[“Aerial view of a neighborhood destroyed by the Palisades Fire on Thursday” via latimesphotos on BlueSky.]
As wildfires rage through the greater Los Angeles area, the incoming president sounds off in a pair of posts on Truth Social:
Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way. He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California. Now the ultimate price is being paid. I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA! He is the blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster!
and
NO WATER IN THE FIRE HYDRANTS, NO MONEY IN FEMA. THIS IS WHAT JOE BIDEN IS LEAVING ME. THANKS JOE!
These posts reveal Trump’s narcissism, ignorance, and callousness. In reverse order:
Callousness: Donald Trump campaigned on a threat to cut off disaster aid to California and as president, he will have the power to follow through on the threat. At this stage (while the wildfires are not even close to being contained, with unusually strong winds expected to return this week), the reports as of this morning are of 16 dead and more than 150,000 people forced from their homes. With more than 19,000 structures burned, many families will not have homes to return to. All of these numbers will increase in the days ahead.
This threat to withhold help in the face of immense devastation was not a first for Trump. In 2018, the then-president denied disaster assistance to California — until an impact report showed him that there were more Republicans (and Trump voters) in Orange County than in the whole state of Iowa.
Ignorance: His social media posts are replete with misstatements. CNN offers a rundown, while the Los Angeles Times features a number of reports from journalists, commentators, and others with an understanding of what is taking place (including, among several examples, here, here, and here).
There is considerable irony in the fact that the president-elect, who castigated the mental acuity of the current president, is a wellspring of such a miasma of misinformation following a natural disaster; this constitutes a pattern for Trump.
California Governor Gavin Newsom and Kathryn Barger, Chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, have invited the incoming president to tour the fire damage to see firsthand the scale of the disaster and the human suffering.
Narcissism: Everything is, first and foremost, about him. And, as a corollary, Trump has never for a moment embraced a commitment to serve as president of the country as a whole, on behalf of all Americans. Not even a feint in that direction. Not in either of his two campaigns for president, nor in his first stint in the White House. That makes him unique among our presidents. [Note: Gerald Ford, who inspired the Daily News headline that I’ve echoed above, did not reject his responsibility to the country writ large, nor did his predecessor, who notoriously had an enemies list. Nor any president, apart from Trump, before or since.]
A number of observers, including a man who worked in three Republican presidential campaigns (for Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and John McCain), have noted how extraordinary this is:
“I can’t think of a president, Republican or Democrat, that has tried to inject partisan politics into an ongoing disaster relief effort,” said Dan Schnur, who served as a communications strategist for former California GOP Gov. Pete Wilson and now teaches at USC, UC Berkeley and Pepperdine.
“Presidents of both parties have always said very harsh and very nasty things about the other party,” Schnur noted. “But we’ve never had a president, or a president-elect for that matter, start taking shots while people are still in danger.”
A political scientist concurs:
“We, as a country, have a road map for this,” said Kristin Taylor, a professor at Wayne State University who has written extensively about the politics of natural disaster. It involves empathy and a lot of federal support, she said, which “sends a big signal that the government’s here and we’ve got your back.”
Trump, by contrast, regards the firestorm “as a political opportunity to stick it to Gavin Newsom. And to stick it to a state that didn’t vote for him,” Taylor said. “And using disasters and disaster response as leverage for punishing political foes is brand spanking for new for us.”
Climate Change is here now.
Another approach to understanding the catastrophe unfolding in California is looking toward the consequences of climate change, rather than malfeasance by Democrats in office or blue state voters.
“The consequences of climate change now include, among others, intense droughts, water scarcity, severe fires, rising sea levels, flooding, melting polar ice, catastrophic storms and declining biodiversity.”
Several seasons of heavy rain followed by a year of severe drought plus unprecedented hurricane-force winds after fires had ignited both explain the current wildfires. Both are anticipated consequences of the dramatic change of climate affecting our planet. No one in the leadership of the Republican Party, not least the man who will soon return to the Oval Office, will acknowledge these truths.
Instead, we get deceitful social media posts and vengeful threats to ensure harm to Americans regarded as enemies of MAGA.
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