Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Rage, Reversal

The one news story that had me pig-biting mad today was the news that FEMA would be ending its shipments of food and water to Puerto Rico, though a recent update indicates that FEMA will continue to send aid. This seems to be a reversal, rather than an initial error in reporting, no doubt due to public rage and the perception that the cessation of aid was 'revenge' for San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz' attendance at the State of the Union.

The crazy thing is that the story about FEMA abandoning Puerto Rico is altogether too plausible... the response to the crisis there has been so bad that the term 'ethnic cleansing' is being bandied about. Meanwhile, there has been an influx of tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans into Florida, which is a swing state with twenty-nine electoral votes. This diaspora, while tragic, will remake the face of national politics for the forseeable future, and I don't think that the boricuas will have any love for Republican candidates.

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