Well, The Orange Tufted Poodle is gonna be pissed. I’ve only had the tv on for about an hour, and already something has stood out. His Lowness is putting himself out there, suffering through the spectacle of a land without gilt leaf, and everybody is ignoring him! In the last hour, the coverage on MSNBC has been almost exclusively on the tragedy in Vegas, I have only seen about 5 minutes of video coverage of Trump on the ground in Puerto Rico, and no sound yet. But just from that smidgen of coverage, some things are already becoming apparent.
First of all, Melania. wazzup with that? God knows I’m no fashion plate, putting a suit on me is like putting a tutu on a pig. I’m a shorts and t-shirt guy out here. But tight white pants? Forget the fact that it’s a month after Labor Day, just think logistics. They’re visiting a disaster site. That means mud, dirt, dust, and wind to blow it all around. If she gets back on that plane as pristine as she got off of it, then you’ll know that the whole thing was staged, like the original lunar landing, remember?
To my cynical eye, this is not going well for Hair Furor. Remember super storm Sandy, when we had a real President in the White House? Hugging elderly residents who had lost everything, high fiving kids and holding babies? Actually listening to people, nodding his head and responding directly?
Not here. Not today. You don’t need the audio, the body language on all sides speaks volumes. In the clip I saw of The Orange Julius sitting at that same room filling table setup that they must tote around in the belly of AF1 for disasters, the two officials on either side of Trump and Melania were looking at him like he was a fly floating in their vichyssoise at the Four Seasons. And in the scattered clips I’ve seen of him meeting the locals, it would be embarrassing if it wasn’t so funny, at least to me. Trump, standing there, smiling like a guy who wants to sell you a 97 GEO Metro at the Mercedes dealership, and the local standing there, smiling like a guy who’s listening to a boss he hates tell him a joke, maintaining as much distance as he possibly can.
The funny thing is, not only doesn’t Trump really realize what this looks like, if he did, he wouldn’t understand it. When you build your campaign by insulting Hispanics, pardon a racist asshole who terrorized their fellow Hispanics in Arizona, and held out the possibility that he may not life a finger to help them rebuild their island cuz their behind on their debt to Wall Street, and he can’t get why they’re not inviting him back to their roofless hoe for some tasty MRE’s. Can’t these people take a joke?
And he hasn’t exactly covered himself in glory when he’s opened his pie hole. Joking in his remarks that Puerto Rico is busting his national budget, but it’s OK? Really?!? We have a President who would tell a homeless person that they should be saving a fortune by not having an electric bill to pay. Reporting I just heard from the ground is that the people of Puerto Rico are having none of this. They’re pissed about his cavalier attitude towards them, and furious at his disdain for the mayor of San Juan, who was out there every day in waist waders and a boat, checking on them house to house.
One other thing to think about. Trump got at least passing grades for his mumanitarian on site response to the hurricanes in Texas and Florida, if you forget that little faux pas about not actually meeting any actual affected people o his first trip to Texas. Bt Texas and Florida both went for Trump, have GOP Governors, and lots of friendly state and local officials, as well as a plethora of Trump supporters to talk to for the cameras. Puerto Rico is solidly Democratic,
Trump has one thing going for him tomorrow in Las Vegas, at least in his own ind. He’ll be back in the real United States again, he’ll be more comfortable there. But if he cracks a goddamn joke about that demented psycho at least dropping a bundle on the suites ad at the tables, all bets are gonna be off.