Wildfires, schadenfreude and misinformation

BONUS: A variation of the ‘Overton Window’?

The Palisades Fire viewed from the shoreline -California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection via Wikipedia

Since at least 2015, it has felt like the United States is on fire — politically and socially. The combination of Donald Trump, his supporters, his opponents and social media, have combined to create the tinder-dry conditions for political arson.

Now that America’s second largest population center is literally on fire, some folks are showing their true colors. As is often the case, the platform for the hate is social media and — surprise, surprise — the haters mostly refuse to use their real names.

If you want to get a taste, check out the comment thread on this ABC News Threads post on actor James Woods, whose home was damaged (but not destroyed) in the Los Angeles-area wildfires that are still raging to this day (click on the image to view the full thread):

As most of you probably know, Woods is an outspoken conservative who often inveighs against the favorite bogeymen of the right: liberals; wokeness; the “climate-change hoax”; “trangenderism”; and just about anyone on the planet to his left. His rhetoric was so harsh that I had to block him on X because his posts were showing up in my feed almost every time I logged on.

Still, some of the comments on the ABC News post made me want to gag:

I have no sympathy.

James Woods lost everything? Karma came in sweeping.

If he wasn’t a climate change denier I might sympathise.

God smiting James Woods is the news I am here for!

Ugh, I was hoping he was still inside.

Amongst a lot of hard hitting news, it’s nice to see a feel good story.

So that’s what it’s come to. Progressives who generally view themselves as compassionate and empathetic are reduced to cowardly attack dogs during a time of distress for someone whose politics they don’t like. Sickening …

At the other end of the spectrum, we have conservatives, including Woods himself, who are peddling the talking point that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass made cuts in firefighting budgets that hampered efforts to contain the blazes. There have even been demands for recall elections, which are bizarrely permitted under California law, seeking to remove Newsom and Bass.

Of course, we don’t yet know for certain if funding levels played a significant role in the failure to control these fires. Meanwhile, Newsom has ordered an independent investigation into the matter. Is it too much to ask that we postpone the political reckoning while the city burns and the investigation proceeds? Notwithstanding the tragedy, this is all slightly amusing because conservatives generally like budget cuts except, as in Woods’ case, they think the cuts have adversely affected them.

Worse yet, there have been evidence-free charges from Elon Musk, social media influencer Megyn Kelly and others that “DEI hires” have weakened the state’s firefighting programs. The allegations appear to hinge on the hiring of an LGBTQ woman to lead the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Here is another example of the misinformation that found its way onto my Threads feed:

Fortunately, amid the knee-jerk recriminations, there is a thoughtful analysis (free link) in yesterday’s Washington Post that lists some factors that are undeniable: urban sprawl, poor planning and the inadequacy of the LA water system to combat multiple wildfires at the same time.

Is it even possible in this country to restrain ourselves during a disaster, exhibit some unqualified compassion and refrain from pointing fingers until we have a clearer picture of what brought about this deadly catastrophe?

I love America. Except for five years in Canada, I’ve spent my life here. Life has been good to me and my family. But this country is not currently a pleasant place to be. National politics is making me sick to my stomach, which is not a good thing for someone who currently makes a habit of writing about national politics.

This is one of the reasons I enjoyed reporting locally in Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut and, concurrently, writing columns about state politics in Connecticut. On the state and local levels, our elected leaders aren’t caricatures or abstractions. They’re often people we’ve met and looked in the eye. We hesitate to attack them in cruel terms because we might actually run into them at the post office or stand next to them in line at the coffee shop.

But when you aren’t personally acquainted with public officials in other states, or in Washington, the hate comes cheap and cowardice is in great supply. Most people despise Congress, for example, but they like their own congressman. Don’t take my word for it.

Approval ratings for the United States Congress currently stands at about 14% with 78% disapproving. In other words, as Public Policy Polling puts it, “Congress is less popular than Genghis Khan, root canals, and cockroaches.” But people are much more likely to have a favorable view of their own representatives in Washington. Again, don’t take my word for it. Last year, 97% of incumbent Senators and House members who ran for reelection won their races.

A variation of the ‘Overton Window’

There has been much ink spilled on President-elect Trump’s latest machinations and his seemingly endless stream of bird-brained ideas. He wants to grab Greenland; he wants to retake the Panama Canal; he wants to make Canada the 51st state.

No one should take any of those ideas seriously, for they will quietly die after Trump takes the oath of office on Jan 20. It’s too bad that the press feels compelled to report on this stuff but I understand why. These are official statements from the president-elect, but it should be obvious that he’s floating these absurdities in an effort to gain media attention and dominate the news cycle.

It’s a variation of the Overton Window, which I wrote about in November. As Northeastern University journalism Prof. Dan Kennedy put it:

The Overton Window is generally a term used to describe crazy policy ideas that are put forth in order to make other, slightly less crazy ideas appear to be more plausible.

The shoe fits here. Every minute we spend covering Trump’s plans to annex Canada or seize a major shipping route in Central America is time not spent focusing on his piss-poor cabinet picks: Hegseth, Gabbard, Patel, RFK2. Now those disreputable characters seem quaintly reasonable amid talk of eating the Danish and sending tanks to Ottawa to run down Justin Trudeau.

Isn’t America great?