Here at the shebeen, we try to ignore the presidential* tweets because they impress us as the ultimate shiny objects distracting from pursuit of the actual crimes and corruption of this administration*. But it's rare to see an act of utter sociopathy in the wild, so we made an exception to this rule on Thursday morning.

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3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018

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.....This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018

It is a maxim among prosecutors that intent follows the bullet. Shoot your gun idly out your window and hit nothing, you get unlawful discharge of a firearm. Shoot your gun idly out your window and accidentally into a busload of nuns, killing one of them, and you go up for some sort of manslaughter.

Well, in circumstances like this, intent follows the negligence. Yes, some people probably did die of old age in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, but they most likely died of old age because they were old and couldn't get food, or water, or electricity. Intent follows the incompetence. And to dragoon the dead into your own conspiratorial self-pity and paranoia is particularly indecent, even for this president*, who has made indecency into a kind of madman's art project.

Naturally, he goes on to blame everyone who has criticized his ineptitude, including Carmen Yulin Cruz, the mayor of San Juan, whom Trump and his people seem to believe makes her mayor of the whole damn island. Here's the thing: 3,000 brown people died and, in the mind of this president*, and in the minds of far too many of our fellow citizens, the lives of those American citizens don't count. Economic anxiety is a helluva drug.



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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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