Seriously Sick: Canada's Ex-PM Roots for Hurricane To Hit Florida Because She Hates Trump
Hurricanes can’t hit property with pinpoint accuracy without damaging everything else around it. I figured pretty much everyone knew that.
If you’ve ever taken a high school earth science class or turned on a cable channel during a hurricane, you’d be familiar with the fact that it’s a weather event that cuts a wide swath of destruction wherever it makes landfall, killing people and ruining lives.
Apparently, some people a) don’t know this fact or b) conveniently forgot it because they blindly hate our president. And by some people, I’m not just talking some random Twitter troll who thinks it’d be jolly good fun if Hurricane Dorian hit President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. I’m talking about the former prime minister of Canada.
Kim Campbell was head of state in our neighbor to the north for less than half a year back in 1993. She took over when Prime Minister Brian Mulroney announced his retirement from politics and promptly lost the position in a general election to the unctuous Jean Chrétien. She currently has a little under 42,000 Twitter followers, so you can tell how popular she remains.
I also hope not a whole lot of those followers are in Florida, because this is what she posted about Hurricane Dorian, which could hit the Sunshine State as a Category 5 storm when it makes its projected landfall on Monday, according to the New York Post:
I’m rooting for a direct hit on Mar a Lago! https://t.co/cA14KQvjpC
— Kim Campbell (@AKimCampbell) August 28, 2019
In case you haven’t been watching Hurricane Dorian, Mar-a-Lago — the president’s Palm Beach, Florida resort, often referred to as the “Winter White House” — is within the “cone of uncertainty” regarding where the storm will head
This didn’t go over particularly well with Twitter users, as you might imagine:
Did the staff and residents in the area wrong you in some way? Publicly wishing for people to be put in harms way is twisted. How many deaths and properties destroyed are you hoping for?
— Ed Jackson (@Roderickoooo) August 29, 2019
I’m praying for the evil which resides in your heart to be washed away.
— Mrs LLHenderson (@CanadianVoter01) August 29, 2019
Which means our home might be hit too while we’re here, along with the seniors in our gated community. Do you think before you tweet childish nonsense?
— Sue-Ann Levy (@SueAnnLevy) August 29, 2019
But seriously, she’s just kidding, guys! Jk! Can’t you guys take a larf?
As there are in Puerto Rico- sorry you don’t get snark- but Trump’s indifference to suffering is intolerable! Wd also help if he tackled climate change which is making hurricanes more destructive! Instead, he will remove limits on methane! Get a grip!
— Kim Campbell (@AKimCampbell) August 29, 2019
Yeah, sorry you don’t get snark, guys. Try this if you’re a Republican. Really, see how easily you get away with it.
And, like a fair amount of the preemptive and inappropriate abuse you’re going to see directed at Trump in the days to come over Hurricane Dorian, this was all laundered through the president’s perceived reaction to Hurricane Maria and inaction on climate change.
In fact, that climate change thing was pretty much Campbell’s pivot after “can’t you guys take a joke?” didn’t seem to make this all go away:
And no, I don’t wish anyone, anywhere, the horror of being hit by a Category 4 Hurricane. But not everyone can have the protection of a fortress like Mar a Lago, built to be hurricane-proof! Trump will not bear the cost of his immoral abdication of the climate challenge! https://t.co/yvSWZuuTLL
— Kim Campbell (@AKimCampbell) August 29, 2019
Well, we will see if Mrs. Post’s design can stand up to the assault! I know Palm Beach well and am sorry if it gets a big hit. I wish I cd believe that it wd shake up Trump’s climate change denial! Only today his admin has removed regs to limit methane- a worse GHG than CO2! https://t.co/zwkv87Exec
— Kim Campbell (@AKimCampbell) August 30, 2019
The “Mrs. Post” here is Marjorie Merriweather Post, the heiress who originally built the mansion in the 1920s.
Of course, Campbell is guilty of what conservatives are often accused of when it comes to the global warming debate: conflating weather with climate. Weather, after all, is a single event. Climate is the bigger, long-term picture. At least in terms of that, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said there’s not actually any evidence man-made climate change, such as it may be, has caused any change in hurricane frequency or intensity.
“Storm size responses to anthropogenic warming are uncertain,” a recent NOAA report read.
“It is premature to conclude that human activities — and particularly greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming — have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity.”
Even if that weren’t the case, this still isn’t acceptable in any way, shape or form. Hoping that a hurricane targets a certain area because you don’t like a guy who owns a resort there — even if that guy is the president of the United States — is forgetting that people live in the place you’re hoping that hurricane hits.
And even if it does hit Mar-a-Lago, it doesn’t hit the president very much. He’s insured. Meanwhile, all the people who live and work on the premises are going to be the ones who have to deal with what’s potentially a Category 5 storm — along with all of the other people of all different backgrounds who are going to be in the path of the hurricane.
The only acceptable place to hope that Dorian goes is out to sea — period.
I don’t think Campbell is going to be as snarky if and when Hurricane Dorian has a death toll associated with it. She shouldn’t have been beforehand, either.
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