever his timing was. When asked about why he pardoned Joe when he did, he responded with, “I assumed the ratings would be far higher.”

Odd, one would think that when pulling off something as potentially unpopular as pardoning a well know racist, one would try to keep it on the down low. Getting higher rating is usually not the plan.

Even odder, Trump’s assumption that announcing during the hurricane would drive higher ratings seems counter-intuitive, just the opposite of what most would expect, what with the all focus on Harvey. Yeah, Trump logic remains a mystery.

Most likely he’s just fucking with us and his implied assumption is meaningless. After all, during these two-hundred-ninety-four days since Trump tricked the all those people into voting for him, Trump’s words have rarely held any meaning beyond the obvious.

The obvious in this case being that Harvey was assaulting Texas, Huston was flooding and people were dying. Meanwhile, the Donald was trying to hide an unpopular decision amid the squalor.

Yeah, the republic’s learning that when tragedy occurs, we mustn’t forget to always check and see what the Donald’s up to, meanwhile.

Resist,
osv