Flames overtake the intersection of Temescal Canyon and Pacific Coast Highway Fire at the Palisades Fire in Pacific Palisades California on January 7, 2025. | Source: ROBYN BECK / Getty
When the news broke of wildfires ravaging much of Southern California, we knew or should have known that it was only a matter of time before right-wing media and racist white conservatives across social media decided to stretch themselves into a noose knot to make it a story about DEI, “woke culture” and Los Angeles’ Black woman mayor.
And the MAGA minions came right on cue.
MORE: California Burning: Views Of The Los Angeles Wildfires In 10 Devastating Photos
When the wildfires first began to erupt, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was in Ghana for the nation’s presidential inauguration. Bass has since returned to the States, but not soon enough for the critical thought-deficient right, who thought they had the perfect “gotcha” moment that they could liken to the outrage over Sen. Ted Cruz flying to Cancún, Mexico, with his family in 2021, which he did after it became apparent that his state of Texas was in crisis mode due to the severe effects of a devastating winter storm and a power grid failure that left citizens freezing in their homes, many of whom died as a result. But that narrative has somewhat fallen flat since people who make good use of their brains and common sense noted that Cruz left during his state’s tragedy, whereas Bass left for Ghana well before the fires started and was not in possession of a crystal ball that would have warned her about spontaneous wildfires spreading through her city during the dead of Winter.
But conservatives weren’t going to let the absurdity of their gripes over Bass’ Ghana trip stop them from continuing to call the mayor an incompetent “DET hire” (white people’s new N-word), so they moved on to blasting her for cutting the Los Angeles Fire Department’s budget by $17.6 million — and that might have been a great point to make if not for the fact that the $17.6 million was only a fraction of the more than $837 million budget it was cut from.
Source: X screenshot
From Newsweek:
Bass proposed a $12.8 billion budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year in April last year.
The proposal included $814,281,952 for the fire department—with $77,957,494 for salaries and $41,324,458 for expenses.
This amounted to a decrease of $22,909,285 since the department’s funding for the 2023-2024 fiscal year was $837,191,237. The estimated expenditures for that year were more than $903 million, according to the document.
The adopted budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year increased the amount for the fire department to $819,637,423, according to a summary on the city administrative officer’s website. That meant the department’s funding saw a decrease of $17,553,814, rather than almost $23 million.
And because no white nationalist whirlwind of MAGA nonsense would be complete without a random and reachy anti-DEI rant, here’s Megyn Kelly reporting without evidence that some fire hydrants in the LA area were empty because Bass and LA Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley were too preoccupied with diversity efforts.
Kelly’s factless rant is typical of the “I’m not a bigot I just say racist sh*t a lot” world of white conservative media talking heads and the politicians they echo.
In 2023, amid an environmental disaster caused by a train derailment in Ohio, Georgia Rep. Mike Collins stated without evidence that the Biden administration’s diversity efforts were somehow responsible.
“This administration’s focus on DEI is forcing private companies to rethink their goals, and one has to wonder, was Norfolk Southern’s DEI policies directing resources away from important things like greasing wheel bearings?” Collins said. “This insanity must stop!”
Here’s what I wrote about that:
Bruh—what?
Is Collins really out here implying that industrial transport company Norfolk Southern is so distracted by extending employment opportunities to Black and brown people that they just plum forgot to dedicate resources for basic train maintenance and safety—and that’s why the train derailed?
Mind you, Collins didn’t mention the widely made argument that Donald Trump spent his presidency rolling back Obama-era environmental safety and regulation policies that might have prevented the disaster. At the very least, that argument links two things that are actually related, unlike Collins, who might as well be arguing that Black people die in car accidents because people hate cops. (Wait, sorry, that was also an argument made by Tucker Carlson.)
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass tour the downtown business district of Pacific Palisades as the Palisades Fire continues to burn on January 8, 2025, in Los Angeles, California. | Source: Eric Thayer / Getty
And who could forget when a major bridge in Baltimore collapsed last year and Republicans immediately tied the tragedy to DEI simply because Maryland’s port commissioner is a Black woman and Baltimore’s mayor is a Black man? (The office of mayor is an elected position and Brandon Scott won 70% of the vote in a city that is more than 60% Black, but, again, white conservatives are not going to let facts and logic get in the way of a racist narrative aimed at hyping up the perpetually aggrieved Caucasian populace.)
But look, we can sit around debunking white conservative nonsense all day — after all, it’s not like these media outlets and right-wing talking heads have offered evidence that the response to the national disaster in California has been lackluster or incompetent — but the truth is this is simply their latest excuse to attack prominent Black women in politics. People are losing their homes, lives and safety, and while everyone else sends the victims their love, thoughts, prayers, well-wishes and whatever they have to donate, MAGA America decided it’s the perfect opportunity to pivot to nonsensical racism, misogynoir and partisan politics.
These people are pathetic.
SEE ALSO:
‘DEI Hire’: Racists Target FBI Agent Alethea Duncan, A Black Woman, After New Orleans Car Attack
