This is a special kind of stupid
Natural disasters are a rare time when politicians on all sides know that they can make themselves look good just by doing the right thing. The nation expects a competent nonpartisan response, and if anyone in politics fails to get on board, they end up looking really bad for playing politics.
When Donald Trump first began falsely claiming that FEMA was failing to provide a proper response to the victims of the back to back massive hurricanes, I said he was making a political mistake. The Republicans representing the affected states weren’t going to be willing to go along with it, because it’s just too dangerous of a game – in terms of lives and politics. Sure enough, numerous Republican officials in southeastern states have pushed back against Trump’s hurricane related lies, and some have even publicly told him to knock it off. It’s not that any of them want to go against Trump. It’s just that on an issue like this, they know they can’t get away with standing with Trump.
Now it’s getting even uglier for Trump. Vice President Kamala Harris keeps appearing everywhere from Howard Stern to Univision to The View this week. At each stop along the way she’s asked about Trump’s lies about the federal government’s hurricane response. And each time she gets to hit Trump hard for playing politics, without looking like she’s playing politics herself.
This is an easy layup for Kamala Harris, and it’s all because Donald Trump and his shrinking brain no longer seem to have any concept of how politics works. All Trump would have had to do is say “I’m glad to see hurricane victims getting the support they need,” and he could have come out of this looking good. But it’s not in his nature. And he’s clearly so far gone cognitively, his handlers can’t even get him to play along.
