At this moment, Los Angeles is burning in what will soon be the second costliest fire in history. I grew up in Southern California. One of my oldest and dearest friends has been evacuated, and my sister lives just outside of an ordered evacuation zone. That could change literally with the wind, and so this is quite personal for me.
And quite political for the right. Not one to miss a chance to take cheap shots at California in general, and weaken Gavin Newsom’s presidential aspirations in particular, the right has come out in full bullshit mode. It takes three seconds for Hannity, or Musk, or Alex Jones, or any of them to say something demonstrably untrue or highly misleading, and three minutes to debunk it. It's not even possible to keep up with the firehose of lies and misinformation even if you want to know the truth. That is the whole point of propaganda in the Misinformation Age: bury reasoned discourse in a heap of lies, half-truths and bullshit.
President elect Trump and the Republicans will take control of the federal government in ten days. Other than keeping the Bush/Obama/Trump tax cuts in place and handing more of the bounty and prosperity of this country over to billionaires and Wall Street, Republicans in general and Trump in specific are terrible at the very basics of governing. We used to joke back in the day that Republicans believe government doesn’t work, and every time they get elected, they do their best to prove it. Boy, did we underestimate how terribly true that would become.
So take heart. Because there will be more fires. Many more fires. And when your house is burning, you tend to notice. You don’t care who is to blame for starting the fire. You just want the fire department to save your house.
