In the long-ago of 2005, just days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall near New Orleans, a young Kanye West , blurted out , on live television during a fundraising drive with comedian Mike Meyers that” George Bush does n’t care about black people”.
It may have been an early indication of West’s mental instability, but at the moment it was defining the media’s portrayal of Katrina and Bush, who were later accused of being indifferent to New Orleans ‘ death because the storm’s victims were primarily poor black people who had been killed or displaced.  ,
It was irrelevant whether corruption at the local and state levels or stupidity at FEMA was the main cause of the issues in New Orleans during and immediately after Katrina, as well as common stealing, poor crisis response, and cooperation. ( New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin may eventually be charged with corruption and be found guilty in federal court. )
But in the moment that did n’t matter. The national press badly placed President Bush under the radar. He looked down on hurricane-ravaged New Orleans from an Air Force One glass, which was widely reported, establishing the notion that the leader was distant and oblivious to the events that were taking place there.  ,
It may come to be known as Bush’s” Katrina instant”, and it heralded the powerful finish of his management. Democrats won a colossal victory in the 2006 midterm elections by campaigning against Bush’s alleged flat-footed Katrina reaction and the controversial war in Iraq, rendering the leader impotent for his final two years in office.
I mention all of this because Kamala Harris may be having a” Katrina time” in the wake of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. Her campaign should come to an end with her staged photo and staged photo pretending to be working on the disaster response ( earbuds not even plugged into the phone, taking notes on a blank piece of paper ), along with the absence of FEMA or any other federal assistance to the storm-ravaged regions of western North Carolina and Georgia.
While Biden napped on the shore in Delaware and spent the weekend attending glamorous promotion activities in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, areas in the way of Hurricane Helene were pounded with rain and flooding across six southern state, making it the worst flooding to have ever occurred in some areas. More than a hundred are dying, tons are missing. The whole region’s cities have been destroyed. Thousands are without electricity. It’s hard to provide stranded communities with clean water and food because roads and bridges have been washed out across the area.
Natural disasters like the class 4 storms Helene are undoubtedly going to cause significant damage and destruction no matter what. But it did n’t have to be as bad as it has become in the absence of timely federal aid from the Biden-Harris administration. Military assets could have been deployed from Fort Bragg ( recently renamed” Fort Liberty” by the woke U. S. military ) in North Carolina, which is only a couple hundred miles from the worst-hit areas. For centuries, Fort Bragg has supported local disaster relief. Why is n’t it happening now? Why are n’t all military helicopters flying over the 500-mile range of the affected areas at this time?
To be clear, what the people of North Carolina and Georgia and Tennessee have right now is removal, food and water, shelter — the kinds of things the U. S. army, National Guard, and FEMA are ideal equipped to offer. But so far nothing of that seems to be happening. Why?
Putting aside the failure to make plans in advance of the massive flooding that the hurricane would cause, why did Biden and Harris wait so long to address the situation, and why did they do so in the least brief, contemptuous ways? Asked by a writer on Monday why he and Harris were n’t in Washington over the weekend arranging and commanding the crisis answer, Biden responded, startlingly,” I was commanding. Tuesday and the day before, I spent at least two days on the phone.
One of the most insulting and terrible things an American president has ever said is,” I was on the telephone for at least two days,” while Americans are drowning and starving in enormous floods.
But at least Trump said , things. As of Monday afternoon, Harris had n’t said a word.
It has n’t escaped anyone’s notice that the victims of the flooding are predominantly poor white people in Appalachia. Given that fact and the abominable lack of concern from Harris and Biden, there is currently much more to support the claim that Bush did n’t care about black people.  ,
Unlike in 2005, you wo n’t hear that from the media. You’re much more probable, in fact, to hear business outlets attack Trump for “making it social” by traveling to Georgia on Monday to help distribute supplies and assist in relief efforts. Trump made the announcement in comments to the state’s media on Monday that he and Elon Musk are working to provide satellite internet service Starlink to storm-damaged areas that are currently without means of communication.
It , is , political, and the political message from Harris is clear: The victims of Hurricane Helene are white Trump supporters from a red state, so she does n’t really care what happens to them.
