reuters.com
www.reuters.com

ASHEVILLE, North Carolina, Jan 24 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said he would sign an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally overhauling or eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “FEMA has turned out to be a disaster … I think we recommend that FEMA go away,” he said during a tour of North Carolina to see damage done by Hurricane Helene last year.

  • Mirshe@lemmy.world
    45·
    2 days ago

    Nah, “get rid of FEMA” has been a thing for a long while, since before 2000. The issue is FEMA looks like a giant black box that does nothing but suck money when they aren’t being actively used, at least to the layperson, and when they ARE engaged with a disaster, people don’t get that it’s almost always local aid networks and such that actually handle distributing things because they know their town and the people who need help better than FEMA does, so they still look like all they’re doing is dumping truckloads of supplies off in the middle of the area. They also buy scary things like body bags (because natural disasters tend to wind up with a lot of dead bodies), making dumb people think they have some ulterior, sinister motives (see X-Files).

    • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      9·
      1 day ago

      The layperson doesn’t think about FEMA at all unless there’s been a recent disaster. Regular people aren’t making lists of government organizations and cataloging their budgets. If an org hasn’t literally just been in the news, they forget it exists.

    • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
      161·
      2 days ago

      Oh, I do remember the FEMA conspiracy stuff from back when, believe that that was from the right.

      kagis

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FEMA_camps_conspiracy_theory

      The FEMA camps conspiracy theory is a belief, particularly within the American Patriot movement,[1] that the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is planning to imprison US citizens in concentration camps, following the imposition of martial law in the United States after a major disaster or crisis.[1][2][3][4] In some versions of the theory, only suspected dissidents will be imprisoned. In more extreme versions, large numbers of US citizens will be imprisoned for the purposes of extermination as a New World Order is established. The theory has existed since the late 1970s, but its circulation has increased with the advent of the internet and social media platforms.[2]

      • pdxfed@lemmy.world
        1·
        12 hours ago

        Meanwhile voting for fascists who will actually and openly put people they don’t favor in camps. JFC