It’s officially hurricane season, something not on the radar where I grew up in northern Ohio, but familiar after half a lifetime south of the Mason-Dixon line. We’re too far inland to get the full force of these storms but often get sideswiped with high enough winds and heavy enough rain to topple trees, flood low lying areas and turn out the lights.
I sympathize with those further south or on the coast who bear the brunt, though you’d think they would eventually move north and inland. Perhaps if the government didn’t keep subsidizing flood insurance they would.
But much about hurricane season is inexplicable. Since the South is anti-government and anti-tax, infrastructure is often inferior. If power and storm drains failed as often and took as long to repair in Ohio winters as in Carolina summers we’d all have frozen to death by February.
Then there’s the absurdity of wall-to-wall TV coverage of what might happen but probably won’t. Somber men and peppy women appear every five minutes to show you radar of a swirling menace and maps of several hypothetical storm tracks.
It’s like a lottery. One of the deadly routes may come true. They offer predictions of the time, place of the landfall, and size of the catastrophe, then invariably revise them with a new round of breaking news that interrupts regularly scheduled programming you’d prefer to watch. This peddling of scary omens is rather like the ancient augurs and haruspex reading the future from the flight of birds or an examination of their entrails. And about as reliable.
Eventually high winds and thrashing seas do arrive at some beach or pier and there stands an anchorperson in oilskins worthy of “Captains Courageous.” This blow-dried old salt clutches microphone in hand as he leans into gale force winds. His function is to show he’s willing to risk his life to bring us news that we have already learned and, with any luck, cool video of roofs blowing off gas stations.
His other important duty is to tell everyone to run for cover, batten down the hatches, heed orders to evacuate, and never, ever, behave as stupidly as he is. But of course his example persuades many there’s no real danger, so they stay put or decide those giant waves on TV would make for some really gnarly surfing.
To this predictable pattern of dopiness, we have now added a president psychologically incapable of performing his part in the ritual. This is merely to appear and try to look trustworthy, somber, consoling and reassuring. He must warn everyone to do as they are told by the authorities, take no unnecessary risks, rely on government to come to the rescue with shelter, emergency services, food, water, and evacuation if needed. He should comfort the afflicted, thank the heroes, and mime empathy.
After George W. Bush bungled the response to Katrina (“Heck of a job, Brownie”), any president must take hurricanes very seriously since the political life they save may be their own, and their survival will depend on how well they perform. Given his past performance in such cases, Trump is almost certain to fail the test.
He did cancel a trip to Poland in order to be seen on the job supervising rescue efforts, though some insiders say he welcomed the excuse not to go. He has also declared a state of emergency in advance for Florida, though cynics again suggest this is largely because he covets its 29 electoral votes in 2020.
Ordinarily, though, he’d be off to a good start, offering conventional evidence the president cares for the well-being of the American people, but Trump has squandered his right to the benefit of the doubt by his past behavior. During earlier emergencies he has insulted government agencies tasked with helping victims, and has recently robbed from the budget for FEMA in order to pay for more of his wall. He famously treated Puerto Rico not as an American possession but as one of those shithole countries he scorns and its elected representatives as enemies.
If there is one indelible image from the Trump years it is of a fat, rich, clueless president showing zero empathy for poor people who have lost their homes, livelihoods, healthcare, electrical power and access to food, water and shelter by pelting them with rolls of paper towels. What fun!
It is likely he will express a childlike awe at how big the storm smashing into Florida is and will also take credit for it — biggest hurricane ever. He is also sure to deny that increasingly large and frequent hurricanes are evidence of climate change. FAKE NEWS!
He may actually have some concern this time about the fate of a state as orange as he is. However, I have a sneaking feeling he’s going to be most concerned with the well-being of Mar-A-Lago and his Doral golf club, both of which appear to be dead center in the predicted path of destruction.
If I’m being too cynical, I will eat my words. But if I’m right, I’d like to see him eat a roll of those paper towels he’ll be throwing at the undocumented, illegal, exploited ground crew and domestic servants that maintain properties that may soon be as underwater as his bankrupt casinos.