On Tuesday, I was part of a City University of New York event about economic perceptions, which was briefly disrupted by a protester yelling out that President Joe Biden isn’t helping some of the areas afflicted by Hurricane Helene. The guy’s politics were unclear — he was also yelling something about Israel — but it was an indication that Donald Trump’s latest lie has gone viral.
In case you missed it, Trump has been trying to exploit the natural disaster for political gain, claiming he heard that the federal government — Biden — and North Carolina’s Democratic governor are “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.” This claim has no basis: Major rescue and recovery operations are underway, and several governors of the affected states — including Republicans — have praised federal efforts. Trump said that Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, was “having a hard time getting the president on the phone.” On the contrary, Kemp said that Biden told him “that if there’s other things we need, just to call him directly — which, I appreciate that.”
But then, at this point, Trump’s campaign rests heavily on made-up stuff. And he clearly seems to believe that he needs new material, because the old material seems to be losing some of its effectiveness.
Before I get into the disaster relief issue, let me note that Trump has been a true innovator in political dishonesty. Lots of politicians have misrepresented their personal histories or the content of their policy proposals — Trump does that, too. But he has also constructed a whole dystopian fantasy world, trying to persuade voters that America is a nation with a collapsing economy overrun by violent immigrants.
In reality, America has low inflation and low unemployment, and the average worker’s purchasing power is higher than it was five years ago. Yes, some Americans are struggling, but that was as true when Trump was president as it is now.
At the same time, violent crime, homicides in particular, which rose significantly during Trump’s last year in office, has come down and appears to be continuing to fall.
What’s new is that Trump’s vision of America-as-hellscape seems to be losing its political mojo. For example, a new Cook Political Report poll of swing states, while still showing Trump with some advantage on the economy, showed Kamala Harris tied on the issue of who can best deal with inflation and the cost of living, and barely trailing on who can best deal with crime and violence.
So it must be time to conjure a new fake source of fear and outrage.
Where does the insinuation that Biden is denying aid to politically unfriendly disaster areas come from? In part it’s projection: Trump was found to have done something akin to that when he was in the White House. In part it involves condemning Biden and Harris for not immediately visiting the stricken areas.
Biden and Harris, though, were just acting responsibly. In the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster, a high-profile political visitor with a huge security detail is the last thing you want — I mean, politicians aren’t much help rescuing stranded residents and repairing roads, while accommodating their visit would divert personnel and equipment away from the urgent task of saving lives and restoring essential services. Former FEMA officials expressed skepticism about Trump’s visit to Valdosta, Georgia, soon after the storm passed, not only because he used the visit to politicize a tragedy, but because such a visit “does eat up resources on the ground.”
But the temptation for Trump to suggest that Biden was playing politics with his hurricane response must have been irresistible, because it so closely fits the template of many of his other claims.
The key to Trump’s tall tales is to tell his supporters that terrible things are happening somewhere out there, even if those things aren’t happening to them or where they can see them. He and JD Vance keep perpetuating claims that Haitians are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio; not many people have been there themselves to see that this isn’t true.
He also says that immigrant “thugs” have taken over Aurora, Colorado, and have taken over hundreds of towns and cities across America, “Including the big ones,” he says. “Look at New York.” Well, I look at New York — where immigrants are around 36% of the population — all the time, and what I see is consistent with official crime data: It’s one of America’s safest big cities, a place where people, including me, walk the streets and take the subway every day. But many Americans don’t experience daily life in New York and are prepared to believe that it’s a crime-ridden nightmare — part of a pattern in which people say crime is a serious national problem, just not where they live.
Views of the economy show the same pattern. This year a Wall Street Journal poll found residents of seven swing states believing that the national economy was doing poorly — but that their own states’ economies were generally doing OK.
Until recently, Trump’s trash-talking of America appeared to be working politically. As I said, however, at this point his fearmongering over crime and the economy seems to be losing traction. So now he’s claiming that he’s hearing the feds have abandoned hurricane victims, which may persuade voters who aren’t in a position to witness the huge efforts being made, under difficult conditions, to deliver essential supplies and restore communications.
Will it work? I have no idea. What I do know is that it’s more of the same. Trump is promising to rescue us from dire threats that exist only in his mind.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
