Republicans see an opportunity to play politics with the suffering of Californians impacted by the deadly wildfires in the state. And they are going to capitalize on it.
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Republicans absolutely love to cloak themselves in patriotism. However, as hundreds of thousands of Americans impacted by the wildfires in and around Los Angeles find themselves in dire need of help, GOP lawmakers are indicating that those blue state voters should only expect assistance if they change their wicked ways.
In other words, these Republicans, who will be fully in charge of Washington by next week, are not only trying to hold suffering Americans hostage, but all that talk about letting states make their own decisions is apparently just lip-service as well.
Take Sen. John Barrasso (WY), the second-ranking Republican in the Senate. On Sunday, he made it clear that California, a frequent target of GOP ire, would not just be given federal dollars like all those other states struck by natural disasters.
“I expect that there will be strings attached to money that is ultimately approved, and it has to do with being ready the next time, because this was a gross failure this time,” Barrasso said on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday.
Of course, these aren’t stipulations usually included in other disaster relief efforts.
Imagine what Republicans would say if Democrats declared that any red states hit by a hurricane could only expect help if they passed comprehensive legislation to combat climate change! They would lose their minds.
Barrasso accused California elected officials, i.e., “Democrats,” of “gross mismanagement.”
However, we are still in the midst of this catastrophe, so there is no telling yet who ultimately deserves blame and for what.
But that hasn’t stopped Republicans from pointing fingers… though not, of course, at themselves for having denied the realities of climate change and refusing to do anything about it for decades.
So what is this “mismanagement”? Is it the failure to have enough water available to extinguish fires, or perhaps that some wildfire mitigation efforts were neglected?
Those are not the problems the Senate majority whip chooses to highlight.
“It’s heartbreaking to hear the fire chief say that they’ve diverted all of this money away from the fire department to be used for social programs when they were already stretched too thin,” Barrasso added.
And that gets more to the point of what all of this is about.
Republicans just don’t like how California’s elected officials run their state.
This is also true for other blue states like New York, Washington, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the District of Columbia. All of them have GDPs per capita that not only exceed $100,000 but are also higher than those of any red states (which means their taxpayers also pay more than their fair share when other states are in need).
However, California, which, if it were a country, would be the world’s sixth-largest economy, has always been a particular thorn in the side of Republicans, and the wildfires allow them to stick it to the Golden State.
Barrasso is not the only GOP lawmaker who has suggested that he would apply a different standard to California, but he is the most prominent one.
So, what’s the endgame here?
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), who hails from a state that probably gets more federal disaster relief than any other, gave it away.
He made it quite clear that the GOP’s goal is to use this disaster to make Californians feel the pain, hate their own government, and vote them out.
“The people of California, at the end of the day, they have a responsibility to elect competent leadership, starting with the governor through the state assembly and into local government,” he said on Fox News Business, citing the state’s “far-left woke policies.”
That is the entire purpose of holding Californians hostage.
So, the next time Republicans are talking about loving the country and its people, it’s worth remembering that this “patriotism” comes with strings attached.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
