Disaster strikes! Everyone knows that the first thing you do in this situation is to blame your local political figures. While this disaster reaction protocol I just outlined is ridiculous, it has recently become quite common in our society.
Our nation has become more polarized on both the federal and state level, which has led more people to be quick to assign blame to the closest person they feel is responsible despite the facts. With the increasing threat of misinformation through social media and artificial intelligence, true facts have become harder to decipher as credible or not.
During the recent fires affecting many Cubs, blame and confusion arose over how the raging fires were being handled by state and city officials. Some people believed that funding cuts worsened the crisis, pointing blame at Gavin Newsom. However, this blame became overblown when Donald Trump used his TruthSocial platform to politicize this disaster.
When asked if we are too quick to blame or politicize, John Cleare ‘27 stated, “Yes, I think our society quickly blames people we dislike even if they had nothing to do with the issue. It leads to division among people believing that you can only support one party and can’t agree with anything the other says.”
These feelings of inability to find a middle ground are perfectly valid. The more we villainize, the more we divide the political aisle.
Jesse Roybal ‘27 remarked, “The political atmosphere has become so polarized that parties capitalize on this by using emotional distress from society to create narratives that benefit their own party.”
As seen by Roybal, even adolescents can sense that unnecessary blame has become a tool in fueling political polarization. Stating things only for the benefit of your associated party will only lead to less bipartisan support and less action.
Typically conservative talking points, like DEI hires made in the fire department, took center stage in people’s distress on the issue. Despite any government evidence of race or gender outweighing merit, people fell deeper into misinformation regarding the fire.
The Southern California fires were fueled by over 65 mile per hour winds, making them nearly impossible to fight. Therefore, the focus of our leaders should not be to try and convince the masses to blame others but to support those affected.
We as a society should hold our government officials accountable for any mishandling of power or responsibility regarding disaster response, but when the narrative gets dragged too far and convinces people that simply hiring more qualified people of color was the cause of so much destruction, misinformation becomes detrimental to those around us.
The problem of politicizing issues goes far beyond how the government handles wildfires; it deals with how we receive and regulate the information we come across. What we believe determines our reality. We must always lead with fact, and above all else, compassion.
Natural disasters are not political talking points—they deal with actual people and their lives.
With immaturity in our American government along with misleading information on the internet, the portrayal of disasters is prone to become even worse.
To end, I urge you to first and foremost check the information you are receiving and where it is coming from. Please beware of the threats of misinformation in the incoming future, as factors like artificial intelligence will make the real truth even harder to find.
