Ignorant And Paranoid MAGA Politics Kept Texas Republicans From Spending ARPA Money On Weather Warning Systems

from the disinformation-fatality dept

I’ve mentioned more than a few times that the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (2021) wound up funding a lot of very good things. The very sort of everyday “abundance” a lot of high-profile pundits claimed was no longer possible under American leadership.

ARPA helped shore up infrastructure, housing, and sewage upgrades across countless U.S. communities. It’s helping to build a lot of local community centers. It helped many counties and municipalities improve their climate change resilience. I also talk to a different community every week that has been able to provide residents with cheap gigabit fiber broadband access for the first time ever.

Most people don’t know any of this because functional infrastructure legislation isn’t sexy in a country obsessed with shallow artifice. It’s not helped by the fact that Democrats consistently suck at any sort of modern viral messaging, and the Republican propaganda machine constantly has Americans bickering over candy genders and long-established vaccine science.

ARPA was primarily a Democrat initiative, which aided Republican and Democrat states alike (see, affordable fiber broadband, above). That includes Kerr County Texas, the location of the recent flooding tragedy that killed 130 locals (and counting). Kerr County received $10.2 million in ARPA funding.

ARPA, unlike some other parts of the infrastructure bill, was designed with a lot of flexibility as to how municipalities were allowed to spend the money, because its architects really did want to get this money to communities harmed by COVID as quickly as possible. Many Texas Communities, like Corpus Christi, spent ARPA money to modernize their sewer and storm drain infrastructure.

One local NBC affiliate notes that Kerr County’s board of commissioners had discussed the need for new flood warning systems more than 20 times since 2016. ARPA money provided the perfect opportunity to finally make those warning systems a reality, but a lot of extremist partisan rhetoric resulted in residents and local right wing politicians viewing ARPA funding as somehow toxic:

“I’m here to ask this court today to send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House,” one resident told commissioners in April 2022, fearing strings were attached to the money.”

Because we’ve effectively destroyed most useful U.S. journalism (especially local), countless Americans’ information diet consists exclusively of infotainment and right wing propaganda from online or Fox or Sinclair Broadcasting. The result is a public so disoriented and disinformed that they’re willing to repeatedly harm themselves in the belief they’re winning some incoherent ideological war.

After delays caused by paranoia and false claims, Kerr County did ultimately take ARPA funding, but the lion’s share of it went to sheriff’s department “stipends,” raises, and police communications. Outside of a local walking path, little went to climate-proofing the community or infrastructure upgrades. The Texas Tribune notes it’s not clear locals were really informed ARPA could have easily funded the long-needed warning system:

“While much has been made of the ARPA spending, it’s not clear if residents or the commissioners understood at the time they could have applied the funds to a warning system. Kelly, the Kerr County judge, and Thomas have declined repeated requests for interviews. Moser, who is no longer a commissioner, did not immediately respond to a Texas Tribune interview request.”

Kerr County locals seeking answers are now pouring over Kerr County commissioners meetings to see where leadership failed them, and found that a lot of ARPA funding was frozen due to the (false) belief among local leaders that ARPA money came with some weird partisan restrictions (again, the complete opposite of well-documented, objective reality):

“We have an untrustworthy administration,” said Commissioner Belew. “They’ve lied to us numerous times and used the virus to get what they want… I don’t trust them. This money could come with mandates later.”

ARPA fear-mongering by area leaders and Conservative media resulted in locals that weren’t any better informed :

“Accepting the ARPA money and putting our County under existing and future executive orders would federalize us and make us all slaves,” said one 30-year resident.

In many very clear ways, propaganda and disinformation is not only incredibly effective, it’s fatal. It’s a brutal tragedy that these deaths could have been avoided with competent, reality-based leadership, but weren’t. It’s far from clear if anybody will actually learn from the experience.

Filed Under: arpa, climate change, disinformation, flooding, infrastructure, kerr county, legislation, maga, propaganda