Trump struggles with empathy. So what?

The overall consensus (sometimes grudging) on the Trump administration’s handling of Hurricane Harvey was that the federal government, particularly the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was well prepared and has so far carried out its duties swiftly and effectively.

Many analysts concede that on his measured rollback of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, President Trump is right constitutionally. President Barack Obama’s directive doing what Congress did not regarding children brought to the United States by parents who illegally immigrated was legally shaky at best.

So, all that remains to criticize are matters of optics and levels of visible sympathy. In both cases, Trump’s critics accused him of lacking empathy. With Harvey, Trump didn’t do enough to demonstrate he commiserated with the victims, they said. With DACA, according to a Post editorial that summed up much of the mainstream media’s take, he was “heartless.”