Opinion | Stop buying the BS

There he was, Alabama’s senior U.S. senator, babbling live on one of those far-right news stations that in the 1990s would be grouped among CSPAN and that one weird religious station that appeared to be a nonstop telethon, when Tommy Tuberville was asked about aid to his United States citizens in California, where wildfires have destroyed thousands of homes. 

A no-brainer, right? This senator from one the country’s most Christian-y states was sure to pull out a Biblical lesson, talk of aiding our neighbors, loving others and offering prayers to those poor folks. Right? 

“They don’t deserve anything, to be honest with you,” Tuberville said. 

They. Don’t. Deserve. Anything. 

Not exactly “do unto others,” but then, I don’t know why I expect anything different at this point. 

It is no excuse, but Tuberville was not alone in this thinking. Other Republicans joined him in criticizing California’s “woke” leaders for their “failures” that led to the massive fires. Many Republicans in both the House and Senate, Tuberville included, have hinted at tying disaster aid to demands for certain changes from California leaders, although what those changes would be are unclear, since the Republicans hinting at those changes quite clearly have no clue what changes would have stopped any of this. 

Over the last several days, as the Los Angeles area has burned and the world has watched in horror and sadness as residents have fled beautiful homes and beautiful lives, leaving behind forever a lifetime of memories that will never be replaced, the trolls on the right, including those trolls elected by other trolls, have spent their time figuring out ways to blame anyone with a D beside their name. It has been a shameful, detestable display of ignorance and spreading of outright lies in an effort to score cheap political points while emotions are high during a natural disaster. 

It should come as no surprise that the incoming Assistant to the President Donald Trump has resumed his role as Chief Troll, gleefully spreading lies about the causes of the fires and using insulting nicknames for Democratic officials. Just the sort of leadership that really soothes and warms in a time of crisis. 

Once he started, though, his band of backup carnival barkers, like a clique of high school hangers-on, jumped at the chance to impress their dear leader with clever put-downs and critiques of their own. Suddenly, a guy who can’t name the three branches of government and a lady who once blamed fires on Jewish space lasers are experts in fire mitigation and water storage. 

It’s enough to make a sane person scream. 

But man, those sound bites sure are good. And boy, do they ever stoke anger! Which is all these people are looking for – a little attention and to make people irrationally angry at the other party. Doesn’t matter if you’re lying, or vilifying good people, or crapping on the very first responders that you’re also praising. 

What’s most infuriating, though, is that getting to the truth is insanely easy. In most cases, the debunking of all of the lies has been happening in plain view. 

For example, this repeated lie about water shortages. The truth is there was no fixable water shortage. Six separate fire officials, including one from a different state, have told reporters repeatedly that the size and persistence of the fires used so much water that there literally was not storage containment available to hold what would have been required. 

Didn’t matter to the Republicans. They told you environmental efforts to save a small fish were to blame. Because … libs, amirite?

And no, the L.A. Fire Department’s budget was not slashed, by either the mayor or the governor. In fact, it has been steadily increasing. The only reason it seemed as if it had been cut was because a number of one-time purchases were made the previous year that were not made this year. 

Didn’t matter to Republicans. They told you that the mayor/governor cut the budget to … I don’t even know … pay for drag queen story times, I guess?

Also, no, DEI didn’t cause understaffing within the fire department, nor did it lead to an incompetent fire chief getting the job. First of all, police and fire jobs are pretty hard to fill nationally, and have been for the past decade. L.A. isn’t some outlier because it had fewer firefighters than it wanted. Secondly, that female fire chief had more than 20 years experience on the job in L.A., including working for years as a paramedic, an engineer, a battalion chief, assistant chief, deputy chief and chief deputy. The only person who believes she isn’t qualified is a misogynistic jackass who would never believe a woman could do the job, and who, himself, could almost certainly not do the job as well as her. 

Didn’t matter to Republicans. They have some of y’all believing that they were grabbing unqualified folks off the street to meet LGBTQ quotas – and refusing to hire qualified men. 

Literally none of that is even close to true. 

What is true, however, is that the climate change that scientists have been warning about for decades now – with dire predictions of exactly these sorts of devastating fires in high winds – is wreaking havoc on our nation. From one end of the country to the other, catastrophic events have occurred repeatedly – many of which scientists have predicted – along with everyday worsening conditions and wild shifts in climate and weather patterns. 

But that, too, was turned into a political issue by the same bunch of buffoons. And it has remained one despite very clear and undeniable evidence that the scientists were right. (If you doubt this, ask a farmer sometime about the changes in their lives.)

When is enough going to be enough? How many idiotic conspiracy theories – like the notion that Dems are controlling the weather – are you going to be gullible enough to believe before you finally accept the obvious truths in front of you, and stop allowing half-wits and do-nothing goobers to divide the country with this inflammatory BS? 

One of America’s largest cities is ablaze right now. If a whole bunch of people don’t stop buying the outright lies and put a tiny bit of effort into finding the truth – so you don’t think the worst of your neighbors in need – the rest of the country is going to be on fire too.