The Politics of Catastrophe
For the last few days, I’ve held off making any political points about the hurricane. I’ve even argued with a couple of people I otherwise agree with on the subject. Yes, I understand you can point to places where Bush de-funded improvements to the levee system, or ignored very specific warnings about the possibility of storm damage, or is improperly using National Guard units needed at home in Iraq.
This all may be true, and it may be possible to argue that a more enlightened leader wouldn’t have done these things. At the same time, this is true: a city built mostly below sea level, between two bodies of water, along a hurricane path, exists merely at the pleasure of nature. When a calamity of the magnitude of Katrina strikes, we can perhaps flatter ourselves that the ingenuity of humankind might make some difference. It’s also entirely possible that we could have spent the millions and seen the same result. Who can say for sure that the Louisiana National Guard engineers currently in Iraq might not have been oversees on a normal troop rotation deployment in any case? Forewarned is only forearmed if your tools are up to the task. In this case, I’m prepared to show a little humility in the face of the awesome force of nature, and give the leadership the benefit of the doubt that it’s not reasonable to accurately predict and plan for the total destruction of a major American city, especially one as precarious as New Orleans.
What’s more interesting is how the politics of the response play out. This, in my view, is really where there’s a point to be made. Natural disasters are great community-building events. Who among us can look at the pictures from the Mississippi Delta and not wonder what we would do in the same situation? Empathy for the victims and a desire to help represent the best of human emotions. And as the Federal Government is the instrument of the American people, there is a strong emotional desire to see those resources mobilized to do good.
This presents a problem for the political party whose philosophy is rooted in “limited government.” As Matt Yglesias put it this morning, just as “there are no atheists in foxholes… there are no libertarians in the midst of a giant, city-wide flood.”
Bush and his people obviously understand the politics here, and he’s trying to go through the motions. The problem is, when you don’t actually believe in your heart that it really is the government’s business to intervene, it’s hard to put across the necessary urgency in your words and deeds. I didn’t see Bush’s first speech on Katrina, but if it got panned at the very conservative NRO’s Corner blog, it must have been a stinking wet turd of historic proportions. White House press secretary Scott McClellan seemed to insist that looting was a bigger problem than getting aid to the victims. Even the RNC website was a little late in recognizing what was going on.
And it’s not just Bush. Everyone talking about this on the right can’t seem to quite get the lingo down. Homeland security czar Michael Chertoff, in an interview on Fox yesterday, sounded as if he was blaming the victims for their inability to get out – a point that would be heartless even if true, but especially egregious given that most of the people couldn’t leave because they couldn’t afford to (no one is better at making this point than Steve Gilliard). Fox even dug up some economist whose “this isn’t our problem” rap appalled Neil Cavuto, the business show host not conspicuous for his fondness for the Federal government. And this is to say nothing of the usual “this is God’s punishment for tolerating gays and feminists” hate spewing from the so-called religious community.
It’s moments like this when you need a party in power that actually believes in the affirmative power of government to help its citizens, rather than the party that sees government’s role as protecting the property of the well-off from the predations of the underclass. It’s when the true ugly soul of American conservatism is borne out for what it is: a rationalization of selfishness and the hysterical denial of community. America is about to see what happens when the government is staffed by people appointed to their jobs precisely for their disdain for the whole notion of policy in the public interest. It’s won’t be pretty.
I guess my point here is that liberals should try to avoid the temptation of blaming the hurricane damage itself on Bush, because claims like that, even if undergirded by a certain framework of truth, sound petty and arrogant. However, it is both appropriate and necessary to draw continuous contrast between the shocking tone-deafness and ineptness of conservatism, and the real value of government when people really need it.
12:31:45 PM 
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