President Trump's Hurricane Harvey Speeches: Liberal Comfort or Conservative Strength?

President Donald Trump gave a few very brief, apparently impromptu speeches when he visited south Texas after Hurricane Harvey. The hurricane had caused terrible flooding. I have family in the area, and the disaster has been quite frightening. Let's look at how different audiences could perceive two of these speeches differently.

Pres. Trump Briefing, Corpus Christi

Trump gave some brief remarks at Annaville Fire Station 5 in Corpus Christi, Texas. Texas Governor Greg Abbott gave some brief remarks thanking the president for his help. Trump praised Texas and Texas' elected leaders: "And I can tell you that my folks were just telling me how great your representatives have been in working together.  It's a real team, and we want to do it better than ever before.  We want to be looked at in five years, in ten years from now as this is the way to do it." Trump commented that the hurricane "was of epic proportions. Nobody has ever seen anything like this." He then thanked the Governor and state officials for their work: "We won't say congratulations.  We don't want to do that.  We don't want to congratulate.  We'll congratulate each other when it's all finished.  But you have been terrific.  Really terrific.  It's a great honor.  And you've been my friend, too, for a long time."

Some of President Trump's critics complained that he didn't say anything to comfort the victims, that he was simply congratulating his political allies. In this respect, he fell short of some of the speeches that we've heard during times of disaster from other presidents. These criticisms are true, in one sense, but they may also miss a distinction between the way conservative and liberal audiences perceive things. Trump is a conservative president. Trump actually opened his speech with this comment: "This is a very special place in a special state." That is, he praised the state of Texas and its people. The critics may be right that he spent more time praising his own people than praising the population, which was still struggling under terrible hardships. Still, Texans like to think of themselves as fighters, do they not?

Trump, Corpus Christi Fire Station

A short time later, Trump gave a second speech outside the same locale with a somewhat different focus. He reassured the audience of first responders: "I just wanted to say, we love you, you are special.  We're here to take care of you." He then said, "It's going well," which it obviously was not. He thanked Governor Abbott for doing "a fantastic job." He then praised Texans again: "I will tell you, this is historic, it's epic, what happened.  But you know what, it happened in Texas, and Texas can handle anything." While a liberal speaker would want to give comforting words, Trump offered something more like fighting words: Harvey had thrown Texas a big punch, and the people of Texas were counterpunching. So, maybe he didn't quite do the job that some people expected, but, then again, maybe understood his audience better than his critics did.

Another point: maybe sympathy can wait. Trump gave people hope that their leaders were doing their jobs and would struggle to save them. That's what they cared about.

There is history here: when President George W. Bush flew over Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, he told his inept Homeland Security Secretary: "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job." That out-of-touch statement gave Bush's prestige a nasty hit. It's great to praise people, but you don't want to praise people who are obviously messing up. Are Texas officials doing their jobs? Honestly, it's too soon for anyone to pass judgment. Maybe Trump should have been more careful, maybe not. Who knows? Time will tell.

In the meantime, we are all hoping that the disaster doesn't get any worse, and that South Texas and Louisiana will recover stronger than ever.