The Democrats Weaponize FEMA Relief

For a glimpse of the cynicism that animates the Democratic Party, a good place to start would be a comment made by former Obama advisor David Axelrod concerning the effect Hurricane Helene would have on voter turnout in North Carolina. Noting that, aside from upscale liberals in Asheville, most of the disaster victims are rural Republicans who will find it difficult to cast ballots: “I’m not sure a bunch of these folks who had their homes and lives destroyed elsewhere, in western North Carolina, in the mountains, they are going to be as easy to wrangle for the Trump campaign.”

Axelrod offered this observation during his aptly named Hacks on Tap podcast, between jokes about whether Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance wore eyeliner during his recent debate with Democrat nominee Tim Walz. Axelrod failed to note that many of these rural Republicans won’t be able to vote because they died waiting for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to do its job. FEMA operates under the aegis of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who claimed just a month before Helene made landfall that the agency was well prepared to deal with potential crises. This was either a lie or he has been misallocating FEMA funds. Here’s what he said:

FEMA is tremendously prepared. This is what we do. This is what they do. And the key here is also to make sure that communities who are potentially impacted are prepared as well … They have exercised these muscles regrettably year after year. As the impacts of climate change have been more and more evident, we have seen and experienced increasing frequency and gravity of extreme weather events. And we have protocols in place, not just with respect to the core FEMA personnel, but also to draw upon the resources of the Department of Homeland Security.

Mayorkas changed his tune shortly after it became obvious that the damage caused by Helene would rival that of Hurricane Katrina. He suddenly began insisting that FEMA doesn’t have enough money to operate because of the extra outlays Helene required. This was certainly a lie. During a recent appearance on This Week On The Hill, House Speaker Mike Johnson told host Tony Perkins, “I want to make this very clear: before Congress left Washington last Wednesday, we provided over $20 billion additional dollars to FEMA to ensure they had the necessary resources to respond to this storm which was imminent at that time.”

Mayorkas and other officials in the Biden-Harris administration deny accusations that FEMA funds have been diverted to state and local governments overrun by illegal immigrants. According to a report in the New York Post, however, “Over two years, more than $1.4 billion has been committed from FEMA-administered programs to support non-federal entities that are taking care of migrants.” But these “migrants” are by no means the only foreign recipients of U.S. largesse as desperate Americans in Appalachia beg for federal assistance. On Saturday, for example, VP Kamala Harris issued the following announcement on X:

The people of Lebanon are facing an increasingly dire humanitarian situation. I am concerned about the security and well-being of civilians suffering in Lebanon and will continue working to help meet the needs of all civilians there. To that end, the United States will provide nearly $157 million in additional assistance to the people of Lebanon for essential needs such as food, shelter, water, protection, and sanitation to help those who have been displaced by the recent conflict. This additional support brings total U.S. assistance to Lebanon over the last year to over $385 million.

This no doubt endeared Harris to the people in Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee to whom she promised the princely sum of $750 for immediate needs while claiming that “FEMA personnel are going door-to-door” to help people apply for that assistance. Considering that thousands no longer have houses — much less doors — for FEMA personnel to knock on, this promise probably didn’t provide much solace. Likewise her additional assurance: “FEMA is also providing tens of thousands more dollars for folks to help them be able to deal with home repair, to be able to cover a deductible when and if they have insurance.”

According to a report from Reuters, “Roughly 1 in 200 single-family homes in the region is covered by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).” This is the program through which FEMA manages the kind of large-dollar payments Harris pledged during her brief visit to view the storm damage and pose for the cameras. Sadly, the hapless residents of Appalachia don’t live in the right location to qualify for the help Harris promised. Why not? “That is because the federal program is focused on the flood risks posed only by rising seas and swelling rivers, not the threat posed by the sort of extreme rainfall brought on by Helene.”

But, as David Axelrod pointed out in the podcast discussed above, the hardest hit by the hurricane and the limits of federal assistance are just Trump voters. They are not the “upscale liberals” that Kamala Harris and her fellow Democrats really represent. So, why should she care about providing the assistance they need? The electoral incentives push her in the opposite direction. She may be able to win North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes if Trump’s voters are trapped, which would help offset a Pennsylvania loss. Is she really that cruel? Perhaps Joe Biden could answer that — after the knife wound in his back finally heals.

READ MORE from David Catron:

The Imaginary Electoral College Advantage for Trump

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