
Yesterday, Virginia’s entire Congressional delegation begged Trump to issue a federal emergency declaration for Virginia, which is currently more exposed to the destructive force of the monster hurricane Florence than North Carolina, and is likely to be hit as hard as South Carolina. But initially, Trump only offered emergency declarations for North and South Carolina. He completely ignored Virginia. For many, this omission looked very political. Virginia is now a blue state, as Trump very well knows. By excluding Virginia up until just this afternoon, he sent a clear message of how disasters in the age of climate change will be handled by the emergency government agencies he now controls. If you are a blue state, then he is going to treat you in the same way he treated Puerto Rico (over 4,000 dead, no electricity for a year, etc.). If you are blue, you are as good as brown.
Cruel despot punishes those he sees disloyal.
Remember this Virginia.
Remember this displaced Puerto Rican AMERICANS.
Remember this, America.
Trump is a terrible, vengeful monster who tries to rule with a tiny-handed fist.
The midterms are less than two months away.#FlipItBlue https://t.co/AvLCRDycLQ
— Steve Marmel (@Marmel) September 11, 2018
From The Hill:
As of Monday night, the president had not yet declared a state of emergency in Virginia, which is also expected to receive damaging rains and winds after the storm makes landfall.
Virginia's congressional delegation called on Trump earlier in the day to issue such a declaration to assist with the state's emergency response.
From Eric Boehlert of Share Blue:
The idea that a president might play politics with disaster relief where people’s lives are in danger was once considered unthinkable.But after the Trump administration, led by FEMA, provided drastically different levels of relief last year for storms that hit Texas and Louisiana and then for Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico and killed approximately 3,000 U.S. citizens, it’s not past Trump to view federal assistance as a form of political payback.
Most of the deaths that occurred after Puerto Rico was hit by Hurricane Maria last year were not caused by nature but by human negligence and indifference. If the federal government had acted on that disaster in the way it aggressively acted on the ones that hit red states Florida and Texas, most of PR's deaths would have been limited to the direct destruction caused by the hurricane. This is how Trump treats brown people. He doesn't care if they die. What yesterday's declarations signaled (and the long delay between those declarations and the one finally made for Virginia this afternoon) is that he has it in mind to treat white people who live in blue states differently than white people who live in red states. Blue-state whites are now just brown to him.
As a resident of Virginia in a predicted area of likely catastrophic damage,(South central), I am simply outraged Trump selectively refused to allow state of emergency which would allow us to have needed resources!!!
— evyenia dunlap (@evyeniad) September 11, 2018
@AprilDRyan Why has President Trump refused to declare a state of emergency for Virginia? The fact that the governor is a Democrat should have nothing to do with it. Many in the state are Republicans. Is he really this small and vindictive?
— T. Cherry (@kreame1) September 11, 2018
It is entirely plausible that President Trump is withholding federal support for Virginia, in face of massive hurricane, because it votes Democratic. https://t.co/RnHGIxTzYe
— David Rothschild (@DavMicRot) September 11, 2018
Virginia's congressional delegation on Mon called on Trump to declare a federal emergency in VA ahead of the arrival of #HurricaneFlorence. Trump issued a trio of tweets about the impending storm on Monday, but none specifically mentioning Virginia. https://t.co/ZMolv4CFir
— Amee KavaNope Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) September 10, 2018