In 2005, George W. Bush was looking forward to spending his political capital on the partial privatization of Social Security. His response to Katrina, however, made him look both incompetent and insensitive. His Social Security initiative, which was already in trouble, subsequently died.
Trump has displayed the same combination of incompetence and insensitivity in his response to Maria. Will the result be the same?
No. Trump lost all moderate opinion long ago; he only cares about his base. For their part, his base is indifferent to the plight of Democratic-voting Hispanics living on an island far from any red states. As far as they’re concerned, if Trump is more interested in tweeting about the NFL than providing essential services to Puerto Rico, that’s fine with them.
They may start to care, however, when the residents of Puerto Rico start moving to Florida and turning the state blue. They haven’t thought that far ahead.