Lukewarm response to Puerto Rico predictable

By Andrew Reeves
October 2 at 5:00 AM

... Trump, like presidents before him, may be discriminating among citizens based on their political significance ... Sometimes that .. is explicit, as when .. Nixon sent a .. memo .. instructing aides to punish Democratic states in budget plans. Other times it is inferred by outsiders; some observers claim that Trump has "pushed an array of policies that tend to punish states that voted Democratic in last year’s presidential election" ...

... That would explain why .. the federal government responded vigorously to Hurricane Harvey in Texas, a solidly Republican state, and Hurricane Irma in Florida, a swing state .. but .. sluggishly to respond to Puerto Rico’s disaster ...

If electoral and partisan politics guide presidential behavior, Puerto Rico finds itself at a profound disadvantage. Residents of Puerto Rico do not vote in the general election for president and have only nonvoting representation in Congress. Some congressional districts have substantial numbers of Puerto Rican constituents, who do vote for president while they reside in other jurisdictions, but they are often in urban districts that lean toward Democrats ...

The American people are watching Trump’s leadership in Puerto Rico’s struggles toward recovery. Because Puerto Ricans have no political voice in Washington, that national gaze may be their best hope of gaining the president’s attention.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/10/02/puerto-rican-residents-dont-vote-for-president-or-congress-could-that-affect-trumps-response-to-hurricane-maria/?utm_term=.d1c69bdc6396