A natural disaster is pummeling the Southeast; meanwhile, misinformation is inundating social media.
I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”
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Today's read: 15 minutes.
The death penalty.
Last Tuesday, Missouri executed Marcellus Williams for a 1998 murder, renewing a debate about the place of the death penalty in our justice system. This Friday, we’ll be publishing a subscribers-only piece that explores the death penalty — getting into the history, execution methods, and the arguments for and against capital punishment, as well as my own take.
Quick hits.
- Longshoremen at ports along the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico went on strike after the United States Maritime Alliance and the International Longshoremen’s Association failed to agree to a new contract. The strike is the first by the port workers’ union since 1977. (The strike)
- Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) and Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) will take part in the vice presidential debate tonight at 9:00 pm ET on CBS News. (The debate)
- Israel began ground operations in southern Lebanon, with the military saying it aims to destroy Hezbollah military infrastructure in villages close to the Israel-Lebanon border. (The offensive)
- The Biden administration announced it will toughen its asylum restrictions for migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. The new rule shuts down most asylum claims unless apprehensions of migrants crossing the border illegally drops below a daily average of 1,500 over 28 days, and increase from seven days under the initial version of the order. (The change)
- A judge in Fulton County, Georgia, overturned a state law that make it illegal to terminate a pregnancy after six weeks (with exceptions for rape, incest, and health of the mother and fetus). The order restores Georgia’s previous abortion regulations, allowing the procedure until 22 weeks of pregnancy. (The ruling)
Today's topic.
Hurricane Helene. On Thursday, Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida's Gulf Coast as a Category 4 hurricane before moving inland and hitting the southeastern United States. The hurricane was the third to hit the Big Bend region in Florida in 13 months and broke storm surge records across the Gulf Coast. At least 130 deaths in six states have been attributed to the storm, and the death toll continues to climb. On Monday afternoon, two million homes and businesses were still without power, and floods continued to devastate counties from Florida to Virginia.
The western region of North Carolina was among the hardest hit, with 40 known deaths in Buncombe County, which encompasses Asheville. Rainfall in some areas was measured at over two feet, causing the worst flooding in over a century. Residents across the western North Carolina were left lining up outside shelters or stores for fresh water, food, and access to phones in order to contact relatives and loved ones.
Meanwhile, government officials said aid groups were struggling to get basic supplies into the area via airlift, truck, and mule due to washed-out highways, collapsed bridges, and unusable airports. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper (D) said government officials expect the death toll to rise as rescuers and other emergency workers reach more isolated areas.
On Saturday, President Joe Biden issued a major disaster declaration for Florida and North Carolina, which allows survivors to immediately access funds through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). U.S. Coast Guard and FEMA officials have been deployed across the region. Ten federal search and rescue teams were on the ground in North Carolina and another nine were on their way Monday, according to FEMA. Trucks and cargo planes have also been arriving with food and water.
The storm also ravaged other parts of the Southeast. Flooding on Florida's Gulf Coast wiped out small coastal towns. Some 120,000 people are still without power in Augusta, Georgia, a city near the border of South Carolina. 30 people were killed in South Carolina, making it the state’s deadliest storm since 1989.
Today, we are going to break down some commentary about the storm and the federal response from the right and left, then my take.
What the right is saying.
- The right argues the Biden administration has failed to rise to the occasion in its response to the hurricane.
- Some praise Trump for his presence on the ground in impacted areas.
- Others say federal programs that subsidize flood insurance in at-risk areas should be eliminated.
In The Federalist, Shawn Fleetwood said “Hurricane Helene fallout shows why America can’t afford another Potemkin presidency.”
“Despite such widespread suffering among the people they were elected to serve, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris — the latter of whom is running to be our next president — seem to have bigger things to worry about… Biden spent most of his weekend lounging around on Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. Meanwhile, Harris reportedly attended a campaign event in San Francisco on Saturday and a fundraiser in Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon,” Fleetwood wrote. “Those of us who’ve closely watched this dumpster fire of an administration for the past three and half years know better than to believe that Biden and Harris are actively managing the federal government’s Helene response.”
“Under this administration, the U.S. presidency has become a Potemkin village. Biden and Harris are trotted out to give big speeches and attend formal events with world leaders, but nobody with a lick of commonsense genuinely believes either one is really running the show,” Fleetwood said. “America can’t afford another four years of a Potemkin president who cares more about shipping endless amounts of taxpayer money to Ukraine than the suffering of her own citizens. Whether enough Americans believe that to be true will be learned soon enough.”
In Hot Air, Ed Morrissey wrote about Trump’s understanding of “presence” after disasters.
“The White House and FEMA appear to have been caught flat-footed on emergency response overall, not just in targeted areas. The impacted region tends to be more Republican than Democrat, as do most rural areas, so the impact of incompetence would be felt along those lines. But it doesn't mean that the federal and North Carolina governments are specifically withholding aid based on politics,” Morrissey said. “Nevertheless, it provides a large opening for a presidential contender who likes to show up personally to offer support in disasters.”
“For all his ‘common man’ conceits, Biden never learned the wisdom of presence. Kamala Harris doesn't appear to have a clue about it either,” Morrissey wrote. “Trump, on the other hand, understands presence as a political value. He didn't show up in East Palestine by mistake, and the lack of response from Biden and Harris gives him a great opportunity to provide a contrast in leadership. Flying aid into the area will give those on the ground a real boost in morale, not to mention address the real needs of those in the devastated region, incrementally at least.”
In Reason, Jack Nicastro suggested “Washington worsened Hurricane Helene's destruction.”
“While the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is busy helping survivors in flood-stricken regions, its National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) perversely incentivizes Americans to reside in these high-risk areas,” Nicastro said. “People choose to remain in flood-prone areas for many reasons, including proximity to family, work, and school. Uprooting oneself and one's family can be a painful thing to do, and choosing to take on risk to stay where you've established your home is understandable. But choosing to stay in these areas genuinely does involve considerable risk.”
“Without NFIP-subsidized insurance, rates would increase, becoming unaffordable for some homeowners. Unaffordability is a feature of insurance markets, not a bug. High insurance rates discourage risky behavior that is likely to be even more painful than having to pull up roots,” Nicastro wrote. “FEMA's affordability framework argues good public policy consists of balancing ‘increased flood insurance take-up with increased program costs due to…policyholders paying less than full-risk rates.’ This balancing act is simple: The federal government must stop subsidizing NFIP and allow its more than 50 partnered insurance companies to set rates that fully reflect the risk of extreme weather events like Hurricane Helene.”
What the left is saying.
- The left says the disaster highlights the necessity of government in moments of crisis.
- Some note the connection between the scale of the devastation and the impacts of climate change.
- Others suggest a new federal program to manage disaster response at the local level.
The Charlotte Observer editorial board wrote “Helene’s devastation in western NC reminds us why government is so important.”
“In the wake of Hurricane Helene, western North Carolina is facing what officials are calling ‘biblical devastation.’ Entire communities washed away. A whole region physically and digitally isolated from the rest of the state, with most roads completely impassable,” the board said. “What we do know is devastating. What we don’t yet know is terrifying. It’s worse than most anyone could have imagined. And it’s times like these that we recognize the value of good government, as local, state and federal agencies work tirelessly to provide a lifeline to flood victims.”
“Republicans have repeatedly engaged in brinkmanship when it comes to funding the government, and too many seem too willing to force a shutdown in order to extract the spending cuts they desire. Congress still has yet to pass a long-term spending bill for the federal government, instead keeping the lights on through temporary funding measures that fail to address the needs of agencies like FEMA,” the board wrote. “Let’s be clear: Western North Carolina cannot rebuild from this disaster on its own. Many of the worst affected areas are rural, low-income communities that were struggling before this disaster hit and will struggle even more now. Our so-called ‘big government’ is what is saving lives right now.”
In The New Republic, Kate Aronoff argued “Hurricane Helene proves there are no climate havens.”
“Asheville—recently dubbed a ‘climate haven’ for its historically mild climate and perch within the Blue Ridge Mountains—is among the areas worst hit; so far, 30 people have been reported dead there,” Aronoff said. “The idea of a ‘climate haven’ is a seductive one: that some places will be relatively insulated from extreme heat, stronger hurricanes, and any number of other threats posed by rising temperatures. That’s all the more enticing if you’ve got the means to move to one of those places.”
“As western North Carolina can attest, though, the climate crisis isn’t especially good at respecting either municipalities’ marketing pitches or borders. The nature of global warming is that it is, well, global: Nowhere will be spared. This reality makes a mockery of our geographical boundaries. But it shows how arbitrary other boundaries are, as well: specifically, the bounds of what counts as ‘climate policy,’” Aronoff wrote. “Climate change isn’t a discrete issue so much as the foundation on which all politics happens. All policy, in other words—from housing to trade and financial regulation—is climate policy.”
In The Atlantic, Zoë Schlanger said “America needs a disaster corps.”
“The RWHP [Rural Women’s Health Project] is one of a handful of nonprofits in Florida and beyond filling gaps in government disaster relief, with systems to check on people, distribute food, and help navigate FEMA applications. Given that the number of billion-dollar-plus disasters are on the rise, the U.S. is going to confront these same problems over and over again. And instead of continuing to fail in the same ways, the country could start to rethink its relationship to disaster resilience and more directly shore up the work being done through nonprofits such as RWHP, by giving them funding commensurate with their role in reducing harm.
“That is, it could create a national disaster corps, of groups already providing community support and of workers trained to serve the more and more constant needs of disaster preparedness and recovery,” Schlanger said. “Creating a more official network of neighbors helping neighbors could better equip communities to make it through… The climate crisis presents an opportunity for a jobs program on the scale that the U.S. hasn’t seen since the New Deal. The work would be meaningful, fulfilling even. And it could save a country quickly falling into several climate-disaster traps as expensive and destructive disasters mount.”
My take.
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A horrific tragedy is unfolding in North Carolina and across the southeastern United States. But a specific kind of reaction to this tragedy has caught my attention today and is infuriating to watch play out: Liars and hacks have decided to capitalize on it for social media clout.
Over 100 people are dead, and some estimates project that hundreds more will be discovered in the days or weeks to come. Roads are not just washed out, but completely gone. Houses are floating down streets. Entire areas, like those around Asheville, are underwater and will take years to rebuild. The damage is hard to describe in words, but the images come close to doing it justice. It is shaping up to be one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history.
Amidst this horror, many North Carolinians on the ground are desperate for help. They need to be rescued from rooftops, or they need water, or they need food, or they need help finding missing relatives. Internet and power are down in many places, as is cell phone service. One man hiked 11 miles just to get to his family. It is complete chaos — something akin to a post-apocalyptic world.
In situations like this, helping people in disaster areas requires a tremendous amount of planning, coordination, and — perhaps most of all — reliable information. Federal, state, and local governments need to coordinate. Citizens need to receive information from rescue services, and they need to trust that information so they can act on it. Saving people in these situations is incredibly challenging, harrowing, and complicated.
Unfortunately, it's also election season, which means that some online influencers and pundits — many on the right, but some on the left, too — decided that a healthy information system is less useful to them than an opportunity to score political points. Thus, they started inundating social media and partisan news outlets with utter nonsense.
One of the worst purveyors of these lies is Sean Davis, CEO and co-founder of The Federalist, a conservative news organization whose writers we’ve quoted many times in Tangle (including today). He employs some of the most biting conservative writers on the right. Unfortunately, he’s been discrediting his organization for days through his coverage of Helene. Davis has been tweeting things like, "Americans just watched torrential rain and flooding kill their loved ones and destroy their homes and businesses, many are still stranded without food or water, and Joe Biden is tweeting about Ukraine," or “If you’re wondering why Biden and Harris aren’t lifting a finger to help the people in Tennessee and North Carolina, it’s because they hate rural Americans (and everything rural America represents and preserves) and are happy to see them replaced by illegal immigrants.”
Stephen Miller, a senior advisor to President Trump, tweeted at Kamala Harris that, "Americans are dying and they are drowning. You failed to warn them. You failed to evacuate them. You failed to rescue them. Just like you failed in Afghanistan. Except this is on our own soil."
Random accounts with major followings and anonymous hosts are tweeting things like, "Entire roads in North Carolina are washed out and people are without a way to get out of their driveways, no power, little to no communication, AND OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS DOING NOTHING. OUR MEDIA IS BARELY ACKNOWLEDGING THIS DISASTER."
As it often does, this messaging is spreading across social media platforms and now moving into the real world — with some news organizations publishing opinion pieces echoing these claims, that are then boosted by high-profile politicians.
The implication, if not overt claim, is that Harris and Biden care more about Ukrainians than Americans. Or, similarly, that they don't care about dying Americans in Appalachia because they are conservative (not for nothing, but the Asheville area is a liberal hub, and claiming otherwise makes it clear you have no idea what you are talking about).
Anyway, there is an even bigger problem with this narrative: It's all nonsense.
It's all a lie.
Before I explain how I know this, let me do some throat clearing: I hate writing pieces like this. It is not my job to "defend" the federal government from lies — and it's hard to write a piece like this without it reading like I'm openly shilling for Harris or Biden. I am not. I'm not here to do their PR or protect their reputations.
However, I do care about our information ecosystem. I care about reliable, accurate information being shared widely. I also care about the North Carolinians in danger right now. Not just because they are Americans and it's a state I love, but also because my mom, my aunt, my brother, and his family — my sister-in-law and my niece — all live in North Carolina. So the horrors we're all witnessing on the news hit close to home.
Here is the truth, though: Biden and Harris have actually pulled every lever federal executives can in a situation like this. None of the critics that I posted above can say exactly what they want them to do that they aren’t already doing, and if you’re planning on writing in to tell me that I am shilling for Harris or being a leftwing hack by calling out lies online, you better be prepared to tell me exactly what I’ve gotten wrong here.
The administration has declared a national emergency for impacted counties across North Carolina. That happened on Friday, the first full day after Helene made landfall. On Saturday, Biden declared a major disaster declaration, which means survivors on the ground can immediately begin applying for funds through the federal government. Contrary to what Sean Davis is tweeting, Biden has, actually, said more about North Carolina than Ukraine on his X account over the last few days.
Predictably, these lies eventually made their way to former President Donald Trump, who used them on the campaign trail to claim that Biden and Harris are doing nothing for North Carolina. Trump also claimed that Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp couldn’t contact President Biden; yet Kemp had said at a news conference the day before that he had spoken to Biden and gotten everything he’d asked for. By the way, that’s usually how it goes: State and local groups drive the initial recovery effort, which the federal government then supports and funds.
The media is also all over this story, not ignoring it. It was on the homepage of every major news organization I checked on Monday, and every major network has been devoting segments to it throughout the weekend (including Fox News, where Jessica Tarlov gracefully debunked some of these lies her co-hosts were spreading live on the air).
I’m not sure what else Biden and Harris could do. Helene created a once-in-a-century storm in North Carolina; every resource the federal government has can’t beat Mother Nature in 48 hours. They sent in FEMA. Hundreds of first responders from the U.S. Health and Human Services are on the ground. The U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are responding across the region. National Guard troops were deployed in North Carolina before Helene got there, and more have been sent in since; over 5,000 are now in North Carolina, and some are performing helicopter airlifts in eastern Tennessee (which has also been rocked by the storms). These groups are airlifting and trucking in food, water, and supplies — some are even getting there via mule.
Chef José Andrés, the celebrity chef (and frequent Biden critic) who is famous for delivering aid across the world, said aid was “flowing quicker than any mission I’ve ever seen.” Quicker than any mission he’d ever seen. Andrés also challenged critics to stop spreading misinformation and get to work.
Once the storm has passed, literally and figuratively, Biden, Harris, and politicians from every faction in Congress will work together to deliver a federal aid package to the region. Something like that takes weeks if not months to execute, but it will come.
Some have asked why Biden or Harris haven't gone to North Carolina. The answer is simple: That would be a colossal waste of resources; they would get in the way — they would create a circus. Currently, it also looks like it'd be damn near impossible. Roads, airports, and bridges are washed out across the western portion of the state. Both Biden and Harris, as well as Trump and JD Vance, have said they are going to visit the impacted areas soon, but are rightly hanging back and staying out of the way of literal rescue missions (Trump is campaigning in Georgia right now, but he’s also staying out of disaster-stricken areas). Political visits should come when things are calm to boost morale, raise donations, and keep the focus on the area. Campaigning politicians staying out of North Carolina now isn’t a sign that they don’t care; it’s a sign that they’re following reason.
Of course, Biden and Harris are creating some very bad optics here, which are worth criticizing.
Harris was on the West Coast for a fundraising trip as the storm passed through the Southeast. She cut that trip short to go to FEMA headquarters, but you could make the case she should have hung back and avoided the trip altogether as the hurricane’s path took shape. Biden said there was nothing more the federal government could do when asked about additional resources. He’s right that the government has been pulling every lever it has, but the optics of the statement weren’t great.
We can take away other, more legitimate policy lessons from the federal response. For instance, some people have pointed out that FEMA aid relief funds are running dry while our tax dollars get poured into Israel or Ukraine; I think it is perfectly reasonable to note that we have enough taxpayer money for overseas wars but not enough for FEMA. Though, you should know FEMA’s current funding issues are in part due to conservative fiscal hawks in Congress, who prevented additional FEMA funding from getting into the stopgap funding bill five days ago. Others, like Reason’s Jack Nicastro (under “What the right is saying”), have argued that the federal government’s own subsidizing of flood insurance is keeping more people in disaster-prone areas, which is a strong point.
Again: I’m not trying to defend FEMA, or the federal government more broadly. In fact, I once reported on all the mistakes FEMA made in Puerto Rico, and actually got FEMA representatives to admit (on the record) errors they had previously not disclosed. If they screw up in North Carolina, I'll promptly say so, and will report on it. What I am trying to do is dispel misinformation that creates real problems, and could lead to real issues.
Imagine being a North Carolinian conservative who is getting told to evacuate by a Democratic politician, but when you go on social media all the people you follow and trust are saying that the Democrats don't care if you die and can't be trusted.
What do you do?
Or, even worse, imagine you are a survivor being told there is no federal help or there are no federal funds, so you don’t know that you can actually go to FEMA’s website and apply for relief funds right now.
All of this is to say nothing of the people who were claiming — before the storm hit — that the entire thing was a conspiracy to exaggerate the potential damage to advance a “climate change agenda,” or writing tongue-in-cheek op-eds about how to ride out the storm like a “man.”
Some people, like North Carolina-based Pastor Ben Marsh, have speculated that this government-apathy narrative, which is spreading like wildfire, is some kind of bot operation or Russian influence — something designed specifically to hurt Biden and Harris on social media. I have not seen any evidence for that, and I chalk the claim up to the left's own conspiratorial brainworms of blaming everything on Russia.
I actually think it is much simpler: A bunch of opportunistic grifters want to make the president and vice president look bad, so they will say whatever they want in order to do so. They’ll spin the information black hole created by downed cell towers, no internet service, and clogged or unusable roadways into mainstream apathy, tying that same information blackout to apathy from the federal government. Somewhere in there, they’ll point people to their own websites, writing, or subscriber-only content to cash in on their lies.
I am praying and hoping and wishing for a robust response to the horrors in North Carolina and the Southeast. If you want to do something to help, a western North Carolina radio station has listed all the ways people can support the area. We should all keep our attention and focus there, and hold our federal government to the highest standards possible in their response. But, while we do, let’s not make the situation actively worse by spreading lies.
We can support our fellow Americans, and hold our leaders accountable, while also remaining faithful to the truth. Not only can we, but it is the only way to help; otherwise, we put those same people we claim to care for in more danger.
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Under the radar.
On Friday, the Justice Department indicted three members of Iran’s military for the hacking of former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, charging them with 18 criminal counts for hacking sensitive campaign materials and providing support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The indictment states that the hackers attempted to contact representatives for President Joe Biden’s campaign to share the documents but did not receive a response. However, at least one hacked document — containing vetting materials on Sen. JD Vance — has been made public after journalist Ken Klippenstein published it on his Substack last week. The Justice Department says the hackers’ operation was intended to support Iran’s “ongoing efforts to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani,” an Iranian general killed in a U.S. drone strike in January 2020. Politico has the story.
Numbers.
- 800. The approximate length, in miles, of Hurricane Helene’s northward path from where it made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region.
- 69,720. The number of customers without power in Florida as of 11:00 am ET, according to poweroutage.us.
- 72,953. The number of customers without power in Virginia as of 11:00 am ET.
- 369,855. The number of customers without power in North Carolina as of 11:00 am ET.
- 458,552. The number of customers without power in Georgia as of 11:00 am ET.
- 609,782. The number of customers without power in South Carolina as of 11:00 am ET.
- 8. The number of landfalling storms in the U.S. since 2017, including Helene, that intensified by at least 35 mph in 24 hours before landfall.
- 6. The number of landfalling storms in the U.S. between 1982 and 2016 that met this rapid intensification threshold.
- $160 billion. The estimated total damage and economic loss from Hurricane Helene, according to AccuWeather.
- 4. The number of hurricanes in recorded U.S. history with estimated financial impacts exceeding $160 billion (adjusted for inflation).
The extras.
- One year ago today we had just published a Friday edition on how to fix our broken elections.
- The most clicked link in yesterday’s newsletter was the ad in the free version for the Daily Upside.
- Nothing to do with politics: All the things you’re allowed to put in your carry-on bag.
- Yesterday’s survey: 1,028 readers responded to our survey on the Eric Adams indictment with 86% glad for it and hoping for more political indictments. “Of course, I believe that he is innocent until proven guilty and should not be treated worse than other defendants, but it's just as vital that he isn't treated better than other defendants,” one respondent said.
Have a nice day.
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, around 25,000 people sought shelter in the Superdome stadium in New Orleans. However, the venue wasn’t equipped for an emergency, leaving those seeking shelter with inadequate water, food, and supplies. A new partnership between the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the NFL aims to turn stadiums into safe havens in climate or health emergencies. Thus far, four venues have been designated as shelters with more expected to become so in the near future. “Stadiums are valuable community assets that are often used in times of disasters,” the NFL’s Chief Security Officer Cathy Lanier said, “This designation reflects the role that many stadiums play, not only on Sundays, but especially in times of need.” Good Good Good has the story.
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