A Hurricane Is Not a Political Indictment

Because Florida is within the information, we have now to do that once more.

With Hurricane Ian devastating Florida this week, of us throughout the political spectrum are utilizing the storm to attain straightforward factors. Before the storm even arrived, conservative media made a mountain over the truth that President Biden neglected to call Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis (he ultimately did make that phone call). Meanwhile, after Biden granted Florida emergency assist, Democrats smugly touted how the President was seemingly setting apart political variations to be generous to his rival—and reminded audiences how DeSantis, who was then within the House, voted against aid for Hurricane Sandy in 2013. One comic ribbed (in a since-deleted tweet that has spawned several copycat jokes) that we must always check with Ian with they/them pronouns “to annoy DeSantis,” whereas several other customers flat-out mentioned that Floridians “deserved” what was coming to them.

This shouldn’t be a brand new phenomenon. Whenever a pure catastrophe hits a state whose politics are dominated by Republicans, Dems are fast to level out the plain hyperlink to local weather change denial. I can bear in mind sentiments about how Texas deserved local weather destruction surfacing from some Democrats in 2017, when Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, and in 2017 and 2018, when back-to-back hurricanes hit Florida, and in addition final 12 months, when a freak winter storm knocked out Texas’s energy grid. While right-wing Twitter is its personal mess of hypocrisy, there’s at all times a curious factor of ‘I-told-you-so’-ism from some factions of the left when a local weather disaster hits a pink state, particularly one which’s been within the information not too long ago for awful political management. It’s not fully stunning that individuals on the left react this manner, given how Donald Trump’s administration made local weather change and pure disasters a political punching bag, or how Republicans in Texas aggressively—and falsely—unfold the concept wind power was chargeable for the blackouts final 12 months.

Florida’s political management is extremely merciless—no query about it. The joke about pronouns for the hurricane is predicated on the terrifying marketing campaign that right-wing politicians have been waging in opposition to queer and trans folks’s proper to exist; Florida has been a frontrunner in making this occur, famously passing its “Don’t Say Gay” invoice this 12 months and fomenting a slew of different anti-queer and anti-trans rules and sentiment. The state’s present management has additionally had a severely blended bag on local weather insurance policies, regardless of being on the entrance strains of local weather change, and DeSantis final 12 months handed a regulation requiring that cities hold utilizing fossil fuels. I’ve written earlier than about how LGBTQ+ rights, abortion rights, and progress on combatting local weather change are intrinsically linked by the identical darkish cash; in Florida, these forces have discovered a agency foothold.

But the concept a whole state, full of hundreds of thousands of numerous folks, one way or the other deserves to be within the path of a significant catastrophe ignores the essential undeniable fact that local weather disasters are at all times most dangerous to the poor, the marginalized, and other people of coloration—no matter how these folks voted. Frankly, even the individuals who do help DeSantis and his horrible insurance policies—the voters who assist elect local weather denier politicians, the voters who imagine queer folks like me are one way or the other a menace to society, even the voters whose cash could fund politicians pushing these insurance policies—don’t “deserve” to be within the path of a catastrophe like Ian.

Wishing hurt or some form of lesson-learned about local weather denial amongst folks within the path of local weather catastrophe solely belies a shortsightedness in understanding that the harm is coming to us all. Climate coverage is inherently political, and maybe it’s naive of me to count on folks not take a budget shot when it’s introduced to them. But local weather disasters don’t discriminate, and a part of working to guard our world from the worst impacts of local weather change means understanding the humanity of everybody dwelling in it—even when these individuals are working in opposition to the identical imaginative and prescient of the long run.

Yes, it’s infuriating to see DeSantis accept aid whereas pushing local weather denial insurance policies and making his state unlivable for queer folks like me. It sucks to be the larger particular person, however right here we’re. We nonetheless don’t know the complete harm from Hurricane Ian, which continues to be unfolding. All we are able to do is assist these affected, and hold working for a greater world.