Hurricane Harvey has captivated the people of America the past week and for good reason- it will go down as one of the most devastating natural disasters we've seen in recent years. Seeing the rescue efforts and hearing of families trapped in their homes is something you can't truly fathom from behind your TV screen, but we're all human and we can see the pain and human suffering on the faces of those lost in the chaos- things we'd never wish on our worst enemies. This is a tough time for America, but a time when unity is crucial.

And in such an important time for him to showcase his unity, empathy and sensitivity, President Trump instead took to Twitter to criticize the fake news media and tweet in the most inappropriate fashion possible during such a difficult time.

My problem with tweeting about the fake news issue is that this shouldn't be his focus. But when it comes to his hurricane tweets, this is even more apparent.

He started off by tweeting some normal updates but the tone was unprofessional- telling those monitoring the storm to "be safe" like a kid being sent off the college and wishing them luck. It was taking too much of a back seat to tweet those things.

And then he went on to talk about the floods and the record amounts of rainfall as if he were aiming to win a prize of sorts- as if they were something worth a congratulatory tweet. Comments like, "TEAMWORK... Record setting rainfall," "Many people are now saying that this is the worst storm/hurricane they have ever seen," and best of all, "Wow... Now experts are calling #Harvey a once in 500 years flood," seemed to resemble the words of a child in awe of the rain outside versus what they should have been- words of a president with true concern.

And don't get me wrong, I know I'm being a little hard of the guy, but let's be honest- he deserves it. He needs to be more careful with his language and how he approaches these events. He is acting like an observer and not taking the action past presidents, on either side of the aisle, have taken. And to top it off, he missed the point of his visit in Texas.

When he visited, he made a speech and commented on crowd size instead of aiding in the effort. Reports and accounts say he spoke to crowds of people and visited with officials and those leading the rescue efforts, but by the looks of the media, he wasn't involved hands-on. But hey, maybe it's fake news.

The problem with this was not that he wasn't as involved as he could have been, while that is an enormous problem, but that he tweeted after about witnessing the damage "first hand" when he really didn't speak with the people in danger and who had been hurt the most.

And on top of his failed attempt at seeming like a guy with a lot of empathy in his heart, he continued to make tweets about fake news and Hillary this week. Sometimes it's hard to believe this guy.

Hurricane Harvey has uprooted families and transformed lives. It's unlike any we have ever seen. And while this is all happening, we have a president who can't get his social media to be as professional as is expected of him and who can't seem to get involved where people need him most. And for him to act this way, and continue in these months to deny climate change and destruct the climate legislation we once had in place is a red-flag in so many ways.

The president can't fathom the damage of this hurricane because he's under the protection of his vehicles and staff, meeting just from the top of a bus to deliver an address and with some officials. So he can't really see the toll this has taken on the nation. His lack of effort to do so says a lot about how much he understands and cares about climate change, because this natural disaster is inevitably a result of the climate crisis. And if he can't open his eyes to it, meet with victims, and gain some knowledge, it says a lot about his priorities. We've known for a while that global warming isn't something he believes in and isn't something he wants to work to fix, and this instance of lack of care not only for the victims of this hurricane but to see the damage in the closest form to its entirety possible says he truly doesn't care about the crisis.

So he can tweet all about the storm, continue to launch tweet rants about Hillary, criticize the fake news media, but he can't take the approach a president truly would- one that understood, empathized, was hands-on, and worked tirelessly to give people hope again. That's the kind of president we deserve in this stormy era we're living in, but it's not the kind of president we've been given.

Sources:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-storm-harvey-tr...

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump