In the last two years the U.S. has suffered from record hurricanes, rainfall, floods, wildfires and other disasters made worse by rising temperatures and sea levels. These extreme events, exacerbated by climate change, have cost thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars.
Now, as election day looms, the gross mishandling of these disasters is likely to exact a high political price on Donald Trump and other climate change-denying Republicans, helping to create a political blue wave that will swell Democratic numbers to a House majority, Florida’s Governorship, and other key prizes in the mid-terms.
There is political precedent for this. Recent history shows voters punish poor Presidential responses to natural disasters, and that such poor responses have a role in changing the public perception regarding the competence and characters of the ruling party.
