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Here's Who Maxine Waters Is Blaming for California's Disastrous Response to the Fires

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  January 13, 2025 10:25 AM

As the California wildfires continued to consume large swaths of land, destroy homes, gut businesses, and take lives, a Democratic Congresswoman from the state went on television and offered up a galaxy-brain scapegoat.  Maxine Waters once famously urged her supporters to angrily confront Trump administration officials out in public.  She instructed them to "create a crowd" to "push back" in order to send a message that such people are "not welcome anymore, anywhere."  Mob tactics.  Fast forward to recent days, and she's taken to reciting a stale, partisan, irrelevant talking point as her party's leadership failures in her home state have grown increasingly undeniable.  After saying she doesn't want to assign blame earlier in the interview, she immediately started blaming...wealthy people for not paying their "fair taxes" because "services cost money:"


Unbelievable.  Californians, especially in the bluest parts of a deep blue state, pay through the nose in taxes, financing some of the most expensive government operations anywhere in the world, and certainly the country.  Rich people have been demonized and soaked by politicians for many years, under one-party rule, driving many people to flee the oppressive tax and regulatory environment.  Republicans are powerless at the state level, and have been for quite some time.  The notion that the failed wildfire response is a product of insufficiently high taxation on rich people, in a place that is entirely dominated by tax-and-spend zealots, is ludicrous.  But that's Waters' take-away, which is emblematic of the problem.  Far too many of her ideological ilk literally cannot govern competently.  They crave and seek power, as if power if the ultimate end.  But when it's time for them to use the power in order to achieve basic functions of government in crisis situations, they're stumped.  This goes to an important point about their deployment of another go-to political talking point:


"He's preaching about non-believers when there are people who just need services and it doesn't matter what they believe," writes Mary Katharine Ham. "This environmental priesthood act is his ticket out of accountability, but he's not a spiritual leader, he's a governor. If he believes that climate change is making his state more dangerous, it is even more important for him to plan practical ways to mitigate instead of doing sermons. It should be even more embarrassing to Newsom that DeSantis, who has been reviled for deemphasizing climate change in policy, is nonetheless better at protecting his people from extreme weather."  The point is also made eloquently in this piece:

California’s progressive leadership has positioned itself at the forefront of climate change policy, championing emissions reductions and denouncing climate scepticism. Yet when faced with the practical requirements of climate change preparedness, whether conducting controlled burns, maintaining water infrastructure, or restricting development in fire-prone areas—they have proven to be inept. They appear more comfortable with grand pronouncements about global challenges than with the unglamorous work of preparing their own communities for climate realities they themselves warn about...it takes an average of 3.6 years to begin a mechanical forest thinning project and 4.7 years to implement a controlled burn in the US. For large projects requiring environmental impact statements, the timeline extends even further—averaging 5.3 years for mechanical treatments and 7.2 years for controlled burns. These delays kill people.

This full, thoughtful, balanced essay is worth your time.  If politicians truly see climate change as man-caused and existential, they should be highly motivated to adjust and prepare accordingly.  They have even fewer viable excuses for being incompetent and unprepared -- unless, of course, "grand pronouncements" and the resulting wealth redistribution and power-accrual schemes are actually the priority.  Images like this have nothing to do with the climate, and everything to do with governance:


A reporter in Sacramento had the temerity to ask California's Assembly Speaker why they're undertaking a special session to 'Trump proof' the state amid the unfolding disaster.  His answer was remarkable:

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The Speaker doesn't want to talk about the political posturing of the special session.  He wants to talk about the fires.  But the session is not about the fires, which is the whole point of the question.  'Don't ask me about the political stunt we're pulling.  There's a disaster underway.  Our stunt has nothing to do with the disaster, but it's not a convenient time to talk about what we're doing, or what we're prioritizing.'  Speaking of priorities, as Mayor Karen Bass dissembles about her fire department budget cuts, and Gavin Newsom spins and lies about his defunding decisions and ineptitude, the list of California leaders' misplaced priorities is virtually endless.  This is a classic example or stunning waste and mismanagement.  And another, very recent, prioritization choice feels like an object lesson:


He continues to make overtly political choices aimed at personal damage control:


Again, the word 'priorities' comes to mind:


Finally, with the city's overwhelmed mayor out of the country during a crucial period in the crisis, who was running the city in its hours of extreme need?  Not this man, it seems.  Unbelievable: