Column: Compassion and decency are lost in wildfires as California enemies play politics

Burning California and its political enemies are practically dancing in the flames and enjoying the ashes.

From the mountains to the sea, the rubble and ruins are biblical in size, scope and wall-to-wall destruction.

At least five people are dead. Thousands of structures have been destroyed. More than 130,000 people have fled for their lives. From some perspective, that’s as if the entire population of Billings, Mt.; Allentown, Pa.; or West Palm Beach, Florida, had suddenly picked up speed and was moving en masse.

And the threat is far from over. The winds fueling the wildfires are expected to pick up again and roar for more than a day. Things appear to be getting worse in much of Los Angeles and its beleaguered neighbors. Much worse.

And yet the response of the country’s new president and many of his political allies was completely devoid of care or compassion. In their haste to score points and politicize one of the worst natural disasters in California history, most didn’t even bother to offer the ritual hopes and prayers.

Donald Trump mocked “Gov. “Gavin Newscum,” criticized President Biden, recounting old comments about wasted water supposedly flowing into the ocean. (The state’s reservoirs are actually at or above their historical levels.)

Richard Grenell, recently named Trump’s “special missions” envoy, claimed: “Democrats’ far-left policies in California are literally burning us down.”

Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee blamed the devastation on excessive environmental sensitivity that puts the survival of “tiny fish” above the lives and livelihoods of struggling residents.

And further.

It’s not just inconvenient as tolls rise and heavy rains hit Southern California again.

It’s unprecedented.

“I can’t imagine any president, Republican or Democrat, who has tried to insert partisan politics into an ongoing disaster response,” said Dan Schnur, who worked 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 have never seen a president – ​​or any future president – ​​start shooting while people are still in danger.”

The falsehoods and misinformation are bad enough.

“I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to flow to CALIFORNIA!” Trump wrote on social media. “It’s his fault.”

(This came after threatening to withhold federal disaster aid if California politicians refused to give farmers and cities more water, at the expense of the environment and others who were denied their share.)

In fact, Mother Nature bears much of the responsibility for the fiery apocalypse. You could kill every delta smelt that ever passed water through its gills — to name just one endangered species that conservatives like to flog for lack of dam building — and it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference in the last terrible days.

Lack of rainfall extended the fire season into the normally wet month of January. Fierce winds grounded helicopters and other aircraft in the crucial early hours after several fires broke out, exploding in size and scattering embers like burning confetti for miles.

The steep topography hampered overwhelmed firefighters and compromised the region’s safety infrastructure. (The latter can be attributed to a lack of investment and a stubborn mentality that skimps on prevention until it turns out it’s too late.)

However, California’s critics are not letting these facts deter them from pursuing their goals or objectives.

But even worse is the complete lack of humanity. It is one measure of the depravity of our current politics, as if we needed another.

“As a country, we have a roadmap for this,” said Kristin Taylor, a professor at Wayne State University who has written extensively on the politics of natural disasters. That requires empathy and a lot of government support, she said, which “sends a big signal that the government is here and we have your back.”

Trump, on the other hand, sees the firestorm “as a political opportunity to blame Gavin Newsom. And leave it to a state that didn’t vote for him,” Taylor said. “And using disasters and disaster relief as leverage to punish political opponents is completely new for us.”

Leave it—improbably—to Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor and Gavin Newsom’s nemesis, to remind us how politicians used to respond to disasters.

“Our prayers are with everyone affected by the terrible fires in Southern California,” said DeSantis, who has overseen his state’s response to numerous deadly hurricanes. “When disaster strikes, we must come together to help our fellow Americans in any way we can. The State of Florida has offered to help the people of California deal with these fires and rebuild devastated communities.”

Compare DeSantis to Rep. Andy Biggs, an Arizona Republican who used the right-wing Newsmax network to parrot the water waste fallacy and attack the Federal Emergency Management Agency with the false claim that it had nearly $2 billion in relief funds for “illegal aliens” diverted care.”

I am reminded of the famous words of attorney Joseph Welch, who verbally beheaded Joseph McCarthy in a nationally televised congressional hearing, bringing an abrupt and deserved end to the Wisconsin Senator’s ruthless and cruel crusade against the Reds.

“Have you no sense of decency, sir?” said Welch. “Did you leave no sense of decency?”