The United States has been through one major natural disaster just recently with Hurricane Helene hitting the Southeast states, and now another is on the way as Hurricane Milton takes aim at Florida. And through this, Donald Trump is putting his energy into not acting like a strong leader, but instead spreading lies and falsehoods about the relief efforts. Others in the GOP are piling on (with conspiracy-theory-queen Marjorie Taylor Greene making the absurd claims that the Democrats can control the weather), and in the process making a bad situation much worse. This, of course, goes right along with their tendency toward toxic and divisive rhetoric, and this is behavior that should be neither accepted nor normalized.
Among the misinformation that Trump and his MAGA loyalists are spreading are claims that FEMA is out of money because funds were used to house migrants (something that is not true and that Trump actually did while in office), that people who were impacted would only receive $750 in assistance (that is only the initial distribution of emergency funds, and many Republicans voted against FEMA assistance), and they have generally painted the Biden administration as non-responsive (there are currently thousands of National Guard members and Federal personnel on site helping with relief efforts, and Trump previously withheld assistance from Puerto Rico after they were hit by a major hurricane). They have spread so much disinformation, in fact, that FEMA had to put up a website to debunk the false claims.
The video below shows Trump making several of his false claims while getting fact-checked by Fox’s Laura Ingram, and if you keep watching, you will see coverage of Republican and Democratic governors praising Biden for his response to Helene.
Trump and many in the GOP have called out Democrats for what they claim is toxic and divisive rhetoric, and J.D. Vance went so far as to claim the words of the Dems led to the assassination attempts on Trump. This is all part of the spin used by Trump and his followers as well as their bait-and-switch tactics, allowing them to say what they want while presenting themselves as victims and portraying their opponents as oppressors. And sadly, this dangerous rhetoric has all too often been normalized as nothing more than heated political squabbles. But the fact is that they have crossed a line that is unacceptable, and they should be called out for acting in bad faith and spreading outright lies that are damaging to the country. What they are saying could actually discourage people from seeking out assistance that is readily available to them.
Basically, what Trump and his MAGA faithful are doing is employing scare tactics to manipulate the American people into believing the Democratic Party is dysfunctional and that the Republicans are the only ones who can save the country. And when the Democrats try to counter that, the GOP spins it to make their opposition look like the bad actors. But it is Trump and his MAGA movement that has taken this country to some dark places, as evidenced by the dangerous lies they are spreading about the hurricane relief efforts, and that is not something that should be accepted or normalized.
If a party is being divisive, that should be called out. If a party is spreading boldfaced lies that prove harmful, that should be called out. If a party is showing clear signs of authoritarianism and fascism, that should be called out. If a party is demonizing and marginalizing certain groups in the country, that should be called out. If a party is openly attacking our Democracy and threatening to bring it to an end, that should be called out. And if they try to turn that back and project their actions onto their opponents–as we have seen on a regular basis–that should be called out as well.
We cannot just accept this behavior and dismiss it as “politics as usual”. We also cannot write it off as corrupt politicians on both sides. Sure, each party has its bad actors, but when one in particular has taken it to the extreme–as we’ve seen with Trump and the MAGA Republicans–it must not be passed off and/or normalized. This behavior must be called out as wrong and dangerous, and we must convince as many people as possible to see the threat this presents to our country. And as the election approaches, we must make sure that we head to the polls and vote out these bad actors to assure that the United States moves away from the dark vision they have proffered and toward a brighter future.