Texas Governor Greg Abbott compared the mass flood deaths in the state to losing a football game in a press conference on Tuesday. In response to a question as to whether he would launch an investigation into the failures of the state and local government to prepare for such floods, following Abbott’s own admission that over 100 people had been killed and many more were still missing.
As of this writing, the death toll has risen to at least 121 across six counties, while 160 are still missing. Tragically, this has included at least 36 children in Kerr County alone, including many from a girl’s summer camp.
In response to a question asking if he would launch an investigation into “who is to blame here,” Abbott instead attacked the reporter who posed the issue. “You asked and I’m going to use your words, ‘Who’s to blame?’ Know this, that’s the word choice of losers,” Abbott said.
The Texas governor then launched into a bizarre comparison to football. Saying that, much like in football, “every football team makes mistakes,” but that “the losing teams are the ones that try to point out who’s to blame.” The comparison is stupid even on its own terms, since it amounts to rejecting any effort to understand anything. A coach who followed that precept would quickly lose his job.
Abbott’s message couldn’t be clearer: human lives are treated as a mere game by the government and “mistakes,” i.e., hundreds dying completely preventable deaths, will happen again. When another disaster takes place, it will be brushed off in a similar fashion.
The fascistic Texas governor has spent $11 billion since 2021 on so-called border security through “Operation Lone Star,” deploying the Texas National Guard to the border, yet somehow there is “no money” when it comes to preventing deaths from a flood.
Meanwhile, a contingent of 13 Mexican firefighters arrived in the state over the weekend in order to assist with the response under the command of the Mountain Home fire department and Texas state police. The team, part of Fundación 911, is assisting in the most heavily impacted part of the state along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, which accounts for over three-quarters of the death toll, at 96 people.
“When it comes to firefighters, there’s no borders,” Ismael Aldaba, founder of Fundación 911, in Acuña, Mexico, told CNN on Tuesday. Aldaba said that locals in Texas were “welcoming to our team from Mexico.”
One of the volunteers said to CBS News that he felt immense pride being able to serve communities and aid in any country. His colleague, a dual citizen of the US and Mexico, explained the reasoning of the volunteers to the outlet: “There’s a bunch of firefighters that have visas and we were like: ‘Let’s just go and help.’”
Fundación 911 is also coordinating to bring in reinforcements equipped with search and rescue canines from the Mexican state of Nuevo León.
This humanitarian action flies in the face of the anti-immigrant bigotry peddled by Abbott, Trump and the Republican Party.
Trump’s Department of Homeland Security head Kristi Noem, in her time as Republican governor of South Dakota, refused to send National Guard troops in response to historic floods in her own state of South Dakota, instead sending them to the Texas border to help with Operation Lone Star. The stunt failed to make her Trump’s running mate, as she had hoped, but it did gain her the position as head of DHS.
Currently, 230 Texas National Guard are deployed in three counties in the flood zone to help with search and rescue, and have rescued over 520 flood victims. However, around 3,700 Texas National Guard troops remain deployed to the border along with over 2,000 state police as part of Operation Lone Star.
There is a political logic to Abbott’s response. It is to send a message that the state is not backing the disaster response. And that nothing substantial would be done. On the face, this might seem absurd as the vast majority of the population supports disaster relief and prevention.
Volunteer organizations and many individuals have come to help with search and recovery efforts, including the United Cajun Navy, with a group from a chapter in San Antonio arriving with airboats, and others from Louisiana along the Guadalupe. Rescue 136 Incident Mutual Aid Response from Dixon, Illinois, and TEXSAR (Texas Search & Rescue), which includes over 50 trained volunteers with swiftwater rescue specialists, K-9 units and drones, is deployed to aid in search and rescue efforts in Kerr County and the Hill Country. Texas A&M’s Veterinary Emergency Team is also providing veterinary support for search dogs in Kerrville in Kerr County. There are a number of other volunteer groups providing other forms of aid, like food and medical care.
Amid this outpouring of aid by everyday people, the response by Abbott is both ignorant and reactionary, but it has a very real class basis.
The financial oligarchy, which Trump and Abbott represent, those who fund both parties to the tune of billions in both legal and illegal political bribes, are absolutely opposed to any social spending. Every dollar spent stopping dozens of little girls from drowning at a summer camp is money that could have been used for the military, concentration camps and—last but not least—lining their own pockets. Their political spokesmen make sure to show they won’t in any way divert from these objectives through their callous and downright disgusting words and actions.
This process in Texas mirrors the process taking place on a larger scale with Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” where $3.8 trillion was given to the financial oligarchy in the form of tax cuts, while $1.2 trillion was cut from critical social services, including $930 billion from Medicaid over the next decade, which would mean denying access to life-saving healthcare to millions and causing hospital and clinic shutdowns around the country.