North Carolina Air National Guard hauls over 100,000 pounds of supplies from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in a C17 to Western North Carolina as a part of Hurricane Helene support. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Maj. Monica Ebert)
In a political year in which a steady stream of good and hopeful news and policy progress has been accompanied by a relentless drumbeat of disinformation and delusion, it’s unsurprising that one of the year’s biggest events and news stories – Hurricane Helene – has produced just such a maddening combination of late in North Carolina.
The encouraging news, of course, is to be found in the response we’ve seen from elected leaders, public officials and average citizens of all political stripes.
First, were the neighbors and emergency personnel who performed countless acts of selfless heroism to rescue and care for people in need. Time and again, we’ve been reminded that while we may be a divided and querulous state and nation, we’re not so divided that we (or most of us anyway) have lost our instincts for basic human empathy.
When rescuers plucked someone from flood waters or nurses worked under dreadful conditions in a disabled hospital, or neighbors hosted a displaced stranger, shared bottled water, or shoveled mud from a basement, the politics of the people involved weren’t a factor.
And despite the fear and discord that false rumors have helped sow, it’s also been clear that leaders of both major political parties want to respond to the disaster.
This encouraging truth has been on display at all levels of government in recent weeks as officials worked to allocate and distribute public funds to hurricane relief and recovery.
This isn’t to say that efforts thus far have been perfect. The General Assembly’s latest relief bill – a measure written behind closed doors that spends around 600 million dollars (only about 15 percent of what Gov. Roy Cooper asked for) – is woefully inadequate. Going forward, state legislators need to be more transparent and spend a lot more.
But the bipartisan commitment to a hurricane response is at least a reminder that North Carolinians still care about their neighbors, retain many common bonds and can work together to use government to make life better for all. One hopes fervently that’s a pattern that our leaders build on going forward.
None of this, unfortunately, is to say that Helene hasn’t also helped feed a pair of dangerous cancers that currently plague us.
Cancer Number One has been most evident in the flood of cynical lies and disinformation that a small handful of politicians, activists and confused citizens have spread in the storm’s aftermath. Sadly, thanks to social media, things that would have once been summarily dismissed as ridiculous urban legends have spread instantly and with an air of apparent authority today – so much so that a handful of disturbed individuals even sought to disrupt relief efforts
U.S. House Freedom Caucus chair, Congressman Andy Harris (R-Md.)
And Cancer Number Two involves the growing affinity for authoritarianism – some even call it, with some justification, a brand of fascism – that’s gained momentum on the political right.
It’s hard to believe and sad to say, but after years in which far-right U.S. politicians have cozied up ever closer to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, some are now starting to directly emulate him.
The latest deeply disturbing example: the call by some extremist politicians and advocates – including, for heaven’s sake, a GOP Maryland congressman named Andy Harris who heads the U.S. House Freedom Caucus – to ignore our state’s election results. The group said last week that the North Carolina legislature should pass a law that disregards our state’s election results and simply hand its 16 electoral votes to Donald Trump.
Yes, you read that right.
According to these extremists, the disruptions to the state’s election process caused by the hurricane were such that the legislature should substitute its own judgment for that of millions of North Carolina voters.
And, while the congressman tried later to partially walk his remarks back, it’s still hard to know whether to laugh or cry and such deranged lunacy.
First of all, thanks to the heroic and bipartisan efforts of our state’s election officials, North Carolinians are voting at a record clip. This is true even in hurricane-impacted counties.
But more to the point, it simply staggers the imagination that any elected official in the world’s greatest democracy would make such an outrageous suggestion.
Earth to the Freedom Caucus, if this is your attitude, you’re in the wrong country.
Thankfully, even most conservative Republicans – partisans who continue to officially to back one of the chief sources of Helene disinformation, former President Donald Trump – recognize how outrageous and absurd such a suggestion is.
As Politico reported last week, this includes arch-conservative western North Carolina GOP congressman Patrick McHenry.
“It makes no sense whatsoever to prejudge the election outcome. And that is a misinformed view of what is happening on the ground in North Carolina, bless his heart,” said McHenry of his GOP colleague’s suggestion.
Good for McHenry.
And good for all those – politicians, public servants and average folks — who continue to recognize Abraham Lincoln’s great observation that, for all of our differences and despite the malevolent efforts of the Putins of the world, “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.”
May it continue to be the prevailing belief.