MAGA blames DEI for California wildfires

As wildfires raged out of control across the Los Angeles area on Wednesday, consuming over 28,000 acres of land, destroying thousands of homes and buildings including entire neighborhoods and causing at least five deaths, President Donald Trump chose his MAGA acolytes. , right-wing commentators, conservative news media and far-right conspirators all laid the blame not on climate change or on eight months without rain, but on wakeism.

Trump – who supports a massive expansion of the extraction and use of fossil fuels, which scientific consensus connects directly to the increasing prevalence of extreme weather events — used the unfolding tragedy to attack his longtime nemesis, California Gov. Gavin Newsom. He argued that Democrats’ embrace of environmental issues was to blame for the Los Angeles Fire Department’s (LAFD) inability to contain what is already the worst fire in California history.

“Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration presented to him, which would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snowmelt from the north, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas currently burning in an almost apocalyptic way,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt by giving it less water (it worked not!) but didn’t care about the people of California.”

Governor’s Press Office issued a statement Wednesday slammed Trump’s comment, pointing out that “there is no such document as the Water Recovery Declaration — it’s pure fiction.”

Democrats’ embrace of so-called woke policies has become a versatile bogeyman for the right in recent years. As in previous generations they blamed political correctness and affirmative action for various problems, after major events like the assassination attempt on Trump last July and the Baltimore Bridge collapse last March, they now routinely blame wokeism and diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI).

“Can we rename DEI to DYE since that’s what seems to be happening to the people downstream of those who place vigilante virtue signaling far above competence?!?” Donald Trump Jr wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday.

Never one to shy away from a conspiracy theory, Trump’s confidant and centibillionaire X owner Elon Musk also used his platform to increase disinformation about what was to blame for the wildfires.

“THEY mean people die,” Musk wrote in one post, while several other posts included criticism of Kristin Crowley, the LAFD chief, a 22-year veteran of the department who was praised for saving nine homes from total destruction during the Woolsey fire in 2018 with his wife.

Crowley is the first woman and the first member of the LGBTQ community to hold the position of fire chief in LA.

Musk shared a post from Chaya Raichik, the woman behind it hateful, anti-LGBTQ account LibsOfTikTok: “Meet Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley. She boasts of being the first female and LGBTQ fire chief in the LA Fire Department. Fostering a DEI culture is her priority. Does that make you feel safer?” The post has been viewed over five million times.