"Trump is dividing this country with the delicacy of a meat cleaver."

[Content Note: Bigotry.]

This is a very good piece by Charles M. Blow for the New York Times: "Divert, Divide, Destroy."

[W]hen Carmen Yulín Cruz, the female mayor of San Juan, dared to advocate for the lives of the people in her city by pushing back on the Trump administration's "good news story" narrative, Trump released a bullet spray of injurious tweets — some from the bucolic grounds of his Bedminster golf club — not only about the mayor but also about the people of Puerto Rico.

He said that the mayor was being "nasty," a coded appellation he seems to favor when his target is female.

...The subtext here — or perhaps the actual text — was to blame the victim and berate them as a group: These brown people want/need help, but won't/can't help themselves because their community/culture is inferior/ineffective.

It was a revolting, racialized attack, but one delivered in much the same way that his racialized attack on the N.F.L. players was delivered: by using hijacked glory.

He used the nobility of veterans and active service member to shield his ignoble attack on the N.F.L. players, and he used the nobility of first responders to shield his ignoble attack on Puerto Ricans.

The mayor was right, of course. No one wants their plaintive wails drowned out by a cacophony of premature, self-congratulatory pats on the back. Also, what kind of man demands praise from the mourning?

A rhetorical question, naturally. We all know, because it is painfully evident, what kind of man demands praise from the mourning: A man with a voracious ego and an insatiable need for approbation and applause. A man who is intransigently preoccupied with his own sense of grandeur. A man who cares about nothing and no one but himself. A man like Donald Trump.