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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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I doubt that FEMA is deliberately withholding aid, if for no other reason than that I do not see how withholding aid would benefit the Democrats politically.

Dead Republicans don't vote... at best. Most of the counties effected went 60% for Trump. In North Carolina, about 1 million voters out of the 6 million in the state have been impacted.

All the same, what we are seeing here is just the same passive aggressive indifference to the lives of people who vote wrong that the secret service showed towards Trump in Butler PA. It's the same attitude you Longshorman's Union Head mentioned if they force the Longshoremen to work. "We were moving 60 an hour, now we're moving 8." You can't force these organizations to save people they hate and want dead.

Dead Republicans don't vote

I don't think the numbers work out. One dead republican is very unlikely to move the result of a state election, you would probably require a few thousands at least.

However, having a few thousand citizens die due to your negligence will have political ramifications (unless you are the FDA and its red tape) orders of magnitude more significant than the missing votes of the dead people.

The US is politically divided, but neither the median Trump nor Harris voter would say that it would be a good thing if all the voters for the other party dropped dead. There are plenty of centrist Americans who would not think "they let all the rednecks starve to secure the election, that is clever" but "they let uncle Billy die, how could they!"

Big disasters are great opportunities for state capability to be seen as an unambiguous force of good. People normally don't like their governments much, but a competent disaster response can turn this around for a while.

But isn’t there a case to be made that displacing tens of thousands will make it hard for them to vote in a month?