As Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton continue to terrorize the US South, FEMA continues to push federal aid to relief efforts. However, there have been reports of armed militia out to stop FEMA from their relief efforts.
This past weekend, on Saturday, October 12th, North Carolina FEMA officials relocated after a perceived threat of a 44 year old North Carolinian after he was found with a loaded handgun and a rifle and was making threats to hurt FEMA employees. He was charged with “going armed to the terror of the public.”
But this isn’t the only reason FEMA chose to withdraw from North Carolina.
While not directly related to Parsons, a Forest Service official says that FEMA had advised them to relocate workers, saying that US military personnel “had come across… trucks of armed militia saying they were out hunting FEMA.” This ended up being false and Parsons was the only active person they found trying to hurt FEMA. In the following days, FEMA will be returning to going door to door to help the hurricane effort.
This is just one of many Republican conspiracy theories perpetuated by their party less than 30 days before the election. US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia started the conspiracy theory that the government controls the weather. This has been perpetuated by other Republicans who claim that democrats have been manipulating the weather in the South to prevent Republicans from voting for Trump. They also claim that Democrats are trying to make themselves look better with how they are handling a hurricane like this, while also claiming that FEMA isn’t doing anything. Trump has personally claimed that FEMA is broken and isn’t actually helping hurricane victims because, as he claims, the Biden-Harris administration redirected funds for FEMA to handle the surge of migrants from the southern border.
“They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank.” Meanwhile if they actually did this it would be illegal. FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program, which gives grants to local governments and nonprofits to take care of undocumented immigrants and has no relation to FEMA’s disaster relief authorities or funding. Grants can’t just be taken back, or redirected by the Federal Government without the consent of the states.
The reason he made this claim was because FEMA began making claims that they wouldn’t have enough money to last out the storm if it continued. This is true but not because they weren’t given enough money, because Biden continues to send money into FEMA as recently . He has not taken from it. Trump meanwhile has. In 2019, Trump actually took between 155 million to 271 million dollars to pay for immigration detention space and hearing locations for asylum seekers in Mexico.
As we head closer and closer to the primary election, the question still stands how this will affect the vote. Have Republicans lost all trust that Democrats have their states in mind? Will the rhetoric pushed by Trump continue to spread throughout all the parties?
Interestingly, Harris has actually gone down in the polls recently, making the election closer than ever, with 50 percent likely voters for Harris and 48 for Trump. As this question is phrased by likely, people are more likely to be honest but there is definitely a possibility for change in opinion within the next 3 weeks. It is unclear what caused Harris to drop in the polls but media speculation suggests that her recent interviews weren’t as favorable to her image.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/threats-fema-workers-north-carolina-sheriff/story?id=114776904
