Summary
Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) threatened to withhold federal disaster relief from California during ongoing Los Angeles wildfires that have killed at least 16 people and destroyed over 12,000 structures.
Davidson criticized California’s forest management policies, echoing misleading right-wing claims that poor management, not climate change, is to blame.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom refuted these claims, noting that the state’s forest management budget has increased tenfold since 2019.
Davidson’s comments follow a pattern of GOP blaming state policies for disasters, similar to rhetoric from Trump.
The Californians moving to Texas aren’t typically Democrats. California has more Republicans than Texas, after all.
There’s also just a lot of generally apolitical people who move to cheaper (generally red) states from California, New York, etc. for totally apolitical reasons. Not everyone cares about the cultural advantages of living in a city and just want a big house with a yard to have steak and potatoes in every night. They might as well move to Idaho and live their best life.
Not to pick on Idaho, specifically. It’s just a land where the potatoes and cows are plentiful.