By Aditi Roy
On Friday, August 25th, a Category 4 hurricane hit the coast of Texas with winds reaching over 130 mph and over 50 inches of rainfall. Hurricane Harvey claimed the lives of over 40 people and has been estimated to have caused over $125 billion in damages. The tragedy brought out the worst of mother nature, along with the best and worst in mankind. Usually people put aside their differences during such events in efforts to come together and help those affected by the disaster. Businesses, celebrities, billionaires, and ordinary people have come together to raise millions of dollars in the relief effort and countless charities have donated food and supplies. But of course, the radical left agenda stops for no one, and leftists wasted no time in smearing the victims. Politico tweeted out a tone-deaf cartoon playing up Texas stereotypes and putting libertarians, confederates, secessionists, and religious people in the same group. The cartoonist seems to miss the fact that the majority of donations, volunteers, and relief efforts have come from private organizations, charities, fellow citizens, etc. aka not the government. Never mind the fact that some of the areas where the hurricane caused massive damage such as Harris county, where Houston is located, and Fort Bend county, are blue counties where hundreds of thousands overwhelmingly voted for Hillary Clinton last November.
The left has gotten so used to labeling all conservatives as racists, bigots, neo-confederates, etc. that they have no problem throwing their own under the bus too, even if it means doing so after one of the worst storms since Hurricane Katrina. That wasn’t the worst of course, as French satirist magazine Charlie Hebdo went all in with the 
“Nazi” and “white-supremacist” rhetoric on the front cover of their August issue, with a title that translates to “God Exists! He Drowned All the Neo-Nazis of Texas!” Again, Houston is one of the most diverse cities in America, and whites are expected to become a minority by the end of the decade. Not to mention that in the fight against the Nazis during WWII, Texas sent 700,000 soldiers to the war effort, more than any other state. And last I checked, it was all the way up in Charlottesville, Virginia where actual Neo-Nazis marched in a white-identitarian rally that lead to the death of a counter-protester. This hurricane did not discriminate by race or gender when it destroyed the lives of thousands of people, yet the left seems insistent on separating its victims by race and gender. Linda Sarsour, a social justice activist who gained a following after the Women’s March, was caught exploiting the hurricane to raise funds for a political action committee by telling her 232,000 Twitter followers to donate to the “relief fund”, which was actually just a leftist PAC with no connection to Hurricane Harvey relief funds. Then, when she was getting called out for scamming people, she doubled down and labeled her critics a bunch of “white supremacists obsessed w/ smearing women of color”. But what can we expect from a woman who called CNN’s Jake Tapper “alt-right” and said that Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a victim of female genital mutilation didn’t deserve her vagina because she criticized Islam. Stay woke, fam.
While millions of dollars of donations have been raised to provide basic necessities for survival, one charity decided that fundraising for women to have abortions was a priority. The Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity created an emergency fund for hurricane survivors to be able to kill their babies on top of an already morbid situation. That wasn’t all though, it wouldn’t be divisive politics without framing President Trump as racistsexistbigothomophobe in some way, regardless of whether or not such accusations are valid. After Hurricane Katrina, the media went in on criticizing President Bush for not ending his vacation soon enough once the disaster occurred and for flying over New Orleans after the hurricane and not making a presidential stop. When Louisiana flooded back in 2016 where 13 people died and 85,000 registered for aid and Obama was on vacation, they were comparatively silent, aside from conservative outlets.
But when Trump actually visits the affected areas as soon as it was safe for him to do so, the headlines from the Atlantic, CNN, Washington Post, Huffington Post, and many more stated that he wasn’t “empathetic” enough. Because apparently trying to gauge how much empathy Trump had was more important than focusing on the specifics of the relief effort, or the fact that Trump himself pledged to donate $1 million to the cause. Perhaps he should have shed a tear instead like Obama during his speech about gun violence after Sandy Hook, because showing that level of empathy surely made a difference in preventing mass shootings during his presidency (Navy Yard, Fort Hood #2, Kansas JCC, Charleston, Chattanooga, Roseburg Community College, San Bernardino, Kalamazoo Uber Driver, and Pulse Orlando). Even more useless was the focus on the First Lady’s choice of shoes. Last I checked, questioning what a woman wears when you wouldn’t do the same for a man was called sexism (@everyone who said this about people criticizing Hillary’s pantsuits). Melania wore a pair of black stiletto heels when boarding Air Force one, and contributing Vogue editor Lynn Yaeger just couldn’t get it passed her tacky haircut that Mrs.Trump changed into sneakers before landing.
You can’t make this stuff up. From smearing the victims of one of the most diverse cities in the country as Neo-Nazis to using empathy as an argument to criticizing some damn shoes, you almost would have missed the fact that Hurricane Harvey landed in Texas three times, resulted in 20 trillion gallons of total rainfall across Texas and Louisiana, destroyed over 184,000 homes, and placed over 42,000 people in shelters. Thankfully, most people have been able to look past the political smear tactics and come together to donate their time, money, and/or supplies for the victims. The aftermath of Hurricane Harvey gave us incredible spectacles of the best of what humanity has to offer of people putting aside their differences to help one another during such a time of need. It also showed us once again the absolute pettiness of out-of-touch partisan hacks.
Sources:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/hurricane-harvey-wreaks-historic-devastation-numbers/story?id=49529063
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politico-cartoonist-revels-in-hurricane-harvey/article/2632973
https://www.texastribune.org/2016/11/09/see-which-counties-texas-trump-and-clinton-won/
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/photos/2017/08/27/photos-biblical-flooding-innundates-southeast-texas
http://thehill.com/homenews/media/348696-charlie-hebdo-cover-god-exists-he-drowned-all-the-neo-nazis-of-texas
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-houston-diversity-2017-htmlstory.html
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/How-Houston-became-the-most-diverse-city-in-11133665.php
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Hispanics-to-outnumber-whites-in-Texas-by-the-end-6375597.php
http://www.thc.texas.gov/preserve/projects-and-programs/military-sites/texas-world-war-ii
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/14/us/charlottesville-car-photo/index.html
http://www.dailywire.com/news/20429/shameless-linda-sarsour-solicits-donations-leftist-hank-berrien
http://www.dailywire.com/news/20513/sarsour-caught-exploiting-hurricane-harvey-then-hank-berrien
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/19/linda-sarsour-accuses-jake-tapper-being-alt-right-/
http://www.dailywire.com/news/20564/charity-solicits-donations-help-hurricane-harvey-frank-camp
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/08/18/bias-alert-media-that-ripped-bush-on-katrina-ignores-obama-on-la-flooding.html
https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+hurricane+empathy&source=lnms&tbm=nws&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjOsaSYkZLWAhWFNSYKHWMnAs0Q_AUICigB&biw=1315&bih=693
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/trump-sympathy-harvey-inspiration/538404/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/06/12/14-mass-shootings-14-speeches-how-obama-has-responded/85798652/#
https://www.vogue.com/article/melania-trump-hurricane-harvey-stilettos