Puerto Rico is facing their worst humanitarian crisis in over a century. With their 3.5 million inhabitants struggling for day-to-day survival in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Their plight however seems to have flown under the radar, the Texas and Florida hurricanes have garnered larger media and public attention. Even the President of the United States decided to ignore the subject, so he could focus on more pressing matters like NFL players not kneeling during the National Anthem.
There are a lot of subjects that play into Puerto Rico’s lack of coverage, one being that with the island’s power cut out, communication is no longer a commodity, also, Trump cackling about sports he has never played, takes up a lot of room in the headlines that should be focusing on the American island.
Several children on ventilators in San Juan, Puerto Rico, face danger due to a diesel shortage https://t.co/GqPvsJVhl1 pic.twitter.com/k2zntouwua
— CNN (@CNN) September 26, 2017
American island, that’s the funny thing, near half of American mainland residents, don’t even know that Puerto Rico is part of the country. Because of this, many Americans believe Puerto Rico to be a foreign disaster instead of a domestic one.
According to the Morning Consult poll of 2,200 American adults published by the New York Times, only 54% of the surveyed individuals knew that the people of Puerto Rico are in fact U.S. citizens.
https://twitter.com/ezraklein/status/912833335688335360
The stats get scarier as you analyze them, only 37% of adults aged 18-29 (the future of the U.S.A) knew that Puerto Ricans are citizens, contrasting with the 64% of adults aged 65+ that knew this. People with college educations are perceived as cultured, well only 72% of graduates knew this obscure fact, which says a lot about our education system, a stat that is completely unacceptable for America. As it was expected, only 47% of Americans without college education knew this.
Then again, what did you really expect from the American public that elected Donald Trump? When Donald Trump finally decided to give the island a shout out, he did so in such a disgusting manner, that the island would have been better off without the President’s support.
INSANE for the president talking about PR's debts to "Wall Street" while 60% of ppl have *no safe drinking water*!!!
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 26, 2017
Not only did he blamed Puerto Rico’s debt for the disaster the island went through, but he did so in such a detached manner, that makes one believe that Trump, doesn’t really know that Puerto Ricans are American. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, surely believes this to be true.
“He doesn’t think that has any political relevance and it’s certainly not personally important. He clearly doesn’t want to talk about Puerto Rico, more than 3.5 million American citizens, along with the U.S. Virgin Islands. Not interested, doesn’t say a word about it. I’m not sure he knows that Puerto Ricans are American citizens,”
Hillary Clinton to Chris Hayes
What’s more troubling, is that after berating the island, Trump went straight back to tweeting about football, this time focusing on the Dallas Cowboys.
The booing at the NFL football game last night, when the entire Dallas team dropped to its knees, was loudest I have ever heard. Great anger
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 26, 2017
Seriously people, there is no way to get more disgusting than this, and I don’t mean to challenge anyone with this statement, let Donald Trump take the cake for this one, let’s all watch this and be better, I believe in America, and I believe that as citizens we will look out for each other, and that we will look our for Puerto Rico.
As our brothers south of the border thought us after their decimating earthquake, people don’t need a political leader to stand together, people alone can fix every problem ahead of them, we don’t need Trump.