When a natural disaster strikes anywhere in the United States, Americans spring into action to help. I live in Virginia, which was mostly spared from Hurricane Helene’s wrath, but within hours, I was seeing messages that teams of rescuers from Maryland, Virginia and other jurisdictions were rushing aid to western North Carolina (some by mule!).
People like you and me donate. Local and state governments, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and hundreds of private charities provide food, water, shelter, toiletries and medical attention.
Natural disasters are moments of unity. They remind us of our frailty in the face of nature. We don’t ask, before sending aid, whether you live in a red state or a blue state. When we first moved to our current neighborhood in suburban Washington, D.C., neighborhood kids asked if they could set up a table in our front yard to raise money for hurricane victims in Texas. After Hurricane Sandy, Chris Christie and Barack Obama exchanged a hug. Some things transcend politics. It’s one of the better things about America.
But not now. In the hours after Hurricane Helene devastated the South, Republican nominee Donald Trump circulated rumors that the Biden/Harris administration and the “Democrat governor of the State” were “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.” As it happens, Asheville, one of the most devastated parts of North Carolina, is quite blue, but whatever. Trump’s lips were moving, therefore he was lying. This is what he does: sow suspicion, engender resentment and hatred.
When there are no actual causes for fear and loathing, he and JD Vance freely invent things to strike fear in the hearts of their followers. Crime has been declining for three straight years after a spike during the pandemic (when Trump was president). But in the Trump-invented pseudo-reality, crime is “so out of control … you can’t walk across the street to get a loaf of bread. You get shot. You get mugged. You get raped, you get whatever it may be.”
Lies about immigrants, incitement over election
The supposed cause of this scourge is immigrants. Speaking in Wisconsin, Trump elaborated on his theme that other nations are emptying their prisons and mental institutions and dumping their criminals into the United States (where they receive a warm welcome from the Biden/Harris administration). “I will liberate Wisconsin from this mass migrant invasion of murderers, rapists, hoodlums, drug dealers, thugs and vicious gang members. … They will walk into your kitchen. They will cut your throat. … (They are) occupying the town with MK-47s.”
In addition to the fictional immigrant crime wave (immigrants commit less crime than native-born Americans), the Trump forces turned an election that went against them into an occasion for division, fear and loathing. For 150 years, losers (mostly) wished the victors well and accepted the will of the voters. Trump invented a reality in which conniving, vicious enemies conspired to rob the people of their choice. It was all a delusion, but one that nevertheless served to radicalize and infuriate about half the country.
This is the brutish, false incitement that Trump never tires of injecting into American life. And though it has become commonplace, it is not yet the dominant culture. Trump’s false stories about Haitian immigrants in Ohio threw Springfield into chaos. Bomb threats closed schools and universities. The owner of McGregor Metal has had to draw his shades at night, buy a gun and vary his family’s movements due to death threats following his defense of his Haitian employees.
Here’s what McGregor said that caused his neighbors to draw a target on his back: “They come to work every day. They don’t cause drama. They’re on time. I wish I had 30 more.” It’s possible to interpret that comment as indirectly disparaging American workers, but in the time before the MAGA-fication of the GOP, people would likely have responded with more restraint. They might have gotten huffy. They might have written a letter to the editor. But under Trump’s poisonous influence, McGregor was flooded with messages like, “Why are you importing Third World savages who eat animals and giving them jobs over United States citizens?” A message left on the company voicemail said, “The owner of McGregor Metal can take a bullet to the skull and that would be 100% justified.” His children and his 80-year-old mother also received threats. The FBI said some of the threats seemed serious and offering advice about how to stay safe.
Some inclined to vote for Trump reason that he was president before and things seemed to be OK. The economy was good (until COVID). There were no new wars. But there were new wars — between Americans. Trump’s relentless lies and incitement have transformed this country into a less rational and less generous nation.
Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the “Beg to Differ” podcast.
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