I know that Harvey is heavy on America's heart. I wish that I could take a reprieve from politics and simply focus on the human suffering and human altruism on display in the affected areas. But, alas, I cannot. Politics keep creeping in.
Set aside for a moment that Donald Trump is the person who pulled America out of the Paris climate accords, even though models suggest that climate change makes severe weather more severe. Forget for a moment that, according to Slate, just 10 days before Harvey made landfall Trump signed an executive order that included "eliminating an Obama-era rule called the federal flood risk management standard that asked agencies to account for climate change projections when they approved projects."
The final assessment on how this administration handles the storm can't be made while it still rages, but what Trump says and does now is open to analysis. In that vein, a line from Trump's joint news conference with the president of Finland stood out. When asked about pardoning former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio as Harvey was making landfall, Trump responded:
"Actually, in the middle of a hurricane, even though it was a Friday evening, I assumed the ratings would be far higher than they would be normally."
Consider what this man is saying: He used the horror and anxious anticipation of a monster storm menacing millions of Americans in a political calculation to get more ratings and more eyeballs on the fact that he was using the power of the presidency to forgive, and thereby condone, Arpaio's racism.
Why does Trump continue to do things that are so divisive and alienating to the majority of Americans?
I have a theory: Trump and the people who either shield or support him are locked in a relationship of reciprocation, like a ball of snakes. Everyone is using everyone else.
The oligarchs see Trump as a pathway to slashing regulations and cutting taxes for the rich. Establishment Republicans see him as a path to reversing the New Deal.
Steve Bannon-ists see him as a path to the "deconstruction of the administrative state." All Republicans, but particularly the religious right, see him as a securer of conservative Supreme Court justices. The blue-collar Trump voters view him as a last chance to breathe life into the dying dream that waning industries and government-supported white cultural assurances can be revived.
Trump sees all these people who want to use him, and he's using them right back.
Marketing is how he has made his money and attained his infamy. He sees people, in his die-hard base at least, who have thoroughly bought into the product of Trumpism and he is doing everything to make them repeat customers.
But in addition, I think that Trump is raising an army, whether or not he would describe it as such, and whether or not those being involved recognize their own conscription.
When I say army, I'm not speaking solely of armed militia, although there is a staggering number of guns continuously being put into circulation. I'm also talking about the unarmed, but unwavering: the army of zombie zealots.
How do you raise an army?
You do that by dividing America into tribes and, as "president," aligning yourself with the most extreme tribe.
You do it by worshipping military figures and talking in militaristic terms. You cozy up to police unions and encourage police brutality.
You do this by defending armed white nationalists and Nazis in Charlottesville.
You do this by pardoning Arpaio, a man who joked about an Arizona jail being a "concentration camp," signaling to people that racist brutality is permissible.
You also do this by attempting to reduce or marginalize populations of people opposed to you: Build a wall, return to failed drug policies that helped fuel mass incarceration, ban Muslims, curb even legal immigration, increase immigration arrests.
And why raise this army? Again, I have a theory.
Should something emerge from the Robert Mueller investigation that should implicate Trump and pose a threat to the continuation of his tenure, Trump wants to position any attempt to remove him as a political coup. His efforts to delegitimize the press are all part of this because one day the press may have to deliver ruinous news.
Trump is playing an endgame. In the best-case scenario, these die-hards are future customers; in the worst, they are future confederates.
If these people should come to believe - as Trump would have them believe - that establishment systems have unfairly and conspiratorially acted to remove from office their last and only champion - another thing Trump would have them believe - what will they do?
What would Trump's army do if he were compelled to leave but refused to graciously comply?
The New York Times