As a mere special education teacher, I am not in a position to advise candidates. I’ve thought about running locally before, but definitely don’t have the money to do it. If I were to advise Democrats (since I’m definitely not a Republican) is that they should run on a platform of “competence in government.” The planks are fairly simple and have been on full display here in Texas the last two plus decades.

I vividly remember Bill White (then mayor of Houston) and Rick Perry standing on stage following Hurricane Ike. Perry was fumbling about and was told live on camera that it was his job to take federal funds and distribute them to localities that needed them. You could see the urge to kill on White’s face as he realized the governor was sitting on cash and didn’t know what to do. Both men walked off stage. Only White returned.

We’ve seen the electrical grid crumble before our very eyes. We’ve seen senators flee the state during the ice storm. We’ve seen a governor do nothing and be out of all ideas. At the national level we have seen a pandemic completely mismanaged. We’ve seen the economy bungled time and again. Each time Democrats have to be elected to fix these things.

This is not to say that every Republican is an idiot. Ed Emmet did a good job as county commissioner when he held the post and worked well with other county and city officials. Lina Hidalgo might be doing an even better job. In general, Democrats just do the job better. We aren’t talking policy here. We can have policy debates and certainly we always do. This is simple barebones work that government must do on a day to day basis.

A hurricane has hit the gulf south. Over a million people are without power as I write this. Governor Abbott doesn’t seem interested in getting the work done. How do I know this? He’s not even in the country right now. He left on July 5th when everyone knew the storm would land somewhere in Texas. We didn’t know who would be effected, but we knew it would be Texans. Thanks Governor.

So, when will the rest of the folks get power? Would they get power faster if state officials actually gave a shit about doing their job? We will likely never know. What we do know is that Republicans are more interested in getting the job, keeping the job, and enriching themselves off of the job than they are actually doing the job. This is practically a universal truth.

In Washington, representatives and senators certainly write bills, attach pork for local projects, and grandstand with great regularity, but there are hundreds of things they do for constituents that no one ever hears about. That is unless they are too busy grandstanding and ass kissing to do that job. Beyond the policy debates and ideological nonsense is the simple day to day responsibilities of being in state and national government. This stuff matters and it matters now for people in the gulf south. It sure would be nice if people in Austin cared about doing it.

I’m sitting here watching the FEMA morning briefing on Hurricane Irma with Grinning Tom Price and director Brock Long while they are speaking of 8,000 FEMA employees advance deployed and commodities (food, water, medicine) staged from Florida to North Carolina.  They’re speaking of evacuating electricity dependent medical patients, evacuation routes, and other issues that professionals discuss preparing for landfall of major hurricane.

Over the last several weeks, elected officials in Texas and Florida have actually conducted themselves as adults, taking responsibility and using their authority (and government coffers) to serve their constituents.  The weakest person I’ve seen is Greg Abbott who has played a very small role compared to Houston mayor Sylvester Turner and Harris Country judge Ed Emmett, staying pretty much in the background, showing up only to suck up to Cheeto Jesus while he grandstanded during his two brief and embarrassing appearances here in Texas.

Speaking of embarrassing, Donald Trump. His performance during his cringe-inducing visits (accompanied by his wife impersonating Michael Jackson in those silly caps and shades) were nothing short of embarrassing.  Thank God he left to go play golf immediately after instructing shelter victims to “have a great time”.

I digress – what’s really struck me during these events is how Trump administration appointments and elected officials are bringing the force of government to bear to serve its residents.  Trump has already proposed, and the Congress is virtually certain to approve, an initial $8 billion relief appropriation.  Local, state, and federal officials are working together to save lives and shelter victims of the recent storms.  FEMA has been on the ground in Houston since initial rains started and is processing over 300,000 funding applications already filed.

The difference between these responses and the disaster during Katrina 12 years ago is striking; today government is being proactive rather than passive as it was during that crisis where local, state, and federal governments were simply incompetent and totally unprepared.  The current response is strikingly different – in general, politics have been set aside by elected officials to get help to Americans.  There’s none of the nonsense about “compassionate conservatism” which created the shameful Katrina response.  It looks to me that government is pretty much working as it should – for the good of society.

The collective power of people working together using the resources available to soften the blow of catastrophes like Harvey and Irma is how advanced societies are supposed to function.  Government money and resources help; individual citizens volunteering is key; law enforcement and firefighting agencies must galvanize to serve.  In short, this is how it’s supposed to work.  Libertarian ideology goes out the window because it simply doesn’t work.  Radical right wing ideology goes with it because no person is an island.  In short, during crisis, everyone is a socialist working for the collective good.  That’s how society is supposed to work.