Worst national disaster since Civil War makes eliminating disaster relief a top priority (irony alert)
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US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told a Cabinet meeting Monday that the department would move to “eliminate” the government’s disaster relief agency, days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing state and local governments to “play a more active and significant role” in responding to catastrophes.
Noem, whose department oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has previously vowed to “get rid of FEMA the way it exists today;” Trump has said he would close the agency entirely, but that would require an act of Congress.
The agency has long enjoyed bipartisan support, however: “FEMA can’t go away,” Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy told reporters in January, citing its primary role in “protect[ing] people and property.”
The Trump administration is everything that’s most terrible about the fanatical anti-government ideology of the modern — meaning from Barry Goldwater on — Republican party, but with all its previous tendencies toward authoritarianism, incompetence, and corruption magnified many-fold.
Imagine the very worst things about Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and both Bushes all combined, with literally not one of whatever redeeming features each of these men had surviving in any degree whatsoever. But it’s not necessary to imagine that because we’re living it every day.