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| It's going to cost billions to fix California after this month's devastating wildfires. Many of the GOP want to withhold aid until blue state California becomes sufficiently MAGA-like. |
They provided a master class on how they operate with the past week's tragic California wildfires. This whole post will sound like a wildly conspiratorial rant, but hear me out.
First, much of the GOP have bombarded us with truckloads of lies and misinformation and red herrings. Their voices of deception are so loud and big that they drown out the facts and the truth.
Leading a sizable portion of the population believing them. Propaganda works.
They're good at packaging up in neat little soundbites. Fox host Jeanne Pirro is especially adept at this, offering a fire hose of lies, exaggerations and fiction Monday evening:
"To have empty fire hydrants and empty reservoir, no water pressure and you know, it's just, it is just a disaster. And, you know how to lose billions for the homeless, and all kids of money for illegals, but can't manage forestry and you can't take care - take something that's predictable. And the question now is whether Americans in other states should be paying the bill for their policy, which really ignored the fundamental prevention efforts."
See what she did there? She's got the gullible thinking that California taxes residents to death to lavish wealth on the homeless and illegal migrants, as if that's a thing.
And now, she concluded, we should withhold aid to desperate, distraught fire victims until, I don't know, California Gov. Gavin Newsom says he has brown people and The Gays and tells billionaires they no longer should pay taxes or something?
IN FOR THE KILL
Next step: Go in for the kill: With the backing of gullible millions of minions across the nation, they go to work trying to change the "enemy" into an image of themselves.
That enemy to them is California. The giant state is not kind enough to billionaires, not cruel enough to the disadvantaged. California's leaders think climate change is a problem, which of course annoys the GOP's fossil fuel company donors.
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| California Governor Gavin Newsom is fighting back against GOP efforts to withhold aid to California after this month's wildfires. |
So, departing from the way things have always been done, the GOP wants to attach strings to any disaster aid.
For now, the proposed "strings" are described in, I guess, code words? MAGA wants better forest management, whatever that entails. The Los Angeles fires have burned through brush land and of course neighborhoods, and not forests.
I saw a clip of Sen. Roger Marshall R-Kansas on Fox giving up the jig and suggesting that some of the strings attached to California aid be that the state abandon its climate initiatives.
That led the Tennessee Holler on sarcastically comment on X: "Republicans want to condition aid unless California takes measures to make sure this DEFINITELY happens again"
In any event, it looks most of the GOP Trump fanboys and fangirls are on firmly on board.
"House Speaker Mike Johnson, (R-Louisiana) said Monday that 'there should probably be conditions on that aid,' and pointed to disagreements about California's 'resource management' and 'forest management mistakes,'
(There's that like about forests in Los Angeles again!)
"Sen. John Barrasso (Wyoming), the No. 2 Republican in the upper chamber, also blames the fires' devastating outcome on 'policies of the liberal administration out there' during a Sunday interview on CBS's Face the Nation."
Barrasso wants strings attached to California aid, too. Apparently, liberals should have gotten their act together and somehow blocked the 80 mph winds that fanned the flames somehow.
WIDER AUDIENCE
California isn't the only audience for this GOP stunt. It's a warning to everyone who might otherwise go their own way to fall in line with what the Trumpers want. It is very mafia. Nice state you got there. Hate to see anything ruin it.
Some GOP Congress creatures are completely blunt about this plan. Per Washington Post:
"Rep. Zach Nuns (R-Iowa) said California and other Democratic-controlled states would need to atone for 'bad behavior' if they wanted federal assistance.
'We will certainly help those thousands of homes and families who've been devastated, but we also expect you to change bad behavior,' June said Monday on Fox Business. 'We should look at the same for these blue states who have run away with a broken tax policy. We want to help our colleagues in New York, California and New Jersey, but those governors need to change their tune now."
In other words, become MAGA or die.
If we're going to play that game, should we withhold hurricane recovery aid for Republican counties in Florida where wrecked buildings were built in areas prone to storm surges? Or should we punish red counties in western North Carolina because Republican local leaders allowed construction in flood plains? Maybe we can blame Republicans in Florida and North Carolina for not doing enough to get people out of harm's way?
Sane people wouldn't do that. Disaster victims, no matter their political stripes, need help now if not sooner. So just get it to them and shut up about politics already.
Even the talk of adding strings to wildfire aid is costing money and wasting resources that the GOP is claiming they're so keen on saving.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom had to go out of his way to create an entire web page devoted to debunking GOP and MAGA falsehoods regarding the disaster.
Newsom also worked out a deal to create a $50 million war chest to legally defend the state against Trump administration overreach. That's $50 million that could be spent on better things, but this is the world we live in now.
On X, formerly Twitter, Johnson slammed Newsom for daring to clap back at the misinformation campaign.
Newsom's response was: "Mr. Speaker, when Louisiana's need help with hurricanes it's Californians -- many of whom were impacted by these fires -- who foot the bill to help your constituents. And they do it without playing partisan games.
Millions of your supporters are out here and they need your help, empathy, care, and whatever compassion you are willing to express."
At this point, I'm not holding out any hope for compassion or care from the GOP. Newsom probably was wasting his time trying to make that appeal. But I guess he's gotta try.
If Republicans open this can of worms, and Democrats eventually seize power again, are we going to force Oklahoma and Texas to adopt strict climate change measures before providing recovery money in a tornado aftermath? Force Alabama to embrace gay and trans people before we help out after hurricane.
HOW TO INFLUENCE
Besides, there is a way for Congress to influence what happens in California that's fair to everyone, including the victims and the taxpayers they so fervently claim they're siding with.
After every disaster, there's an assessment. What went right, what went wrong, what can we do better when there's a next time.
Things did go wrong in California, despite the heroic efforts of thousands of people.
The firestorm was so explosive, and everybody was using so much water, that the water pressure in hydrants fell to almost nothing, so there was nothing to fight the fire with. There was plenty of water in the reservoirs, but it was being used too fast for the hydrants to keep up. Should there be some sort of redesign of that system?
Should rebuilt houses be required to use fire resistant material, with no vegetation or flammable stuff anywhere near these new buildings? And what about forest management in parts of California and elsewhere. How can we improve that?
Did the Los Angeles Fire Department have enough resources? Was their initial response adequate? What could have been done better?
There's a lot of thing to look at to make the response better next time. And there will be a next time. I know California will do such an assessment, but Congress can mandate that, too, without tying it to aid to disaster victims.
BACKFIRE?
Republicans might already think they have "won" against those silly DEI liberals in California. But they might well have caused headaches for themselves. After all, not all the fire victims are liberal. Surely some of the people who lost their homes in California voted for Trump. So you're going to punish them for not convincing their neighbors to vote for Trump, too?
This could backfire big time in other ways, too. California is a "donor" state, pumping more revenue into the federal government than it takes in. Most red states are the opposite, taking in more federal dollars than they contribute.
I'd wonder if California could somehow retaliate against Washington if disaster aid is withheld?
After every big disaster, the community comes together in solidarity, helping each other, defending each other. That's happening in California.
Will the MAGA types in Congress alienate the Republicans in California who might not like their neighbors' politics, but will still help in a time of need. Will they resent the lack of help from Washington?
Even if Congress doesn't go through with attaching strings to wildfire relief aid, they've already slowed down the process. They'll debate the issue of attaching strings, and that will postpone relief for weeks or months.
Didn't MAGA bitterly criticize outgoing President Biden for supposedly going too slow with aid to flood victims in North Carolina? (Actually, Biden acted pretty fast, but as we already noted, the truth doesn't matter to much of the GOP).
MAGA has already sown plenty of mistrust in the government, and government aid. It's all contributing to the seething undercurrent of rage against all the major institutions of American society.
That anger can't stay contained forever, Hate to say it, but it's going to blow up in somebody's face. Probably the GOP, when too many people decide the Powers That Be aren't on their side after all.
This won't end well.
VIDEO:
The person who explain things much better than I can is somebody known as Politics Girl. She's all over social media, and I highly recommend subscribing to her YouTube channel and/or wherever else you can find her.
In this video, she goes over the disinformation regarding California's fires and she puts it into excellent context. Video is more than seven minutes long and worth every second. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that:
I was born in California and spent a lot of time there including 10 years as an ecologist with a heavy focus on fire. A good rule of thumb with fire policy is to take whatever Trump says and do the exact opposite. I would argue climate change isn't the largest factor in the LA fires, but the other causes are things like invasive species and bad development policy, which the republicans are no better at dealing with than climate change. (Maybe we can get Trump to agree to 'deport' invasive mustard and Eucalyptus?). Fire suppression is a big deal in natural pine forests and some oak forests - mostly the Sierras, the highest ground of the Transverse Ranges, and the central coast range. Fire suppression and prescribed fire in LA's habitats of chaparral that is also infested with invasive species is a lot more complicated and not always an answer.
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