They have been lecturing California & also lying about California. They’re talking about putting conditions on the federal aid. It’s been a relentless torrential flood of lies, and hatred toward a suffering fellow state.
California pays the bills of many red states around the country. They send far more to government coffers than they receive. California is a place where a lot of business & innovation occurs across multiple industries.
In balance of payment analysis, California is typically a net payer, as are many blue states, including NY. States like Texas and Florida are net recipients, as are many red states.
And yet, those GOP mother fuckers want to act like California is some lazy man’s slacker hellscape, and it’s the fault of DEI or something that the fire got out of hand, and that California doesn’t even deserve funding. It enrages me to see these people turn against their fellow Americans in their time of need.
This is a planned political reaction, and will be repeated anytime a blue state has a disaster. This is what MAGA-world will do to its fellow citizens.
Anyway, just remember this the next time we have a Democrat in the White House, and a red state (Florida, for instance) gets hammered by a natural disaster and goes to Washington in need of a handout.
No, don’t do that. I mean, remember, sure, but don’t continue to make natural disaster aid political. That is wrong in every respect, and revenge just doesn’t work.
Instead, aim for correcting the problems that allow political judgments to affect the amounts and/or conditions of disaster aid.
We’re going to have to start punching back to these people. Back during the pandemic, do you recall MAGA’s slow-walking help for COVID, because they saw it early as a “blue state” problem? This is the same type of thinking.
They’re opening Pandora’s Box. And once they do that, I don’t think it can be closed.
I still disagree. Punching back just means you’re having a fight, and maybe you’ll win and maybe you won’t. Fixing the underlying problem, whatever that solution might be, takes away the need to fight. What do you want, an eternal feud, or a system that works in spite of strong political differences?
@Roderick_Femm . I agree with your philosophy. Unfortunately, trying to reason with the GOP and MAGA’s and find some common ground is not possible. They will fight regardless of the concessions we agree to. It will never be enough.
As H.L Menchen said. “Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”
Yes, a metaphor of course. But we are trying to use words against people that don’t understand them. We are trying to use the law against people that will happily break those laws.
I also disagree. I don’t think fighting is the answer.
I think it’s possible to beat them without resorting to it, and I don’t think either side would win a slugfest; you’d just end up with a broken country with a populace suffering much more than what we have today.
I agree that compromise is not the answer, and reasoning with unreasonable people is futile. What remains is taking best advantage of any opportunity you have when you have enough power to do so, when you have the votes and the offices, to make those critical changes that make the most difference to maintaining democracy and the rule of law. Sometimes you have to bide your time until the vicissitudes of life swing your way. This is not satisfying emotionally in the short term. I hope we are smart enough to choose long-term success over short-term satisfaction.
The problem is the number of times when the votes and offices were there but nothing meaningful was done. We must not waste these opportunities when they come again, and they will. We must grab them and use them, for they typically don’t last long. When you are looking for a new set of leaders, look for this mindset.
If you are convinced that these opportunities will not come again, then you have given up the battle and are only good for cowering and complaining.
We just came out of an election where our candidate was scared to talk about how Biden/Harris had repaired the economy, health, and crime coming out of the pandemic.
Biden targeted his economic policies at red areas all over the country, and got nothing for it.
Obama passes a healthcare idea that was first birthed by Mitt Romney, using Heritage consultant’s ideas. And he got nothing for it, no appreciation whatsoever from all these red states who’s uninsured rates plummeted.
We have blue states that subsidize all these red states all over the country. And we’re afraid to defend these states in the face of Republican hate.
They literally stole a SCOTUS nominee from Obama.
And now they’ve re-elected a guy that tried to overturn an election, who should be in jail.
You God Damn right it’s time to punch back. This playing nice and bending over backward to deal with Red America has gotten us nowhere. I’m not advocating violence or criminal acts against MAGA. But when we get power back, no more playing nice with these people.
Jon Stewart opened last night’s episode of The Daily Show by talking about the bullshit GOP response to the California wildfires. (YouTube video here.)
The GOP really has become [insert very bad words]. Disgusting. Trump is just trying to sweeten the scents of his farts when he announces plans to invade and capture Greenland or the Panama Canal (I think); but the agendum of capturing California and imposing Orangism on it will become real.
What can or should California do? I become irrational when angry, so appease me for a moment. In fact why not join me in fantasizing dreams that cannot come true?
I don’t worry about the legal aspects of succession. Laws no longer matter in post-democratic Amerika. I’m more concerned about holding off the U.S. Army: Will they paratroop in or what? Does California have nuclear weapons? We should have acted sooner, but why doesn’t Newsom send his National Guard into Nevada and take over Nellis Air Force Base? They have nukes. Trump calls nuclear-powered Kim Jong Un his buddy; might he be friendlier to Newsom if California joined the nuclear club?
California needs to confiscate IRS offices on its sovereign territory and stop sending money to Washington. Perhaps it should join BRICS. California will need allies; Eastern Oregon already wants to secede from Western Oregon; perhaps they’ll be happy to see Western Oregon secede first and join the Western Alliance.
No, of course none of this will happen; nor do I really want it to. Make a movie about it perhaps.
We must be careful to contain our anger enough so that we don’t become evil and disgusting sub-humans like Trump and his supporters have become.
I’d like to see them at least threatened with what they claim they want. Don’t think the Federal government should provide disaster aid to California without conditions? Well here’s a list of strings we’d like to attach to your disaster aid.
This is very much like religious displays on government property.
‘Cool! We just happen to have a statue of Baphomet ready to go! Want to rethink what you thought you wanted?’
This is not a good idea because it’s already been shown not to work. It would be purely for petty, personal satisfaction rather than efficacy.
Remember abortion? The case of Texas? Leopards ate faces and the GOP was not in the least punished for it electorally. Any Republican voter who wanted an abortion (good for me, not for thee!) was able to leave the state for one, as could other middle/upper class people.
So if core Republican voters and politicians didn’t experience any punishment for it, who did? The same folks as always, minorities and the poors.
It’s “trickle up politics”. This idea is that you will harm the most vulnerable people in our society and this will somehow trickle up to hit GOP leadership. It’s as dumb as trickle down economics.
They need to take another page from the opposition playbook, that one where Trump insisted the COVID relief checks have his name on it.
Every Democratic government in the US should start slapping their name on absolutely everything they give to actual people. Social Security checks? Brought to you by Biden! FEMA disaster relief? A gift from the Democrat-controlled Congress! SNAP program? Put the Democratic Party logo on every card!
When those checks stop coming people might notice.