Trump's Incompetence Left Thousands Freezing In the Dark Across MAGA South
We all know that Trump has declared war on Blue America. He has made clear that he intends to use the full power of the presidency to make the people who didn’t vote for him suffer. He is even going so far as to send in an armed force of invaders, as he did last fall in Chicago and is doing now in Minnesota. His masked gang openly flouts the law and the Constitution.
But ostensibly Trump loves his voters in the Red States. After all these are the people whose votes put him in office and kept him out of jail for the crimes he committed. Many of them also buy Trump merchandise, like his MAGA hats, his bible, and his playing cards. Some of them would probably even go to see Melania, if they had the opportunity. In principle, Trump would like to help these people, since they count as real Americans in his book.
Unfortunately, regardless of what Trump may desire, he is falling down badly on the job of ensuring the Red States hit by recent winter storms, Mississippi (Trump +23), and Louisiana (Trump +22), and Tennessee (Trump +30) have power and other essential services restored. Tens of thousands were still without power nearly a week after the storm.
It is difficult to quickly restore services after a major storm, especially in areas like these in the South that are not accustomed to severe winter weather. But it’s a safe bet that cutbacks to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other government agencies that might have been involved in the recovery did not help.
It is also worth noting that if a Democrat were in the White House we can be absolutely certain that the Republicans would be screaming bloody murder over this failing. They would certainly be scheduling Congressional hearings and probably even looking to do criminal prosecutions.
This isn’t hypothetical. In the fall of 2024, after Hurricane Helene hit much of Southern Appalachia, President Biden quickly rushed in assistance through FEMA. This effort didn’t stop Republicans from yelling and screaming about how about how Biden had abandoned the area because they were Republicans. Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and biggest spreader of disinformation on the Internet, even pushed absurd stories about how FEMA was blocking aid and seizing packages.
The Republicans also blamed and continue to blame Biden for the inflation caused by the pandemic. Even though the supply-chain problems caused by the pandemic led to jumps in inflation in Canada, Europe, and elsewhere, Republicans pretended that the inflation was just the result of Biden’s blunders.
Their efforts were so successful that even Democratic consultants adopted their line, saying things like, “people don’t care about inflation in Germany and France, they care about the price of bread and milk.”
I won’t weigh in on whether the population lacks the ability to understand that a worldwide pandemic creates economic disruptions; but I will point out that it should be possible for Democrats to flip the story now that Donald Trump is in the White House and tens of thousands of people are suffering. It is in fact the government’s responsibility to prepare for disasters like the winter storms that hit last week.
It should have been able to respond quickly and ensure that the people in hard-hit areas had adequate food, shelter, and access to medical care. Insofar as this was not the case, it was a major failing of the Trump administration. Trump decided it was more important to terrorize the people of Minneapolis to score points against his political opponents than to help his own supporters get through the winter.
Elon Musk’s DOGE chainsaw cut down government workers who might have helped the people in these Red states in an emergency. Trump and the Republican politicians who backed them should be held responsible for this situation. With the Trump administration causing so much chaos and destruction in so many areas, perhaps his failing to protect his supporters in the South should not be at the top of anyone’s agenda. But it does deserve to be on Trump’s greatest hits list.
Dean Baker is a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and the author of the 2016 book Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer. Please consider subscribing to his Substack.
Reprinted with permission from Dean Baker.
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