That was the headline of this newsletter 3 years ago. Nothing has changed. Except it’s Oregon and Washington now too.
And as we keep saying, Democrats have got to keep calling attention to this kind of thing precisely because it’s been going on for years and it’s not normal. Sitting back and accepting it’s the way Trump operates normalizes the President’s lack of empathy, and disinclination to support Americans in states that did not vote for him. Even though he’s President of us all.
Now before you go telling us Trump is visiting California today to meet firefighters, yeah OK. But that’s only because he thinks that can win him voters 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 in his rally speech that it’s all about “forest management” and not about climate change. “Please remember the words, very simple, forest management, please remember.” And guess what? 60% of all California’s forests are on federal land. So if it is all about “forest management”, meaning the President’s saying it can managed or actually prevented by a good manager, why isn’t he managing it?
And that’s only after days and days in his public statements and Tweets, of completely ignoring all those massive wildfires and resulting horrible air quality. Even now, his thoughts are 100% directed at firefighters, who do deserve lots of credit. But 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 now and then being: if you don’t vote for me, you are on our 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.
And “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 both to visions he promotes of what will happen if he wins, or 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. I.e. 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 probably you’re going to get punished. I.e. 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?