FEMA’s Targeting of Trump Supporters Makes the Case for Less Government
At a time when Americans worry—for good reason—that the apparatus of the state is used to punish the political enemies of those in charge, a government employee just got caught doing what many people fear has become common practice: politicizing the use of government power. A Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) official who ordered workers to deny assistance to Trump supporters affected by Hurricane Milton powerfully bolstered the arguments of those of us who want government kept small and out of the way to minimize the danger it represents.
When Officials Only Help Their Political Friends
“More than 22,000 FEMA employees every day adhere to FEMA’s core values and are dedicated to helping people before, during and after disasters, often sacrificing time with their own families to help disaster survivors,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell noted in a November 9 press release. “Recently, one FEMA employee departed from these values to advise her survivor assistance team to not go to homes with yard signs supporting President-elect Trump.”
Criswell added, “this employee has been terminated and we have referred the matter to the Office of Special Counsel.”
Criswell was responding to a story broken by the Daily Wire‘s Leif Le Mahieu that a FEMA supervisor, named as Marn’i Washington, “told workers in a message to ‘avoid homes advertising Trump’ as they canvassed Lake Placid, Florida to identify residents who could qualify for federal aid” after Hurricane Milton. The supervisor “relayed this message both verbally and in a group chat used by the relief team.”
The Daily Wire story included screen shots of the directives to FEMA employees, though further evidence isn’t necessary after Criswell conceded the point and fired the supervisor. The question now is, if one supervisor issued such orders, how many others did the same without being caught? If you ask the American people, they suspect such political weaponization is common.
Low Public Trust
In February 2024, after years of allegations of misuse of police, regulatory, and prosecutorial powers by government officials, Harvard/CAPS/Harris pollsters asked Americans about the issue. Asked, “Do you think the Democrats today are engaged in lawfare—a campaign using the government and the legal system in biased ways to take out a political opponent?” 58 percent of respondents said “yes.” The “yes” vote drew an unsurprising 81 percent of Republicans, but also 50 percent of independents and even 42 percent of Democrats.
In December 2022, months after the FBI raided former (and now future) President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate over the handling of classified documents,
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