Letter from the Editor - Fall 2019, Print Edition No.4

Illustration by Dana Binfet

Wildfires are blazing across Southern California. Thousands of Southern California residents have been displaced from their homes and communities – including the San Fernando Valley and Pacific Palisades right here in L.A., two areas filled with people from the Santa Monica College (SMC) community. Yet, despite the graveness of the California wildfires, our nation’s attention continues to be dominated by the words and actions of President Donald J. Trump in Washington D.C.

An impeachment inquiry launched by Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi against President Trump is ongoing. The 45th President of the United States is accused of illegally pressuring Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, who is running for the Democratic nomination in the upcoming 2020 presidential election. 

One person described as having “firsthand knowledge” of President Trump’s business with Ukraine filed a complaint against him in August. The complaint stated that White House officials believed to have seen the President exploit his power for political gain. That person’s identity is protected as a whistleblower, someone who exposes information in a private or public company about activities considered to be illegal, unethical or incorrect.

In response, President Trump said the impeachment inquiry would benefit his 2020 re-election campaign and referred to the whistleblower as “crooked.” Perhaps less surprisingly, he called out the media once again, this time for covering the complaint filed by the whistleblower. But President Trump’s divisive rhetoric, unfortunately, is nothing new. 

After Northern California’s Camp Fire in August 2018, a blaze that was recorded as the deadliest wildfire in modern California history, Trump tweeted, “There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor.”

The President used California’s natural disasters of 2018 to prove a political point. 

He then added in a separate tweet, “California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amounts of readily available water to be properly utilized.”

President Trump’s lack of knowledge about the circumstances of the California wildfires showed here. A spokesman for the California state fire agency said that crews battling fires around the state hadn’t experienced water shortages, and attributed the high intensity of wildfires to prolonged fire seasons as a result of climate change. Essentially, the President’s remarks did nothing to help people experiencing natural disasters in 2018 and his rhetoric this year hasn’t been any different.

One thing that Americans recovering from natural disasters need is empathy, which they’ve repeatedly gotten the opposite of from the President. 2019’s impeachment inquiry and his controversial response to that claim come at a time when the nation’s focus should be placed elsewhere. More attention should be granted to citizens in need, like residents of the nearby San Fernando Valley and Pacific Palisades communities.

The Valley’s Saddleridge Wildfire, now 92 percent contained, burned nearly 8,800 acres and forced an estimated 100,000 people to evacuate from areas across Granada Hills, Porter Ranch and Sylmar. A brushfire blazed up a Palisades hillside Monday and charred at least 40 acres, affecting approximately 200 homes.

As Southern California residents – some of whom attend or work at SMC– recover from the destruction, they need all of the support they can get. Wildfires have burned more than 280,000 acres in California. 

President Trump declared a state of emergency in California on July 27 and authorized the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to help disaster relief efforts, but hasn’t properly thought about how the rest of his actions and rhetoric impact American citizens, especially those impacted by California wildfires. 

His actions led to the impeachment inquiry in Washington. His continued divisive rhetoric serves as a constant reminder that our country’s leader lacks the understanding necessary to unite people in times of crisis. The thousands of people affected by natural disaster endure so much and are left to pick up the pieces. Victims can’t effectively do so without guidance at the top, and shouldn’t need to face all of this alone.