To understand PR you have to keep a few geographical realities in mind. First, it is small, about 30×100 miles, and most of its terrain (although breathtakingly beautiful) is covered by steep hills and scrubland, unsuitable for settlement or agriculture. It is a countryside of small isolated towns and villages, barely connected by a network of bad roads through rough country, and a few sprawling, overcrowded cities where most of the population lives.

Second, it is highly overpopulated. In spite of substantial emigration over the last century, over 3 1/2 million people live there. Third, the country has not been blessed with too many natural resources and what little agriculture is possible has been taken over by export cash crops (pineapples, sugar cane, coffee) owned by foreign landlords. The country cannot feed itself, much less support an economy capable of growth and development.

The only true sources of income available to the island are its natural beauty, which supports a tourist trade (also mostly owned and controlled by foreign interests) and an abundance of cheap labor, which is exploited by American labor-intensive industries (such as Big Pharma). The American taxpayer makes up the difference, by pouring in millions of dollars every day to maintain the population with welfare payments, Medicaid and food stamps.

The people, in return, spend these dollars by buying from US companies everything they need to live, not to mention all the consumer goods that modern marketing can convince them they can’t live without. And do not forget, PR is an island, so all goods coming in must be carried on American flag ships (by law), the most expensive shippers in the world.

In essence, Puerto Rico is an immense machine for converting taxpayer dollars into corporate profits. American tax money going into the island provides just enough infrastructure to keep our companies in business and just enough welfare for the labor force to
hang on until they can score the next underpaid job at some US company.

I’m no Eric Blair, but I lived in PR for a year, working in what I now see as part of America’s once-vast Colonial Administration. It was long enough to complete my political education.

It’s a trait of narcissism.

Thousands died- in large part due to his administration’s incompetence- this makes him look bad… rather than address this in a healthy way, he turns around and makes THEM the bad guys, THEY are the bad OTHERS that brought this upon themselves.

THEY had it coming… and under no circumstances should we be weak and show them compassion, nor should we feel empathy for them- because if his supporters did that (if they were even capable of doing that) then they might resent what Trump did to them…

This is what our nation is becoming, THIS is how cruel fascism takes root in a people.

It’s tempting to view President Trump’s many grievance-filled tweets as angry, indiscriminate lashing out at political opponents. It’s unhinged! It’s unpresidential! They’re “rage tweets!” Etc.

Often, though, if you look closely, you’ll see some design. Behind the invective and often-incorrect claims will be a controversial suggestion with built-in plausible deniability. He will be saying something without actually saying it. He’ll send the desired message to his supporters — a dog whistle — but when the media asks him and his aides, they’ll say he wasn’t really saying that. In the process, he’ll foment culture war and controversy.

Such appears to be the case with his tweets about Puerto Rico on Tuesday morning, along with an aide’s explanation of them.

In two Trump tweets about Puerto Rico and a cable news appearance from a top White House spokesman later that morning, both Trump and the spokesman talked about Puerto Rico as if it weren’t part of the United States. And they did so in a way that couldn’t help but make you think this might be deliberate.

In his tweets, Trump said the hurricane-ravaged island’s politicians “only take from USA” and said Puerto Rico will “continue to hurt our Farmers and States with these massive payments.”

……

Whatever you think of the reasons for Trump’s attitude toward Puerto Rico, there’s no question he’s trying to diminish it. The question is whether he’s doing that because that’s what he believes and he’s truly upset about its use of federal funds, or whether he sees some kind of political advantage in it (or both!). Even just the day before, he oddly referred to it as a “place” — in quotation marks — in a tweet. That’s four references in less than 24 hours that suggested Puerto Rico was less-than. At some point, we can’t dismiss all of these things as coincidences.

And a spokesman going on cable news and calling Puerto Rico a “country” would only seem to fan the flames of the fire Trump has lit on this issue.