logo
Why calling the Texas flooding an 'act of god' is a dangerous form of political denial

Why calling the Texas flooding an 'act of god' is a dangerous form of political denial

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration
In the aftermath of the catastrophic flooding in Texas last week, government officials from President Donald Trump to the governor of Texas to county representatives have sought to deflect blame and shift public focus away from questions of responsibility.
The White House press secretary called the flooding 'an act of God': 'It's not the administration's fault that the flood hit when it did,' Karoline Leavitt said. Gov. Greg Abbott said that asking about blame was for ' losers.' And Trump himself told the media that 'nobody expected it, nobody saw it.'
To understand more about how governments communicate with the public in the wake of a tragic loss of life, and how to interpret the Trump administration's messaging on Texas, Inside Climate News spoke to Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist and the author of the book Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago.
Heat Wave investigates the government response during and after the deadly 1995 Chicago heat wave — the 30th anniversary of which begins Saturday — and the social, political and institutional causes that ultimately led to more than 700 deaths. Klinenberg catalogs the typical strategies used by governments when they are seeking to evade accountability, from euphemism and denial to silencing experts and trying to paint an event as uniquely unprecedented. He used this framework to analyze the way that Mayor Richard Daley and his staff talked about the heat wave and its victims.
Today, Daley's comments sound eerily similar to Trump's: 'Let's be realistic,' Daley said at a press conference as the death toll rose. 'No one realized the deaths of that high an occurrence would take place.' A Chicago health department official said that 'government can't guarantee that there won't be a heat wave.' Later, the heat wave was officially described as a 'unique meteorological event.'
As a disturbing trend repeats in the wake of the Texas floods, the question begs to be asked: how can people learn from history if they deny it even happened?
'This kind of rhetoric promotes complacency, since it signals there's nothing anyone could do to make a difference,' Klinenberg said.
When it comes to what happened in Texas and in Chicago, he said, we know that's not true.
KILEY BENSE: I read your book Heat Wave a few months ago, and I've been thinking about it a lot ever since, but especially in the last week, reading the news about what happened in Texas and reading everything that some of our politicians and government officials have been saying. What was your initial reaction to hearing that type of messaging from government officials in the wake of what just happened?
ERIC KLINENBERG: It's totally predictable and totally familiar. And it's a total cop out.
It's a strategy that political officials have used for ages to deny accountability after failing to do their jobs. We know by now that there's no such thing as a natural disaster. First of all, the weather is no longer natural in our climate-changed world. Second, the reason some people are especially vulnerable has far more to do with social and political factors than with Mother Nature.
And this is by now so well known, it's a cliche, but if you're a political official, calling a disaster 'natural' absolves you of responsibility, makes it seem inevitable.
BENSE: Especially the phrase, 'an act of God.'
KLINENBERG: We already know there are countless decisions that people and political officials made that turned the floods into a human catastrophe: the decision to settle and develop a vulnerable riverfront area. The decision to expand in harm's way, even when scientists warned about the risks. The decision to ignore environmental reviews. The decision to fire government officials who track the weather and communicate with local officials. The decision by local officials not to invest in emergency warning systems. Up and down the line, we see human causes of a catastrophe that, at minimum, made this significantly more lethal than it should have been. God didn't ordain that.
BENSE: The camp that was most affected had expanded and built more cabins about six years ago. And they built right in the floodplain.
KLINENBERG: The camp was aware of the dangers on the river and concerned about the dangers on the river. Yet it did it anyway. Texas is a state that's notoriously in denial about climate change, notoriously hostile to environmental review and notoriously unwilling to regulate in the name of public health and safety.
BENSE: In your book, you write about the 1995 Chicago heat wave and the messaging used in the aftermath of that event by the mayor and his administration. What were the results of the communication about the heat wave?
KLINENBERG: Unfortunately, that kind of rhetoric worked in Chicago. It confused the public. It generated a media debate about whether the deaths were really real, because the mayor challenged the medical examiner's mortality findings, and it also generated a debate about who was responsible, because the city government's position was that people died because they neglected to take care of themselves.
During a time of crisis or uncertainty, leading political officials and big media organizations have an outsized influence on our interpretation of the situation. I think the rhetoric of the natural disaster, of blaming the victim, made it far more difficult for Chicago to make sense of what happened in 1995 and made the world far less likely to learn from their failures.
BENSE: To come back to Texas, what are your concerns with this being the immediate reaction from not just federal officials, but also on the local level?
KLINENBERG: My concern is that by calling this 'an act of God,' and obfuscating the social and political causes of the disaster, they make the next one inevitable.
It's especially sad because so many young people lost their lives, and it's been a horrific week to track their stories and to learn about the families, unsure of their children's fate. It's been a terrifying week, and I don't know a single climate scientist who believes that we'll have less of this in the future, right?
Everyone knows we're just going to see more dangerous weather systems like this one, and as long as we deny the ways that we're making them worse, we're doomed to repeat them.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Democrats and advocates criticize Trump's executive order on homelessness
Democrats and advocates criticize Trump's executive order on homelessness

Toronto Star

time10 minutes ago

  • Toronto Star

Democrats and advocates criticize Trump's executive order on homelessness

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Leading Democrats and advocates for the homeless are criticizing an executive order President Donald Trump signed this week aimed at removing homeless people from the streets, possibly by committing them for mental health or drug treatment without their consent. Trump directed some of his Cabinet heads to prioritize funding to cities that crack down on open drug use and street camping, with the goal of making people feel safer. It's not compassionate to do nothing, the order states.

Democrats and advocates criticize Trump's executive order on homelessness
Democrats and advocates criticize Trump's executive order on homelessness

Winnipeg Free Press

time10 minutes ago

  • Winnipeg Free Press

Democrats and advocates criticize Trump's executive order on homelessness

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Leading Democrats and advocates for the homeless are criticizing an executive order President Donald Trump signed this week aimed at removing homeless people from the streets, possibly by committing them for mental health or drug treatment without their consent. Trump directed some of his Cabinet heads to prioritize funding to cities that crack down on open drug use and street camping, with the goal of making people feel safer. It's not compassionate to do nothing, the order states. 'Shifting these individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment is the most proven way to restore public order,' the order reads. Homelessness has become a bigger problem in recent years as the cost of housing increased, especially in states such as California where there aren't enough homes to meet demand. At the same time, drug addiction and overdoses have soared with the availability of cheap and potent fentanyl. The president's order might be aimed at liberal cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, which Trump views as too lax about conditions on their streets. But many of the concepts have already been proposed or tested in California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic mayors have worked for years to get people off the streets and into treatment. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court made it easier for cities to clear encampments even if the people living in them have nowhere else to go. Still, advocates say Trump's new order is vague, punitive and won't effectively end homelessness. Newsom has directed cities to clean up homeless encampments and he's funneled more money into programs to treat addiction and mental health disorders. His office said Friday that Trump's order relies on harmful stereotypes and focuses more on 'creating distracting headlines and settling old scores.' 'But, his imitation (even poorly executed) is the highest form of flattery,' spokesperson Tara Gallegos said in a statement, referring to the president calling for strategies already in use in California. San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has also emphasized the importance of clean and orderly streets in banning homeless people from living in RVs and urging people to accept the city's offers of shelter. In Silicon Valley, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan recently pushed a policy change that makes a person eligible for jail if they reject three offers of shelter. Trump's executive order tasks Attorney General Pam Bondi and the secretaries for health, housing and transportation to prioritize grants to states and local governments that enforce bans on open drug use and street camping. Devon Kurtz, the public safety policy director at the Cicero Institute, a conservative policy group that has advocated for several of the provisions of the executive order, said the organization is 'delighted' by the order. He acknowledged that California has already been moving to ban encampments since the Supreme Court's decision. But he said Trump's order adds teeth to that shift, Kurtz said. 'It's a clear message to these communities that were still sort of uncomfortable because it was such a big change in policy,' Kurtz said. But Steve Berg, chief policy officer at the National Alliance to End Homelessness, called parts of the order vague. He said the U.S. abandoned forced institutionalization decades ago because it was too expensive and raised moral and legal concerns. 'What is problematic about this executive order is not so much that law enforcement is involved — it's what it calls on law enforcement to do, which is to forcibly lock people up,' Berg said. 'That's not the right approach to dealing with homelessness.' The mayor of California's most populous city, Los Angeles, is at odds with the Newsom and Trump administrations on homelessness. Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, opposes punishing sweeps and says the city has reduced street homelessness by working with homeless people to get them into shelter or housing. 'Moving people from one street to the next or from the street to jail and back again will not solve this problem,' she said in a statement. ___ Kramon reported from Atlanta. She is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

U.S. judge blocks Trump's birthright citizenship restrictions in third ruling since high court decision
U.S. judge blocks Trump's birthright citizenship restrictions in third ruling since high court decision

CTV News

time10 minutes ago

  • CTV News

U.S. judge blocks Trump's birthright citizenship restrictions in third ruling since high court decision

Demonstrators holds up a banner during a citizenship rally outside of the Supreme Court in Washington, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File) BOSTON — A U.S. federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from ending birthright citizenship for the children of parents who are in the U.S. illegally, issuing the third court ruling blocking the birthright order nationwide since a key Supreme Court decision in June. U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin, joining another district court as well as an appellate panel of judges, found that a nationwide injunction granted to more than a dozen states remains in force under an exception to the Supreme Court ruling. That decision restricted the power of lower-court judges to issue nationwide injunctions. The states have argued Trump's birthright citizenship order is blatantly unconstitutional and threatens millions of dollars for health insurance services that are contingent on citizenship status. The issue is expected to move quickly back to the nation's highest court. New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, who helped lead the lawsuit before Sorokin, said in a statement he was 'thrilled the district court again barred President Trump's flagrantly unconstitutional birthright citizenship order from taking effect anywhere.' 'American-born babies are American, just as they have been at every other time in our Nation's history,' he added. 'The President cannot change that legal rule with the stroke of a pen.' Lawyers for the government had argued Sorokin should narrow the reach of his earlier ruling granting a preliminary injunction, saying it should be 'tailored to the States' purported financial injuries.' Sorokin said a patchwork approach to the birthright order would not protect the states in part because a substantial number of people move between states. He also blasted the Trump administration, saying it had failed to explain how a narrower injunction would work. 'That is, they have never addressed what renders a proposal feasible or workable, how the defendant agencies might implement it without imposing material administrative or financial burdens on the plaintiffs, or how it squares with other relevant federal statutes,' the judge wrote. 'In fact, they have characterized such questions as irrelevant to the task the Court is now undertaking. The defendants' position in this regard defies both law and logic.' Sorokin acknowledged his order would not be the last word on birthright citizenship. Trump and his administration 'are entitled to pursue their interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, and no doubt the Supreme Court will ultimately settle the question,' Sorokin wrote. 'But in the meantime, for purposes of this lawsuit at this juncture, the Executive Order is unconstitutional.' The administration has not yet appealed any of the recent court rulings. Trump's efforts to deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily will remain blocked unless and until the Supreme Court says otherwise. An email asking for the White House's response to the ruling was sent Friday. A federal judge in New Hampshire issued a ruling earlier this month prohibiting Trump's executive order from taking effect nationwide in a new class-action lawsuit. U.S. District Judge Joseph LaPlante in New Hampshire had paused his own decision to allow for the Trump administration to appeal, but with no appeal filed in the last week, his order went into effect. On Wednesday, a San Francisco-based appeals court found the president's executive order unconstitutional and affirmed a lower court's nationwide block. A Maryland-based judge said this week that she would do the same if an appeals court signed off. The justices ruled last month that lower courts generally can't issue nationwide injunctions, but it didn't rule out other court orders that could have nationwide effects, including in class-action lawsuits and those brought by states. The Supreme Court did not decide whether the underlying citizenship order is constitutional. Plaintiffs in the Boston case earlier argued that the principle of birthright citizenship is 'enshrined in the Constitution,' and that Trump does not have the authority to issue the order, which they called a 'flagrantly unlawful attempt to strip hundreds of thousands of American-born children of their citizenship based on their parentage.' They also argue that Trump's order halting automatic citizenship for babies born to people in the U.S. illegally or temporarily would cost states funding they rely on to 'provide essential services' — from foster care to health care for low-income children, to 'early interventions for infants, toddlers, and students with disabilities.' At the heart of the lawsuits is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War and the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision. That decision found that Scott, an enslaved man, wasn't a citizen despite having lived in a state where slavery was outlawed. The Trump administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship. By Michael Casey. Associated Press reporter Mark Sherman in Washington contributed.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store