President Donald Trump won’t stop tweeting insults and misinformation about California while it burns. And Democrats have got to keep calling attention to this behavior precisely because it’s been going on for years and it’s not normal. Sitting back and accepting that this the way Trump operates would normalize the president’s lack of empathy and disinclination to support Americans in states that did not vote for him. Even though he’s supposed to be president of us all.
Now, before you go telling us Trump is visiting California to meet firefighters, yeah, okay. But that’s only because he thinks it can win him votes in other states. And he happened to be “next door” doing a rally in Las Vegas. Beyond that: no interest. And he continues to insist that it’s all about “forest management” and not about climate change: “Please remember the words, very simple, forest management, please remember,” he said. And guess what? 60% of all California’s forests are on federal land. So, if it is all about “forest management,” which it’s not, that would mean it’s the president’s duty, and failure, in managing it.
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And that’s only after days and days of completely ignoring all the state’s massive wildfires and resulting horrible air quality in his public statements and tweets. Even now, his thoughts are 100% directed at firefighters, who do deserve lots of credit. But so far, 0% empathy for victims of the wildfires.
Just like when Covid-19 seemed to be exclusively an East Coast problem and the president formed his “we’re not a shipping clerk” response based on that.
The message both now and then being: If you don’t vote for me, you are on your own. And the hard-hit states right now—California, Oregon, Washington—didn’t vote for him.
Now, Trump loves to talk about California, and more recently Seattle, Washington, and even more recently Portland, Oregon, when he can use those states and cities to scare people about West Coast–style liberal governments spreading their way. But when it’s something like wildfires that other people in other states don’t view as an immediate threat, it’s not a good tool for him. Or maybe it is…
Because “if you don’t vote for me, you are on your own” is one of his big campaign messages at this point. It’s nonsense, but this aggressively negative message is also potentially effective, in that it’s meant to be “one size fits all.” Because the president applies it equally to visions he promotes of what will happen if he wins or if Joe Biden does. So it serves to energize his base, no doubt, and could also persuade people who are on the fence in swing states that they stand to get more out of voting for Trump than not.
Because say they vote for Trump, and Biden ends up winning the election: Biden won’t penalize them for it. Not really. But say they vote for Biden, and Trump wins the election: no mercy for them and everybody living in their state.
If Biden wins, that — according to Trump — at least means the end of the suburbs, although often he also broadens it to the end of America; that is, you’ll be left to defend yourselves, because Biden won’t.
If Trump wins, that means you better be in a state that voted for him. Otherwise, for sure you’re going to be neglected at best. And you’re probably going to get punished; that is, you’ll be left to defend yourselves if you don’t bow down and proffer your vote.
And right now, he’s showing how he can make it so.
But Americans are sensible enough to not respond to that kind of twisted reasoning, right? To realize it’s actually the opposite of leadership and taking responsibility and doing your job as president. Right?
