One of the ugliest features of Trump-MAGA politics is the use of disasters to spread conspiracy theories, invent new culture-war obsessions, and pit one region of the country against another. We're seeing that now with the Baltimore horror. 1/ Link:https://t.co/MluZiKGtYf — Greg Sargent (@GregTSargent) March 30, 2024 One of the ugliest features of MAGA politics …
Repub Venality / Stupidity Open Thread: Trolls Under the Baltimore BridgePost + Comments (49)
Some Republicans are arguing that because the collapse wasn’t a natural disaster, we should look to insurance coverage and the shipping company whose cargo ship slammed into the bridge. In fairness, some Democrats have also made similar suggestions. But the Democratic stance is also that new federal funds absolutely should be appropriated, because it’s critical.
Some GOP lawmakers are already treating future funding of the Baltimore response as a future concession on their part. Representative Jeff Duncan says Congress should not spend “one more dime” of additional infrastructure money before a border wall is built, as if the need for disaster relief can be used to extort Democrats into funding MAGA priorities in return.
It should go without saying that Baltimore’s plight does not deserve to be smeared with degenerate culture-warring, demagoguery, and extortive threats. Disasters strike all parts of the country. And in this case, the horror doesn’t only impact the immediate area. It has hamstrung operations at the Port of Baltimore, whose operations are essential to export traffic that comes from other regions, including storied Trump country.
For instance, billions of dollars in autos, coal, agricultural and construction machinery, soybeans, and many other products pass annually through the Port of Baltimore, according to U.S. Department of Transportation data. A lot of those products come from states like Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania (whose western part abuts northern Appalachia and the industrial Midwest), that data shows.
What’s more, the federal aid package that members of Congress are currently drawing up will not merely repair the collapsed bridge. It will also in part replenish the Army Corps of Engineers, which is currently spending money to get the port operational again, a Democratic aide says. In other words, federal funds are essential to enabling the port to function so that those exports from other parts of the country, including from plenty of MAGA-GOP territory, can return to normalcy as quickly as possible.
And some federal aid passed by Congress will also be poured into the federal Emergency Relief Program, according to the Democratic aide, a fund currently undertaking rebuilding projects in response to recent extreme weather destruction in red states like Arkansas, Kentucky, and Montana…
It is not a new thing for Republicans to treat disasters in blue areas as less deserving of our collective attention than disasters in red areas. But Trump supercharged these tendencies. Brian Beutler urges us to remember that during Covid, Trump didn’t merely neglect blue areas of the country; he used the pandemic to actively threaten retribution against parts of the country that didn’t support him.
This kind of thing has become a feature of MAGA politics, as opposed to an incidental by-product of a particular governing vision. Trump flaunted his treatment of blue America as a zone of disease and debauchery that all but deserved to be abandoned to a fate of mass death and suffering by dint of its moral inferiority to MAGA America. Make no mistake: His very public relishing of his power to do this was central to this performance and, one imagines, to its appeal to the MAGA masses…
How long before the GOP suggest the bridge shouldn't be rebuilt because Black people are using it https://t.co/NaBm3PMBBC
— Ragnarok Lobster ?? (@eclecticbrotha) March 28, 2024
If you're going to use DEI as an adjective you might as well just say the n-word. https://t.co/XcASNXPruR
— Enhanced Interrogated Poet (@agraybee) March 26, 2024
Alternatively:
America runs on the work of immigrants like those who died in Tuesday's bridge collapse.
During the pandemic, I introduced the Citizenship for Essential Workers Act with @SenWarren, @SenAlexPadilla & @tedlieu. Essential workers deserve better than our broken immigration system. https://t.co/PqZYQEI5VO
— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) March 28, 2024
Former @GovLarryHogan now running for US Senate, was warned that Baltimore bridges could collapse if he allowed bigger cargo ships and a bridge was hit.
Hogan blew off the advice, big news broken by @LeverNews a small nonprofit news outlet in Denver.https://t.co/JQ4bx6dmAl
— David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ) March 31, 2024
If we’re gonna get all sniffy about ‘facts’ and ‘data’, here’s a starter…
Baltimore bridge collapse: Who will pay for the destroyed bridge, harmed businesses and lost lives? https://t.co/WosThrrs3h
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 30, 2024