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| Photo: David McNew/Getty Images |
The northern California Camp Fire's current toll has taken 29 lives and affected thousands. Trump's belief that forest management is at fault only addressed a small part of the complex issue. Governor Jerry Brown later commented on Trump's tweet, pointing out the contribution of climate change to an especially hot, dry, and lengthy fire season.
In addition to responses from politicians, Trumps tweets generated backlash from celebrities such as Katy Perry or Leonardo DiCaprio and many citizens affected by the fires. I would agree with many responses to his tweets in that supporting firefighters and those affected should be the first priority. Trump's threat to remove funding from an emergency situation arguably ignores the complexity of possible causes of the fires, such as the current climate or overgrowth of vegetation. The President used the situation to highlight his policy position which many saw as inappropriate. While Trump did tweet sympathetic responses among his opinionated ones, he approached the topic with finger-pointing and blame. What do you think? What role do politics have in remedying emergency situations?
Links:
https://www.npr.org/2018/11/12/666951838/megafires-more-frequent-because-of-climate-change-and-forest-management
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/the-california-fires-and-the-threat-of-climate-change.html
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/11/politics/california-wildfires-trump-tweets/index.html
https://www.vox.com/2018/8/7/17661096/california-wildfires-2018-camp-woolsey-climate-change
8 comments:
I think that the response that Donald Trump had was appropriate to the recent wildfire. According to the NY Times, “California’s fire record dates back to 1932; of the 10 largest fires since then, nine have occurred since 2000, five since 2010 and two this year alone, including the Mendocino Complex Fire”. This statistic indicates the need for some sort of reform because having these wildfires cannot become an expected yearly event to California. I think the “remedy” that Trump is pointing to are the multiple reasons causing the fires such as climate change, fire suppression (fires we have successfully extinguished leading to plants that should have been burnt over the past 100 years to be burnt with the current conditions which exaggerate the fire), and of course man contributed ignition to the fire. All these factors that have played a huge role in wildfires are what needs to be addressed and Trump is simply demanding a response, almost like conditional grant so there is some sort of urgency. Although that probably should not have been his first response to the fire, as you mentioned he did tweet multiple sympathetic responses such as “More than 4,000 are fighting the Camp and Woolsey Fires in California that have burned over 170,000 acres. Our hearts are with those fighting the fires, the 52,000 who have evacuated, and the families of the 11 who have died. The destruction is catastrophic. God Bless them all.”. I think both these tweets show that he is supportive of the victims, while simultaneously bringing a sense of urgency to correct and decrease the chance of a wildfire in the future.
I believe that particular response from Trump was inappropriate. He essentially placed the blame on California's forest management, which has attempted to introduce more prescribed burns in the past to avoid these larger, out of control fires that arise when the forest becomes overly thick. Among the issues with this is that they sometimes face opposition from landowners, have to wait for the right weather conditions, and be able to hire crew for the task. Jerry Brown has issued an executive order to triple these burns before these fires, yet the task has not been easy and to threaten funding cuts because of these fires not only unfounded but works against the solution. Even if this were to be brushed off as not serious and just an expression of political opinion irrespective of the forest management's performance, this shouldn't have been his first message in response to the fires.
Source: https://www.kqed.org/science/1927354/controlled-burns-can-help-solve-californias-fire-problem-so-why-arent-there-more-of-them
I think Donald Trump's mindset as a Republican president surrounded by Republican operatives leads him to ignore or be unable to identify with alternative points of view. What's important in his mind (the "red" and "blue" state divide) unfortunately bleeds over to his response to this tragedy. Previously, Trump has been very critical of California as California politicians try to resist his policy objective, and possibly that is why he thinks California politicians are incompetent; because they are dedicated to halting his agenda. Though it may be logical in Trump's mind to blame California politicians for the fires, that is not really what is going on. Like Max Li said previously, the majority of forest in California is owned by the federal government. Perhaps Donald Trump is far more impulsive that what is needed from an American president, because he threatened to withhold federal funding from California due to poor forest management when withholding funding would leave even less funding for forest management. It is also unlikely that Trump knows the complexity of the causes of California's increasingly severe wildfires.
I definitely don't think Trump's first response to the fire should have been blaming California for it's management of forests. When family member's are dying and their homes are being burned to the ground, the last thing a resident of the area wants to hear is their president telling them that he will cut back on funding if nothing changes. On top of that, individual people of the area have no say on when burns are done on the forests around them or other methods to preventing huge wildfires. I agree that something needs to be done so that these fires aren't so common in the state, but his tweet should have come maybe after the fires were over, but definitely not while people are still struggling to find their family members and evacuate their home and leave their lives behind.
The last question, "What role do politics have in remedying emergency situations?", made me think about politics in general with regard to this question: how soon is too soon to introduce politics during or after national tragedies?
As you stated, the president is under scrutiny for "[using] the situation to highlight his policy position." However, a similar argument is often made by Republicans and conservative talking heads that Democrats do the same thing when they talk about gun control soon after a mass shooting. Now, these are very different circumstances: the fires are still ongoing, for instance; but the causes behind all disasters are complex and multifaceted, so an argument could be made either way for keeping political views completely out of these times or espousing them to try to fix the problem.
What I do think is objectionable is his threat of removing funding from California, which crosses the line from expressing a political opinion to a legitimate threat from a position of power. With more people being found dead every day, that should be off the table.
I think that Trump's comment on blaming the forests management was inappropriate especially at that certain time period. That comment showed lack of sympathy while families are struggling to find homes, loss of loved ones and more damage. It wasn't something that they could control given the situation and that Trump blaming certain people definitely didn't help the situation.
Trumps insensitive, “finger pointing” comment has definitely described the type of person he is. I’m not surprised. Trump should have not publically threatened the citizens for these wildfires that have occurred because it just causes more commotions and hate towards our “president” Trump. It’s not like we can control the whether and stop these from occurring, trump should have stopped after giving his support to the firefighters and families who have lost loved ones. As a president one should show support, actually attempt to do something that will answer the many questions Citizens have that will make America a safe place. A place where no one would have to worry about sudden fires or shootings. (Or he could just stop tweeting)
I think that Trump's response to the wildfire is inappropriate as there are many families suffering from the fire. Instead, he should spend more time trying to help the families instead of threatening to remove funding. Also, in addition to helping families, more emphasis should be placed on alleviating the issue of climate change as well. I think a big factor of why California is susceptible to so many wildfires is due to how global warming is affecting us, and California's dry air in general. While the lack of humidity plays a huge part in the starting of wildfires, I think redistributing the budget and putting more emphasis on the environment to help global warming would significantly reduce wildfires.
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