Hurricane Harvey is a wake-up call. In the Trump news cycle, it's easy to lose the most basic question that should be a the center of every policy decision our nation makes: "does this make people's lives better?" But then something like Charlottesville or Hurricane Harvey happens and you realize what's actually important. And so while normally, I'd be more than happy to do a deep dive into Donald Trump's many insane tweets from the weekend, including the truly bizarre one where he seemingly brags about how intense the storm is and then says "thanks!", I'm not going to do that... Except to say it's incredibly unclear who he is thanking, and for what.

As we speak people in Texas are in serious danger due to the overwhelming rains and the flooding that accompanied them. And as president, it's very much is his job to make sure that we are in the best position to be prepared when it does rain. This is not something he has done in his time in the Oval Office. In fact, he's done the opposite. According to Columbia Law School, less than two weeks ago, on August 15th, Donald Trump rescinded Obama era executive order 13690. And what did this order do? It set out to strengthen our nation's flood preparedness, by instituting stricter standards on how flood-ready federally-funded projects near floodplains had to be.

That's right. Two weeks before a massive and deadly storm hit land and led to what the president himself called "unprecedented" floods, Donald Trump dialed back protections against floods. Why? On first glance it's hard to know for sure, but there are two likely reasons. First, President Obama's executive order used the increasingly dangerous weather caused by climate change as a reason for improving our flood-resilience. We all know how the current administration, even while a "HISTORIC" and "UNPRECEDENTED" weather event is occurring, does everything it can to pretend that climate change doesn't exist. And two, it was an executive order signed by President Obama. If there has been a unifying ideology to Trump's policies, it's "do the opposite of what Obama did."

If it wasn't clear before this week, it should be clear now that running your administration in total opposition to your predecessor is not just petty and gross, it's also dangerous. And sure, the decision to revoke this executive order most likely didn't have an effect on Houston's flood readiness, but you can bet your ass that it will in cities that will be flooded in the future. Cities will continue to get flooded as massive weather events become more and more likely, and thanks to this kind of cavalier policy-making by President Trump, people will be less safe when it happens.

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