It's Schadenfreude Down in Texas

Here we go, another natural disaster, this time it's  catastrophic flooding in Texas. There's a lot we still don't know about the response, the advance warnings, the respective roles of the National Weather Service (NWS) and local warning systems. What I want to address is some people's responses to the floods and associated deaths. 

I've interacted with two Trump supporters in the last few days who have expressed horror at what some people have been saying about the situation. In particular they have taken offense at statements like "This is what they voted for", referring to Texas having voted 56-42% for Trump in the last election, and to the cuts to government agencies, including NWS that Trump's team initiated. Or variations on the theme of "Fuck Around and Find Out", suggesting that Texans got what they deserved. Considering that a large percentage of the deaths were pre-teen girls (who didn't vote for anyone) at summer camp, this take is a cruel one. Schadenfreude can sometimes be quite satisfying, but gleeful comments about dead children is beyond the pale. 

I haven't seen too many of these comments, but they're out there. 

But is it out of line to question whether NWS gave sufficient warning about the potential severity and whether any shortcomings were due to the cutbacks initiated by Trump? Absolutely not. It's always appropriate to question the government. Is it really so incredible to think that after all government agencies (except ICE) were gutted in the last six months that these cuts could have contributed to the death toll in the first massive natural disaster for this administration? Of course not. It's the first question that we should be asking. We'd be fools not to question whether NWS cuts contributed to the deaths. We'd be idiots to listen to Ted Cruz - of course it's political!

Based on the probably incomplete information available so far, NWS did send out flash flood warnings, at one point calling them "catastrophic", but it is unclear whether all residents heard the warnings. Presumably more information will be available in the coming days. 

But while the Republicans are wringing their hands at Democrats for blaming Trump for a natural disaster, they conveniently forget that Trump played the blame game during natural disasters during Biden's term. In the aftermath of last year's hurricane in North Carolina, Trump accused Biden of avoiding sending help to Republican-majority areas. During the California fires earlier this year Trump blamed Democrats for the fires. Sure, I'm engaging in whataboutism, but calling out hypocrisy is always in season. When questioned about whether the NWS cuts contributed to the deaths in the Texas flooding, he waffled about blame:

    “What a situation that all is. That was really the Biden setup. That was not our setup. But I                 wouldn’t blame Biden for it either.”

A lot of the quotes I have seen didn't include the last sentence, attempting to make Trump look like he was unambiguously blaming Biden, but why would you blame Biden? He's not the president any more! Maybe he belatedly realized that he was opening up himself for blame that he reflexively was trying to pin on his predecessor. 

And for extra context, we have this quote by Tom Homan, a Department of Homeland Security official: 

    “Bottom line is,” he said, “I looked at the response that occurred, it’s a far better, quicker, appropriate response than you would have seen under the Biden administration.”

So let's keep it classy and refrain from crowing about the deaths of people we disagree with politically, even if they are horrible people. Their inhumanity is no excuse for us to sink into the muck with them. But at the same time let's not fall for the line that it's not the right time to ask questions of our government.