A wake up call; time to suit up.
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The mass horror of the Los Angeles fires’ mega-catastrophe perfectly encapsulates the sense of futility so many of us feel. And yet, we know what made those fires possible.
And we know, more or less, what could have been done to prevent them.
Yet, paradoxically, it is the very sense of futility, and the paralysis it engenders, that guarantees things will keep getting worse.
In these early days, we’re starting to hear about LA’s failure to keep up its infrastructure, which, presumably, should have generated superior firefighting operations. We also know that LA’s fire department is way too small, and hasn’t kept pace with population growth. And more comes out each day, like the story about the huge reservoir that was closed for maintenance.
So there’s all that. But then there’s also the weather. Now, I grew up in LA, and I have always known that the dry brush in the hills is a fire hazard, and that building nearby without removing the brush is a huge risk. I also well remember the Santa Ana winds, those warm gusts that would exacerbate any blazes that started up, as invariably they did from time to time.
But there’s no denying also a profound connection with climate change, which is worsening all the contributing factors dramatically. And a familiar cycle: Wet-grow-dry-burn-blow-spread. And this time, the wind speeds were freakishly high.
Most people in the fire zones probably were already concerned about climate change, but also too busy with daily life and a generalized sense they couldn’t make much of an impact anyway, even if they wanted to do something and even if they knew what that might be.
Still, disaster has a way of focusing us, of shifting priorities.
Many activists — most, perhaps — get involved with some cause after they or their loved ones are personally affected by something.
Plenty of people in LA actually do have a kind of influence, certainly more than most people elsewhere in the US. The city houses a distinct elite — people who make our societal messaging via images and songs.
They have the ability to join forces with those already working, with great difficulty and frustration, to turn climate change — which is just a gentler term for global warming — into the moral equivalent of war, where everyone must suit up.
The Worst Doing Their Usual, Appalling, Worst
It would be nice to think that, just once, Donald Trump and Elon Musk could show some humanity, decency, and good taste. It would have been nice if they expressed their horror at the fires, and offered to help in a meaningful way.
Instead, they used the occasion to score points and push buttons. Trump immediately blamed Democrats, called California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, a juvenile name and said he should resign; and Musk, as usual, pushed out claims he read on his own platform without really understanding them — or ever acknowledging the obligations that come with wielding a huge megaphone.
For example, the assertions that California had cut its firefighting budget. It is true that, one month before the fires broke out, the Los Angeles fire chief said that budget cuts were “hampering the department’s ability to respond to emergencies.” (The city budget did decrease by $17.6 million, or 2 percent, between the 2023-24 and the 2024-25 fiscal years — although huge, one-time purchases weren’t factored in). Meanwhile, the state fire budget has nearly doubled since 2019, as has the number of firefighters.
Here and there, more accurate and thoughtful accounts could certainly be found. For example, Juliette Kayyem, a former US Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary, observed in a radio interview:
No city is built for a municipal water system to deliver assistance during what’s essentially a wildland fire. … The best way to fight a wildland fire is by using helicopters and dropping water on it. We don’t have that capacity now because of the winds and because you’re in populated areas. So they’re essentially doing hand-to-hand combat.
Referring to rumors that there was no water, she explained,
This has nothing to do with the supply of water. It has to do with the pressure in the system. Everyone was grabbing it at the same time. … There wasn’t enough pressure to deliver that water to hilly areas like the Pacific Palisades, which is essentially sort of a cliff area over the ocean.
Kayyem also tweeted in response to Trump’s blaming Newsom and falsely claiming he had failed to sign a water restoration declaration:
In all my years in and studying disaster management, I have never seen a president-elect blame a jurisdiction while the disaster was still out of control. It distracts, is cruel to first responders and victims, and could impede effective response.
Trump doubled down on his strategy of routinely dispensing blame as the days passed. Early Sunday he attacked local and state officials. “The fires are still raging in L.A.,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social site. “The incompetent pols have no idea how to put them out.”
Let’s remember that these are people who have either dismissed or minimized climate change as a problem — like Trump — or given lip service to the issue while enabling Trump and his do-nothing, pro-fossil-fuel approach.
These are people who themselves could never own any crisis and just work at solving it without putting blame elsewhere. In fact, as we’ve seen repeatedly, these are people whose first and last response to any crisis, however tragic, is to try to figure out how to play it for political, if not financial, advantage and to increase their power.
Meanwhile, Mel Gibson was in a studio with Joe Rogan in Austin, TX, and both were barking that climate change is a hoax when Gibson learned his Malibu house had burned down.
Dealing With Musk
It is obviously way past time to deal with Musk and the manifest danger he presents.
The Europeans understand this. They’re watching whether his content moderation policies on X (formerly Twitter) comply with EU regulation and monitoring, as well, his growing meddling in European politics, including boosting far-right elements.
Americans, however, have been far too slow to move beyond fanboy approbation (and it is, mostly) for Musk and his cars and rockets and bravado to fully grasp the scary reality of this nightmare of a human being and to start thinking about solutions.
People who have lived under tyrants know what happens when one person has too much power and too little moral compass. And no one really knows where this hybrid businessperson-politician model can take us.
Could a Musk boycott be the start? How is he the richest person in the world, and getting richer at warp speed? He can only become richer because money is being transferred to him from others.
What are the exact details of this? We know it is people buying his cars, using his satellites, giving him government contracts. But what are the details, and what are the alternatives?
Who Will Resist?
As the Tech Bros all make their pilgrimage to the Trump throne and sacrifice any moral standards they may have to purely commercial calculations, it’s critical that others be pressured to hold the line, issue by issue, against tyranny.
We see some small things. Like Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett joining their three liberal colleagues in declining to block Trump’s hush money conviction sentencing. The other four, of course, were locked in long ago, so their voting Trump’s way is no sign of anything.
Next, we’ll need to know more about what mid-level managers and the rank and file at federal agencies like the Defense Department and Health and Human Services will do to ensure that crazy schemes — like going to war to annex Greenland or banning vaccination for diseases such as polio — do not become the order of the day.
How do you do your job responsibly when your bosses themselves are reckless? We need a lot more open discussion about how being a government servant demands more than just following orders. Hint: The Uniform Code of Military Justice enjoins members of the armed forces NOT to obey orders they judge to be “patently illegal“ or “contrary to the Constitution.”
Coups and Such
Speaking of following orders versus being responsible — investigators in South Korea want to bring in recently impeached right-wing President Yoon Suk Yeol for questioning to determine whether he committed insurrection.
You’ll recall that Yoon ordered the military to seize the National Assembly building and to round up his opponents. The Presidential Security Service (something like our Secret Service) formed a cordon around Yoon and blocked other forces from taking him in. And there is now a “Stop the Steal” campaign in South Korea. Sound familiar?
It’s a scene right out of a movie — but then so was January 6, and most everything else about Trump. What happens when military, security, and law enforcement elements disagree about the right course of action going forward? Now is the time to start dealing openly with this looming nightmare.
If you still doubt that’s relevant, consider another country, Brazil, where a former president and his allies are accused of fomenting a coup against the incoming administration — a plan that included assassination. I barely hear anything about this in the US media.
Meanwhile, there’s plenty of support in law enforcement for pretty much anything Trump wants to do. The National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA) issued a statement supporting Trump’s choice of the deranged Kash Patel to run the FBI, and decried law enforcement under Biden, despite the fact that crime overall is on the decline in the United States. A review of extreme statements and actions from sheriffs around the country gives us an inkling of the kinds of people we are dealing with.
Disconnecting From Reality
The Trumpian playbook of continuously fabricating claims, and getting away with it, continues. A few days ago I got an email from Trump “Rapid Response Director” Jack Schneider, who is apparently given authority to be even more reckless and inflammatory than the man himself. With the subject line “Biden Burns It All Down As He Nears Exit,” Schneider claims:
Crooked Joe Biden is determined to disgrace himself as much as possible as he heads for the exit in just two weeks. In the waning days of his lame duck presidency, Biden has aided murderers, hosed the taxpayers, and done everything in his power to make life more difficult for everyday Americans.
All of those assertions — and especially the ugly simplicity of the claims — would wither in a reasoned review of the particulars, but most who receive such missives will likely not seek to read what more independent observers say about these matters. Read the rest of Schneider’s claims here.
I especially like this line from their “let’s ascribe our own guy’s worst qualities to the other guy” playbook:
Of course, Biden has always been an angry, bitter individual whose selfishness is outmatched only by a delusional sense of self-importance.
And speaking of misdirection, right-wing media is calling health care executive shooter Luigi Mangione “The Ivy League Killer” but not mentioning how many zillionaire appointees of Trump also went to Ivy League schools. This of course is more of an attempt to blame elite institutions for everything and weaken education in general. And yet Trump often brags about his own Ivy League credentials (however purchased) and those of many of his appointees, even as he simultaneously rouses his crowd against elitism. This is at the core of the irrationality of Trump Redux.
Escape Into Self-Indulgence
It seems to me that much of society is withdrawing into a cocoon of comfort and fantasy. Major news organizations like The New York Times step up their coverage of celebrities and are pushing and profiting from consumer products and idle activities that, while they may soothe us, draw our attention and energies away from the grim battles that must be fought.
Everyone loves what goes down the gullet and into the pocket, and not just here. Witness the record $1.3 million paid by a restaurant group in Japan for a single huge and almost certainly mercury-tainted tuna, because somehow “regular” sashimi is just not good enough. This spreading sybaritic extravagance somehow puts me in mind of a massive star that, running out of hydrogen, starts fusing helium and then the heavier elements on its way to becoming a black hole.
And of course, self-interest is increasingly seen as a legitimate excuse for avoiding responsibility. Disgraced former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) actually asked a court to delay his sentencing on federal fraud charges so he can make — and profit from — more podcast episodes.
It’s true: No failure is permanent any longer for miscreants. Witness former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), forced out of the running for attorney general for his litany of misdeeds, now considering a bid for governor of Florida. Florida, mind you. Did anyone ever think there would be such a thing as “much worse than Ron DeSantis”?
Loneliness Becoming a Hot Topic
You may recall that in my New Year’s message I wondered whether one of the main factors in Trump’s appeal was his playing on the growing loneliness in US society. I gave examples of how he convinces increasingly isolated segments of the population that he cares about each of them — he really cares!
I’m hoping this topic goes front and center, and was pleased to see this piece now out in The Atlantic. As the sub-head says,
Americans are now spending more time alone than ever. It’s changing our personalities, our politics, and even our relationship to reality.
Reentering Reality
During these past holidays, many of us took time out, and even tuned out. But to mash together and paraphrase hundreds of years of wise sayings: You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you. And right now you may not be interested in reality, but reality is always interested in you — and will find you sooner or later. So, as is true with almost everything, it’s simply best to be proactive, and to confront the madness before you, too, are on the back foot.
