Will the Flooding in Key Swing States Sink The Harris Campaign?
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It has been a week since Hurricane Helene began her catastrophic sweep through the southeastern United States, triggering "biblical" destruction across the region, especially in Appalachia.
The deluge alone was unprecedented in modern times. Family homes, built as long ago as the 1920s, were washed away and entire communities were wiped off the map in places where flooding is not common.
The scale of the tragedy is still not fully known, as reports suggest that thousands of people are still trapped in areas with no road access and dwindling supplies. Worse yet, additional accounts from volunteers in the region indicate that the response from the government is slow to arrive, and lackluster when it does.
One Instagram user, claiming to be a Florida reserve guardsman and a confirmed former combat controller, said he is leading a team on the ground and that they are using civilian helicopters to save stranded people because trucks cannot make it into the mountains, as the roads have been washed away. But, according to his post, government helicopters are few and far between.
Another report, from a soldier claiming to be with the 82nd Airborne, stationed at Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg) in North Carolina, said soldiers asking for passes to help their families or assist in the rescue efforts are being denied because they are on being placed on standby in case they need to be deployed to the Middle East.
Of course, these reports may turn out to be untrue, but the discerning voter might wonder why their government is so loudly generous when it comes to sending their tax dollars to every cause that can be imagined overseas, yet so quiet when it's they who need help.
President Joe Biden released an official statement shortly after the storm's passing, promising support "every step of the way," and "ensuring no resource is spared," but it took 5 days to finally activate 1000 additional troops from Fort Liberty, and even then it was only after the decision to visit the region.
In some ways, its understandable. The life of any President is busy. However, it is hard to imagine that the leader of a nation – and certainly someone aspiring to be its leader – wouldn't want to be on the ground immediately; that they wouldn't want to roll up their sleeves to demonstrate that they are genuinely concerned for victims' recovery and are truly saddened by the tragic loss of life.
At the very least, one would expect such a display for at least cynical, political reasons this close to an election. Though Harris cut short her campaign on the West Coast and flew back to Washington in the aftermath of the disaster, her relative silence on the matter has been deafening.
Perhaps, if the citizens of the Southeast had a powerful lobby, or had funded a few citizens-first super PACs, the Democratic presidential candidate who is supposed to be vying for their key swing state votes would deem them worthy of at least some significant public commentary – maybe even a serious effort to restore their homes and cities.
It could be that Harris wanted to defer to the sitting President on the matter. It could be that she was forced to do so for optics' sake. But – let's be real for a moment – at this point, what Biden does has little bearing on the election outside of acting as an albatross around her neck if something he chooses to do or not to do turns the voting public against her.
One would expect that voters in these swing states, though devastated, were watching the response from their aspiring leaders; watching to see exactly what kind of leadership they would display. And in that competition, President Donald Trump's long-standing propensity to show up in person, at the front line, surely won him respect, if not support.
The visual contrast between the three leaders was striking. While Trump visited Valdosta, Georgia, walking through the ravaged city as a private citizen, he promised to help residents rebuild. Meanwhile, Biden was at his beach house and Harris was nowhere to be seen.
Though Biden and Harris pledged to help, such aid is to be expected, as they represent the party in power – the sitting administration. In many ways, it is the least they can do, especially in an election year when two – maybe THE two – key swing states (North Carolina and Georgia) are among those worst-impacted by the storm.
In contrast, though Trump has the same reasons to visit the region, his history of showing up at the scene of a disaster to offer support and encourage those most-affected is not new. During his presidency, he visited numerous disaster zones, including the aftermaths of hurricanes, tornadoes and shootings.
Megan Hays, a prominent Democratic strategist, agrees. Referring to Trump's visit, she said on CNN, "People remember the visual here. People are going to remember he is on the ground ... and in an election that's going to be won on the margins .... People are going to remember."
And this is where Harris and other members of the current administration are hoping to avoid the mistakes of a former administration. In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, George W. Bush was lambasted by media and his political opponents for his "slow" response to the calamity.
According to his political opponents and their media friends, Bush took "too long" to return to Washington – he returned to the nation's capital on Aug. 31, two days after Katrina slammed into southern Louisiana – and too long to provide aid. According to the media, this was definitive proof that Bush hated the people of New Orleans – particularly the Black people of the city, as rapper Kanye West famously declared during a televised fundraiser for the victims.
Of course, that "slow" response looks lightning-fast compared to the Biden-Harris response to Hurricane Helene.
By Sept. 1 – three days after Katrina hit, and at President Bush's urging – Congress passed an emergency relief bill that would send $10 billion in aid and 7,200 troops to assist. Bush signed the bill on Sept. 2 (four days post-storm) and pushed for an additional $51.8 billion that was approved by Congress on Sept. 7.
Within nine days, President Bush had pushed for and approved $61.8 billion in aid; even so, he was lambasted as a plodding racist. Seven days have passed since Hurricane Helene first made landfall on the coast of Florida (Sept. 26). It took six days for the Department of Defense to activate 1,000 active-duty troops from Fort Liberty (the same soldiers who reportedly begged for days to assist the people of their state) to join the 6,500 National Guard members who were working on the relief effort as of Oct. 2.
While 7,200 troops (and $61 billion) were sent to aid two states (Louisiana and Mississippi) in 2005, only 6,500 have been directed to aid similar destruction across at least a half-dozen states in 2024.
On Oct. 1 – five days after Helene hit – Biden said he may ask Congress to convene during the October recess to pass supplemental funding. As of the present time, no request has been made, and lawmakers remain idle.
To be fair to the President, Republican Speaker Mike Johnson has shied away from the idea of additional funding, saying that FEMA and HUD have already been given sufficient funds, though the reality of that perception is contested.
Johnson followed up with, what I'm sure he believed to be, a heartwarming tale of how disaster brings out the best in Americans and how they will come together to help each other to recover – the implication being that citizens will donate their own time and money to rebuild (though I hope I am misunderstanding the statement).
This, of course, is the same Mike Johnson who was "anxious" to push through a "very important" $95 billion emergency aid bill for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan just months ago. One has to wonder if perhaps Israel and Ukraine do not have the same heartwarming ability to come together, volunteer and privately fund the response to their own tragedies, like Americans are expected to do.
It certainly seems that across partisan lines, taxpayer dollars are free-flowing as long as the direction of the flow is not to Americans. Imagine if the hundreds of billions of tax dollars doled out in foreign aid and used to fund illegal migrants' lifestyles would instead be used to rebuild the homes of the people who paid them in the first place.
At least one can argue that between Biden and Johnson some (very slight) attempt at leadership and governance is visible. Harris, meanwhile – the woman yearning for the ultimate position of leadership – is nowhere to be seen. She's nowhere near the driver's seat; instead she's again playing the proverbial passenger princess, as she has done for most of her tenure as Vice President. For the past week, she's done little more than sit in the passenger seat with her feet up on the dashboard as Americans suffer one of their greatest humanitarian crises in decades.
When all is said and done, let's hope Americans in the affected states will remember who their friends were during these trying times. Let's hope they remember who "anxiously" fought to provide them with the aid they so desperately needed, and who showed up to volunteer their time, money and support.
And, let this once again be a reminder that every vote from here on out must only be for those who promise (and deliver on their promise) to put America and Americans first – something that would be a complete 180 for far too many among the nation's current crop of leaders.
Arthur is a former editor and consultant. Born in India to missionary parents, he spent his early career working in development for NGOs in Asia, Central America, and Africa.
Arthur has an educational background in history and psychology, with certifications from the University of Oxford and Leiden in the economics, politics, and ethics of mass migration and comparative theories in terrorism and counterterrorism. He is currently launching CivWest, a company focused on building capital to fund restorative projects and create resilient systems across the Western world.
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