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Donald Trump wrecked North Carolina to win an election

The Washington Post reports that in North Carolina only 15% of households affected by Hurricane Helene have applied for FEMA assistance. That's half the rate of Georgia and South Carolina, even though they sustained less damage. You'll be unsurprised to learn why:

Local advocates and some inside FEMA say the barrage of conspiracy theories about the agency and a lack of knowledge about FEMA’s role in responding to disasters has discouraged and angered residents.

On Oct. 3, then-presidential-candidate Donald Trump stood onstage in Saginaw, Michigan, and falsely stated that the Biden administration didn’t have any money for hurricane relief and that the officials “stole the FEMA money … so they could give it to their illegal immigrants.” Other influential figures also propelled a range of conspiracy theories across the internet, exacerbating fears and tensions among residents and federal workers on the ground.

Around that time, applications fell and never bounced back as officials had hoped.

Trump's bluster and lies may have won him the White House, but not without cost. Hundreds of thousands of people are suffering needlessly because Trump has made them afraid of applying for loans or even no-strings cash grants:

For local volunteers such as Vicki Randolph, Oct. 4 was when “everything changed.”... Per usual, she said, they asked residents: “Did you apply for your FEMA?”

“And this one day, 100 percent of the people we talked to said ‘We don’t want the government to come around here. We have guns if they come around here,’” she recalled. “I had no idea why this was happening until I found out what had been said on television.”

It's not just Trump, either. The entire Republican noise machine joined in the lies because they figured it might give Trump a 1% better chance of winning an important swing state. What a bunch of depraved pieces of shit.

44 thoughts on “Donald Trump wrecked North Carolina to win an election

    1. Max in WolfSuit

      I don’t think he actually enjoys it. It’s literally meaningless to him. He doesn’t have the empathy to have any understanding of someone else’s suffering. He thinks that he has suffered more than anyone, because he can’t understand the concept.

  1. tango

    Yes, depraved pieces of shit describes it well. And if one wanted to be kind of harsh about it, it's kind of a form of justice for people who believe Trump's lies.

  2. FrankM

    "Hundreds of thousands of people are suffering needlessly..."

    No, they're suffering because they're idiots. I have no sympathy at all for people who shoot themselves in the foot.

    1. KenSchulz

      Ah, but their suffering helped TFG escape justice for his crimes, and set him up to profit further at the expense of the American people.

  3. KJK

    "What a bunch of depraved pieces of shit."

    A perfect description of Trump and his MAGA GOP party. This is the prospective that should always be used when evaluating what these shit stains say and do, and you should not ever give them the benefit of the doubt, since they are always going to be "depraved pieces of shit" to the end of time.

    I have no sympathy for those adults that were hurt by such moronic attitudes in the face of suffering by them and their families. I do have sympathy for their innocent children for having such moronic parents.

  4. Crissa

    My friend who listens to conservative media would say it's the government's fault for being circumspect of lesser trained door knockers approaching homes with aggressive yard signs for Trump.

      1. bebopman

        The difference being that this person was fired. A Trumpette who did this against Harris backers would have been made head of FEMA. …. Remember how Trump refused to send federal wildfire aid to California (even when those most affected were mainly Trump backers.)

        1. MF

          This person was fired after she became a huge political liability. At first she was just suspended.

          She claims she was acting per her supervisor's instructions. So far no word on the supervisor.

        2. lawnorder

          Given the number of Trump supporters who were threatening FEMA workers at the time, it seems to me that the worker's advice to avoid houses with Trump signs was only sensible.

    1. MF

      How, exactly, is a Trump yard sign "aggressive"? Does it come up to people, all of that are Democrats, and then tell them to "fuck off" if they say yes?

  5. CAbornandbred

    Works for me. Too stupid to know the truth about FEMA and too racist to see through Trump's BS on the subject? Don't apply. Doesn't hurt the rest of us. One gigantic slugorama to the face of Trump supporters, self inflected.

  6. iamr4man

    This is just the logical conclusion to Ronald Reagan’s famous quote that the nine most terrifying words in the English Language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”.

  7. rick_jones

    The Washington Post reports that in North Carolina only 15% of households affected by Hurricane Helene have applied for FEMA assistance. That's half the rate of Georgia and South Carolina, even though they sustained less damage.

    Shirley the people of Georgia and South Carolina heard the same words coming from Trump's mouth in Michigan.

    Georgia and North Carolina both went about the same for Trump - 50.73% and 50.86% respectively. South Carolina was rather more pro-Trump - 58.23%...

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election_in_Georgia
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election_in_North_Carolina
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election_in_South_Carolina

    1. KenSchulz

      I believe some of the disinformation was specific to North Carolina. Also, while state governors tried to correct the lies, North Carolina had a Democratic governor, Georgia and South Carolina have Republican governors. Likely to have made a difference in how their statements were received.

    2. Aleks311

      Helene also did tremendous damage here in Florida, especially in Pinellas County where I live. I was OK, but it's a short bike ride from me to neighborhoods where there are huge mounds of flood ruined household goods sitting at the curb. Yet I have seen nothing saying that people are rejecting FEMA money, though Trump-Vance signs were not rare down here before the election.

  8. D_Ohrk_E1

    No, no. You're making the same mistake that provably led us to the 2024 election outcome.

    Making this about Trump is worthless. After a decade of this buffoon's actions, people still willing to trust him are the fools who got fooled, not twice, not thrice, but a fucking thousand times.

    They worship a lying piece of shit cult of personality and they absolutely deserve whatever he brings them.

  9. spatrick

    Good! Then Trump Administration can be. responsible for the clean-up all by their lonesome and those who would rather live under a tarp because they don't want no stikin' government help can have a wonderful Christmas without electricity. Enjoy!

  10. Citizen99

    And to make matters even worse, the Democrats handed this issue to Trump on a silver platter. Why do I say this? Because when Helene was building up in the Gulf, it was clear that this storm was going to experience rapid intensification because of climate change. Remember that? The thing that Trump said was a Chinese hoax along with mocking every effort by the Biden administration to deal with it?

    So this was a golden opportunity for Harris and the Democrats to confidently PREDICT that this storm was going to be a doozy. Furthermore, meteorologists knew that, because of its enormous size, Helene was going to persist far beyond landfall, bringing severe flooding far inland. The Democrats could have gotten in front of this story, telling voters DAYS before landfall that climate change was responsible for the devastation of this storm, and that everyone should take notice of how Trump and his minions were ignoring it, and even predict THAT THEY WOULD EXPLOIT IT TO ATTACK FEMA!

    But no. Instead, they just sat on their thumbs, sticking to their campaign talking points, and let Trump turn something that should have COST him votes into something that WON him votes.

    1. Vog46

      citizen
      As a resident of NC (Wilmington) let me say this -

      "The Democrats could have gotten in front of this story, telling voters DAYS before landfall that climate change was responsible for the devastation of this storm, and that everyone should take notice of how Trump and his minions were ignoring it, and even predict THAT THEY WOULD EXPLOIT IT TO ATTACK FEMA!"

      They simply would not have believed ANY of this. To this day they are convinced that deportation of illegal immigrants will "bring American jobs back to our shores" - that drill drill drill is the answer to high gas prices and that DEMs are to blame for every ill in society. Yet when you tell them that meatpacking plants and farmers NEED immigrants, that we are pumping more oil than we have every pumped (yet prices are still way too high) and that republican policies have driven the nations debt up further than ANY democrat policy has and they simply DO NOT BELIEVE US.
      It's THAT simple
      Trump is a known pathological liar but DEMs are "painted" the same way on things that are important to voters. Which lies do liars believe? The ones THEY want to believe

      1. Jasper_in_Boston

        +1

        Right, these fantasies I constantly see of “savvy communication making a big difference in electoral outcomes” are just that.

  11. Austin

    You can’t help people who refuse to be helped and actively attack the people trying to help. Fuck them if they’re too prideful or stupid to apply for help.

  12. kenalovell

    What can you expect from depraved grubs who hail a guy as a hero and role model because a hung jury prevented him being found guilty of manslaughter? There were no political calculations in inviting Daniel Penny to join Trump and his entourage at the army/navy game. Trump sincerely admires people who will take the law into their own hands by inflicting deadly violence on the weak and powerless, and gets a buzz out of having them around him.

  13. OldFlyer

    After 8 years in the spot light, if they still believe everything Trump says- they deserve it.

    Soaked, broke and miserable, and believing a know liar who tells who to blame. They’re ready for Trump 2.0 !

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