No Strings Attached
This letter to the editor, by Laurie Harmon, appeared in the Hudson Star Observer on January 23, 2025.
California is in flames. Los Angeles, Pacific Palisades, Malibu, and others are suffering devastating losses of property and life while firefighters and first responders from the United States, Canada, and Mexico tirelessly battle flames and rescue those in danger.
That’s right. Despite possible international governmental conflicts with the incoming administration, our neighbors to the north and south have looked beyond political conflicts and offered humanitarian aid to our fellow Americans in dire need.
Unfortunately, our own federal government has not been as sympathetic or willing to help. Incoming president, Donald Trump, along with many Republican senators and representatives, including Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson, have stated outright that any aid to California should be conditional. In a recent USA Today article, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said “‘...it does come down to leadership and it appears to us that state and local leaders were derelict in their duty.’” He further states that “‘there should probably be conditions on that aid.’”
How can we attach strings to humanitarian aid for our fellow Americans? How can we look our own in the eye and say, “Sorry, we don’t agree with the politics in your state, so you don’t get our help.”? We have to stop holding our own American people politically hostage.
Natural disasters such as Hurricane Helene, the California wildfires, and many others are not the cause of some political conspiracy or even negligence by government officials or the American people they govern. The people along the southeastern coast of the United States had no more control over the devastating storms and hurricanes than our fellow Americans in southern California have had over the high winds and drought-like conditions causing their destructive fires.
Our California neighbors standing in the ashes of their lives don’t care about political ideology or petty feuds. They need our help, not a lecture from people who don’t even know them. Congress would do well to remember that when our fellow Americans needed help, Canada and Mexico came to our aid much faster than our own federal government. No strings, just human kindness.