OPINION:
As of Monday, authorities had confirmed at least 27 fatalities because of the wildfires ravaging Southern California, with the sheriff’s office warning of more likely to come. In Los Angeles County alone, an estimated 40,000 acres and at least 17,000 buildings had gone up in flames. AccuWeather estimates $250 billion to $275 billion in damages and economic loss — a heart-wrenching imbroglio more devastating than the 2020 wildfire season.
While this fiery fiasco is the fault of failed Democratic leadership on the state and local levels, all eyes are nonetheless on President Trump as to how to end this crisis. Doing so — and preventing the next catastrophe like it — will require his administration to confront a series of administrative and cultural problems.
First, it is essential to understand how the situation became so out of control. In March 2023, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors prioritized a series of “diversity, equity and inclusion” goals designed to increase the number of women and minorities working in the fire department.
The board’s first order of business was to establish a Labor Management Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee consisting of individuals from “underrepresented groups.” In addition to subjecting firefighters and paramedics to cultural and implicit bias training, the committee was tasked with drafting annual reports on the number of firefighters of each gender and race employed that year.
The board also adopted an entirely new, more diversity-oriented entrance exam “based in equity research.” Together, the AFL-CIO — perhaps the most notoriously far-left trade union federation in the United States — and the Office of the State Fire Marshal co-sponsored this exam, designed to reduce hiring standards to accommodate more women and minorities.
But not everyone in Los Angeles politics has been optimistic about the county’s revised staffing practices, including former Los Angeles County Sheriff Alejandro Villanueva and former Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley. Retired Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Commander John Satterfield lambasted county leaders in an interview last week, quipping, “There comes a point when technical competence and meritocracy are badly needed.” That point came in the past few weeks when every ounce of grit and performance mattered more than gender or color.
From the federal level, three key ways exist for Mr. Trump’s administration to help Los Angeles recover — and to strike this crisis at its source.
Remove DEI initiatives from FEMA
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is the grant-making agency for local governments, fire departments and other disaster relief organizations. The 2024 hurricane season, however, revealed that the agency — like Los Angeles County and countless other local authorities — has allowed its mission to become overshadowed by feel-good DEI initiatives.
From nonsense like the “DEI Dictionary” for fire departments to training personnel to prioritize LGBTQ individuals over the general population, FEMA’s adoption of DEI standards has trickled down to state, local and private institutions eager to comply to qualify for grant funding. Stripping leftist language from grant guidance will disincentivize applicants from implementing this agenda in their offices and communities.
Eliminate funding from any organization pushing DEI
Countless organizations and local governments are certain to keep promoting left-wing radicalism, even with a FEMA that has been purged of DEI language; this should be anticipated most of all in sapphire-blue states like California.
FEMA programs like the Assistance to Firefighters Grants Program and Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response provide local governments with personnel, equipment and training they would otherwise be unable to afford. Mr. Trump could use this leverage to his advantage, much like his previous vows to cut funding to schools indoctrinating children with gender insanity.
The water must flow
To his great credit, Mr. Trump has spent years sounding the alarm on why Gov. Gavin Newsom must allow water from Northern California to flow into the state’s southern half. Last year, he even threatened to withhold federal funds from the Golden State if Mr. Newsom failed to do so. During the wildfire crisis of 2018, Mr. Trump rightfully pointed out how California was wasting millions of gallons of water that should have been used to fight fires and was falling behind on forest management.
“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,” Mr. Trump wrote in an August 2018 tweet. “It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire from spreading!”
For at least seven years, Mr. Trump has been more spot-on about this issue than virtually any other major American political figure. Suppose the government of California refuses to exercise common sense in forest management and reservoir preparation. In that case, the White House should leverage the many grants and investments from agencies like FEMA and the U.S. Forest Service in a carrot-and-stick approach. However, over the long term, taxpayers living in responsible states should not be forced to bail out California’s bureaucracies through any federal funding.
Among many things, the reelection of Mr. Trump to the presidency was a resounding rejection of the perverted, race-obsessed dystopia promised by California Democrats like Mr. Newsom, former Vice President Kamala Harris and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Mr. Trump has an overwhelming mandate from the American people to use any power at his disposal to rid our communities of DEI insanity forever.
Considering all of the avoidable casualties in California over the past three weeks, failure to do so might be a matter of life and death.
• Amy LePore is a political analyst with a Ph.D. in urban affairs and public policy from the University of Delaware. She has worked in emergency services for two decades and taught courses on disaster preparedness extensively at the university and professional levels.
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