The far-right extremists must be feeling a bit desperate. The pollsters associated with the right are, from my observations, trying to skew their results such that swayable members of the electorate are convinced the herd is heading rightward; possibly even a well-rated pollster named AtlasIntel (2.7/3 by FiveThirtyEight) is issuing results that are not congruent with other respected pollsters, and are a fair approximation of far-right dreams.
And then there’s the response to Hurricane Helene. Erick Erickson is doing his damndest to scorn the Federal response in two posts, and I think he may be taken as an exemplar of what’s going on among the conspiracy theorists. First, from a come-on for his radio show:
The generation of government bureaucrats that followed witnessed their commitment firsthand and experienced the rise and fall of the Soviet Union. However, just like a third-generation business owner typically drives the business in the ground, this post-WWII third-generation government bureaucrat has taken for granted the competencies of their predecessors because that’s all they’ve ever known.
The lack of government competency in recent years has created a crisis-level deficit in institutional trust. The result is that a growing number of people are willfully falling for the latest conspiracy theory that tickles their ears.
It likens itself to a More in sorrow than anger message, but make no mistake: this is, in part, once again about weakening faith in government, the government that conservatives loath.
Right up until they need it. Right up until the conmen and grifters are caught out.
In his second post, Erickson goes for the Full of scorn position, attacking the bugaboo of the conservatives these days: President Biden.
Now, Joe Biden is at the beach.
People are dying in the mountains of North Carolina and Joe Biden can’t even be bothered to get off the beach and back to the White House. He claims he’s working the phones.
At times like this, it matters as much that Presidents look like they’re engaged, not just that they are engaged. Hanging out on the beach does not look very engaged.
For Democrats, this is a swing state with a Republican gubernatorial candidate in scandal. They could win it. But the President embracing the salt life as some people are just trying to stay alive is going to resonate. The pictures will matter. Yes, the optics matter.
Ummmmm, no. Optics do matter to some small extent, sure, but it matters even more that the response be effective, now doesn’t it? Remember MISSION ACCOMPLISHED? Many may not, as that was more than twenty years ago, even as infamous as it turned out to be. Here’s then-President George W. Bush speaking under a big banner with the above message on it:
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. (Applause.) And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.
In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty, and for the peace of the world. Our nation and our coalition are proud of this accomplishment — yet, it is you, the members of the United States military, who achieved it. Your courage, your willingness to face danger for your country and for each other, made this day possible. Because of you, our nation is more secure. Because of you, the tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free. [whitehouse.gov]
That speech was given May 1, 2003; the war continued onwards for a number of years, victory ever questionable, leading eventually to the American dishonor at Abu Ghraib. The optics were great, right up until the rift between desire and reality became gapingly apparent. Nowadays, Republicans acknowledge the Administration of George W. Bush only because there is no other choice that doesn’t make them a laughingstock. Bush demonstrated the mistake of letting Marketing and Branding run a country, rather than being a tool in the toolbox.
The greatest lesson here was to put forth the best effort, and once that’s done go out and advertise it. Biden says he’s working the phones? That’s what he should be doing.
Erickson’s problem? Well, I suspect his herd of conservatives, in the face of Robinson of North Carolina, Gaetz, Greene, and, of course, Trump, is dispersing. Not to mention, and as he references, the disaster of the response to Hurricane Katrina, and the press coverage of same, was one big step down the path of disaster and incompetence for a far-right that likes to fantasize that it has all the answers and God on its side. It had to sting when Bush and his incompetent minions blundered mightily in its response to Hurricane Katrina, drawing the wrath of American independents.
But as I was saying, there’s a shitstorm and the responses to it. Professor Richardson is countering the right-wing punditocracy with this message:
Today, almost a hundred years later, the destruction from Hurricane Helene continues to mount. At least 128 people have died in six states, and many more remain unaccounted for. Roads remain closed, and power is still off for more than 2 million people. In remarks to reporters today, President Joe Biden called the damage “stunning” and explained that the federal government is providing all the support it can. He noted that federal help was on the ground before the storm and when asked if there were more the government could be doing, answered no and explained that the administration had “preplanned a significant amount of it, even though they…hadn’t asked for it yet.” …
And yet, the hurricane has become the latest topic of disinformation for MAGA Republicans. Social media today is full of accounts claiming that the federal government is not responding to the crisis in western North Carolina because it prefers to spend money in Ukraine and on undocumented immigrants. Newsmax host Todd Starnes claimed that FEMA’s “top priority is not disaster relief” but to push diversity, equity and inclusion. “So, unless you’ve got your preferred pronouns spraypainted on the side of your submerged house—you won’t get a penny from Uncle Sam. Western North Carolina is just too Conservative and too Caucasian for FEMA to care.” The House Judiciary Committee posted that “Joe Biden was at the beach.”
These posts echo Russian disinformation, and Trump was on board with it. Touring Valdosta, Georgia, today, as a private citizen where people are still without power amidst the devastation, Trump said he had spoken to Elon Musk to get his Starlink satellites into North Carolina; FEMA has already provided 40 of the systems to North Carolina. He claimed that Georgia governor Brian Kemp is “having a hard time getting the president on the phone. They’re being very non-responsive.”
Sadly for Mr Trump…
Kemp himself told reporters that Biden had called yesterday. “And he just said, ‘Hey, what do you need?’” Kemp told him, “We got what we need, we’ll work through the federal process. He offered that if there’s other things that we need just to call him directly, which I appreciate that.” South Carolina governor Henry McMaster, a Republican, called it “a great team effort…the federal government is helping us well, they’re embedded with us. There is no asset out there that we haven’t already accessed.”
And there are more examples, in Professor Richardson’s post, of Republican elected officials expressing positive sentiments towards President Biden and Federal agencies helping in a time of need.
This is known as Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
That’s a serious point, isn’t it? The folks who are on the spot, who know what’s going on and are responsible, are telling quite a differing tale compared to that of pundits, social influencers, and candidates for office: all members of a category that benefits from conservative anger, whether or not it’s justified. They just go out and generate it, and collect their paychecks afterwards.
It’s just like Alex Jones and his bizarrely popular and shameful theories about the Sandy Hook massacre. Money money money money. God doesn’t figure into it, and I say that as skeptic and agnostic.
There is a certainly role for evaluation of the emergency response, what is often called a post-mortem. But it’s ghoulish and dishonest to disregard the best information in favor of trying to stir up conservatives who may end up paying a very high price if they buy into the false information and bad evaluations dispensed by the pundits. If you’re a conservative, it’s Kemp who is being honest, not Trump, not Erickson.
They just want power.
