Hurricane Helene victims and survivors need truth served with abundant help- North Carolina Strong

Echo opinion published in The New York Times by Frank Bruni*:

Over the past week, many Americans have turned their gazes toward North Carolina to behold gutting scenes of the damage and despair wrought by Hurricane Helene. They should keep looking, but for an additional reason: My state is a cautionary tale of what happens when no corner of our lives is cordoned off from partisan exploitation and we lose our tether to the truth.

I’ve seen politicking off human tragedy before, but seldom on this scale or with this stench. Donald Trump and many of his MAGA minions have used the historic flooding to drown their followers in self-serving lies:

About a profoundly incompetent and wholly uncaring federal government that used up all its disaster-relief money on migrants who entered the country illegally. About emergency vehicles left idling and emergency supplies blocked by Democratic politicians who don’t want to help Republican voters. About unidentified bureaucrats who somehow control the weather and wield it as a weapon.

That last fantasy? Its purveyors include a Republican member of Congress, one Marjorie Taylor Greene 😟😢. But it’s not just the likes of Trump and Greene peddling such paranoia. As the fake claims and faked pictures spreading across social media make clear, many thousands if not millions of Americans have chosen fiction over fact — because it serves their political goals, profits them financially or validates their tribal fury.

They seem not to realize or care that they’re complicating honest-to-goodness efforts to assist actual victims, as government officials’ duties expand from assisting people devastated by the storm to battling opportunists whose accusations invite distrust and meddling.

The website of the Federal Emergency Management Agency has a section devoted to “Hurricane Helene: Rumor Response,” and “Hurricane Helene: Fact vs. Rumor” is the title of a similar page on the North Carolina Department of Public Safety’s site.

Those agencies are run by Democrats, but a North Carolina Republican, State Senator Kevin Corbin, beseeched his Facebook followers to “help STOP🛑❗ this conspiracy theory junk” about government inaction. He assured them that both federal and state officials were on the scene and on the job. “PLEASE help stop this junk,” he repeated. He seemed desperate.

Aptly so. The need in North Carolina is real. Gaudy falsehoods aren’t going to meet it. And none of our problems will be solved if we forgive or reward merchants of grievance for whom nothing — not even suffering like my state’s — is off-limits.

*Author Frank Bruni is a professor of journalism and public policy at Duke University, the author of the book “The Age of Grievance” and a contributing Opinion writer.