MAGA Is Blaming DEI for the California Wildfires

As wildfires raged out of control across the Los Angeles area on Wednesday, consuming over 28,000 acres of land, destroying thousands of homes and buildings including entire neighborhoods, and causing the deaths of at least five people, President-elect Donald Trump, his MAGA acolytes, right-wing commentators, conservative news outlets, and far-right conspiracists all laid the blame not on climate change or on eight months without rain, but on wokeism. “Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water, but didn’t care about the people of California.” The governor’s press office issued a statement Wednesday slamming Trump’s comment and pointing out that “there is no such document as the water restoration declaration—that is pure fiction.” Democrats’ embrace of so-called woke policies has become an all-purpose bogeyman for the right in recent years. “DEI means people DIE,” Musk wrote in one post, while multiple other posts featured criticism of Kristin Crowley, the LAFD chief, a 22-year veteran of the department who was commended for saving nine homes from total destruction during the Woolsey Fire in 2018 alongside her wife.