FEMA hunting militia member arrested, but leaders escape justice

On Sunday, the Washington Post reported that federal officials had been forced to withdraw emergency workers from Rutherford County, North Carolina after reports that armed militia members in the area were "out hunting FEMA."

According to the original reports, multiple "truckloads" of militia were scouring the county. This wasn't just a phoned-in rumor or a diatribe posted on Twitter, but a face-to-face warning delivered to National Guard troops working to help people in the county.

As a result, efforts to clear trees, restore power, and provide supplies to isolated communities in Rutherford County that were devastated by Hurricane Helene, were temporarily halted as workers were relocated to a safe area. FEMA offices in the immediate area were also closed for several hours.

However, the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department announced that a suspect had been arrested in connection with threatening FEMA workers while armed with a handgun and a rifle. According to the sheriff, this appears to be the work of an individual, there are no known trucks full of militia members scouring the county, and FEMA employees and other federal workers are now back on the job helping the people who have lost so much.

That doesn't guarantee that there aren't other armed lunatics prowling the county for a potshot at a "fed." It just means the one person arrested doesn't seem to be the mastermind of some larger roaming gang.

But of course, there are two readily identifiable leaders driving the idea that FEMA workers should be hunted down: Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

Trump has been telling his followers that FEMA is "going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas" and that even if they want to help, they can't because the agency spent all its funds on immigrants (lies elaborated on by J.D. Vance). Trump followed up with claims that FEMA had stolen a billion dollars of emergency assistance aid and given it to immigrants. Then he disinformed people living in communities shattered by the storm that, no matter how much they had lost, FEMA would only give them $750.

Musk was even more direct in his lies. He accused FEMA workers of interfering with volunteers offering aid and repeated claims that they had "taken control to stop people helping." He also claimed FEMA was stealing goods being brought into the area by individuals and groups. Then he claimed that the FAA was preventing rescue flights from landing, had closed the airspace over the region, and was blocking access to his Starlink internet service.

Not one word by either man held even a scrap of truth.

“FEMA used up its budget ferrying illegals into the country instead of saving American lives," Musk wrote on his $44 billion boondoggle. "Treason."

In addition to the lies about FEMA workers failing to help or directly interfering with aid, it's also worth noting that the suspect arrested in Rutherford County was reportedly searching for federal workers in the area of Lake Lure and Chimney Rock.

Almost immediately following the storm, a conspiracy theory began to circulate on the right that the government was planning to steal Chimney Rock because they wanted the lithium deposit there. Apparently, so federal agencies can do ... something something that ends with Joe Biden coming for all the pickup trucks and making everyone drive an EV.

Chatter on both Facebook and Twitter insisted that government officials were driving the remaining residents out and seizing Chimney Rock. There was breathless reporting that a "special meeting" had taken place in the area hours after the storm hit with federal and state officials collaborating in the scheme. FEMA was said to be bulldozing the town and erecting barricades around this new federal property.

Posts about this on Twitter also insisted that the streets of Chimney Rock were littered with corpses being ignored by FEMA workers in their haste to take control of the precious lithium.

It's not hard to see why anyone who believed all the lies being promoted by Trump and Musk might feel angry enough to take up arms. It's harder to see why they wouldn't.

As with the spread of the lies about immigrants in Springfield, OH eating pets. the false statements by Trump, Vance, and Musk create a direct and significant threat to aid workers. But in this case, their statements are also disrupting efforts to help the people of North Carolina recover from this terrible storm.

There really is a force blocking assistance to hurricane-ravaged towns. That force is right-wing politicians and billionaires whose only concern is promoting themselves by spreading discord and fear.

Trump and Musk are the instigators of violence directed at federal workers struggling to help Americans in a time of crisis. There should be a term for that ... and yeah, "treason" sounds pretty accurate.