These people are insane.
It’s very deliberate.
One of the key features of an abusive relationship is shutting you down from people who can help you.
If someone’s in the middle of a disaster, and Joe Biden’s federal government comes and helps them out, it’s a catastrophe for the Republicans. It brings the psychotic lies people have been told about the government into contact with the reality of the federal government in the real world, which is one of the few ways they might be able to break out of their elaborate propaganda-bubbles.
If, on the other hand, they’re convinced that FEMA is now coming to kill them, but also their home has been washed away in a mudslide, then they might wind up fleeing the state, living with their family on their brother-in-law’s couches, trying to scrape by, becoming more and more desperate, with no one to give them any substantive assistance of any kind. The desperation increases. The fear of anything governmental or democratic can continue, and increase.
And then, when their brother-in-law offers them a rifle and an invitation to come with a few people and shoot up the election office, or the Democratic organizer’s home, because the government already tried to kill them once when they were at their lowest point, and they escaped only by the skin of their teeth, so it might as well be go time… well, they might accept the offer. Because why not?
By demonizing FEMA, the Republicans are turning what would have been a problem into a recruitment tool.
Let’s just cut to the chase no more money to the states they represent.
Sorry, but isn’t that exactly the batshit stuff they’re accusing? Citizens of those states deserve the same benefits, no matter how dumb they or their leaders are
Sometimes I ponder about the consequences of “shaking the tree”, so to speak.
At some point, there emerges only a direct method to get people to understand where help is coming from, some way to get the misinformed people affected by disaster to see directly that it is us, other Americans, who are delegating & funding the emergency help as needed.
Cutting aid for a short period, with clear messaging about who and why, would do that… If we were naive enough to believe that would work. Reds might try to enact their own (undoubtedly privatized) version of FEMA, and blame us all for how badly it works out. See: the joke of a texan ISO power operator.
Do we remove our nose to spite the face?
How much does stability matter when it comes to propping up a system which disregards the long-term longevity of our species as a whole?
Scary questions, with even scarier possible answers mean we’ll continue forth as-is, bitching and moaning the whole time.
E: I’m drunk and dgaf, cleaning my house and taking breaks. Lean into it folks, life outside our human constructed walls is bleak, without remorse and free of morality. We’ve triumphed in building a beautiful society, and I believe are only on the threshold to greater things if we remember we’re all on team human, spaceship earth with other beautiful living companions. None of this other bullshit fucking matters lol.
