Natural disasters are, or at least should be, something that transcends politics. A hurricane, a tornado, a forest fire, a flood — these are things that make us, as humans, feel pretty puny, and when they hit, our first reaction is — or should be — to stick together, to help those who need help, to recover, to rebuild. And for the most part, the rantings of some in the political world aside, that's what regular folks do. Case in point: I was working in southern California during the big floods in the upper Midwest in 2008, and a co-worker commented on a video from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which was hit hard by the floods. My co-worker noted that nobody was waiting around for someone else and that people got out their fishing boats and duck boats and proceeded to help one another, getting people off rooftops and ferrying them to higher ground. "That's Iowans for you," I told him.
At that moment I was as proud as I've ever been to be a small-town kid from Iowa.
Of course, there are those few people who have to get in a dig, acting like ranting, hateful monsters, and it gets even worse when they weaponize religion in the process.
An unhinged former staff member at the University of Kentucky floated the idea that the death and destruction Hurricane Helene unleashed on red states was divine retribution for their residents’ support of former President Donald Trump.
“Hurricane Helene…what if GOD is punishing MAGA populations for their hate and hypocrisy? Works for me!” Betsy Packard wrote Sunday in a heartless post on X punctuated with a winking emoji.
Helene made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 storm. Its 140-mph winds carved a path of devastation from Georgia to Virginia, killing more than 100 in the South.
I have family that was in the path of that storm — my second cousin Bill, who was like a brother to me when we were growing up. He's fine, as are his family. So, while I have no dog in the theological fight, it angers me when someone like Betsy Packard is so filled with bile, so consumed with hate, that they imply that God is smiting MAGA supporters and Trump voters.
What's worse, it doesn't even make any sense, logically.
“You got hit with an Act of God. Looks like God’s pissed off at you,” she wrote in response to a poster bemoaning the small size of the National Guard deployment following the storm.
“An Act of God hammered you, and you still din’t [sic] hear Him? God is obviously mighty pissed at MAGAs. How can you not see this?” she mockingly asked another user.
I'm looking at the most recent polling out of North Carolina, to pick one state that Helene hit pretty hard, and I'm seeing a pretty close race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris; in the RealClearPolitics average, Trump is leading by a mere 0.6 percent. So, if Helene was the result of a wrathful deity smiting the eastern United States to punish Trump supporters, what about all the victims who aren't supporting Trump? Because it seems to me that the storm was pretty indiscriminate. And what about all the disasters in other parts of the country, like wildfires in California and Hawaii, both liberal bastions? Are those also retribution? And for what?
Betsy Packard doubled and tripled down on stupid as Monday afternoon bore on.
Packard continued posting and replying to dozens of critics well into Monday afternoon, playing the victim and eventually backpedaling her initial post, claiming she doesn’t personally believe the storm was divine punishment.
“I erred in thinking Americans could read. I said WHAT IF,” she wrote.
Americans understood perfectly well what you meant, Betsy. And we rightly condemn you for it.
I'd be willing to bet that this person has a COEXIST sticker on her Subaru (I'd bet money on her driving a Subaru) and a sign in her yard that says, "Hate has no home here." And yet she is so consumed with hate that she leverages religion, specifically Christianity, a faith that brings enormous comfort and meaning to the lives of millions of Americans, to poke fun, to vent her hatred, to deliberately offend.
As I said, I have no dog in this theological fight. I'm not religious. But that doesn't make me blind to the deep and sincere meaning that religion has to many people — most, in fact. I have friends who are Christians, Jews, I even have a few friends who are Buddhist and Shinto. I understand very well the place their faith holds in their lives, and just because I don't share their faith doesn't mean I don't see and understand the value it has for them. And I hate seeing spiteful, bilious, hateful people using it to poke fun at people who may well be personally recovering from a horrible natural disaster.
See Related: WATCH: A Disaster of Another Kind Strikes When Biden Is Asked Why He Was at the Beach in Midst of Helene
Tone-Deaf Kamala Ran Campaign Ads on The Weather Channel As Hurricane Helene Destroyed Lives
You can see the start of Betsy Packard's spewing of bile here:
I need to clarify previous posts.
— BetsyPackardPoet&Writer (@BetsyPackardPo1) September 30, 2024
I erred in thinking Americans could read. I said WHAT IF.
Marjorie Taylor Greene and Michelle Bachmann attributed disasters to divine punishment.
DO I BELIEVE THIS?
NO.
Did I say I believed it? Nope.
But some fools DO believe it. pic.twitter.com/pC7STuK6pk
By all means, feel free to add to the ratio.
