While following news coverage of the horrific and deadly path of Hurricane Helene across North Carolina, I was given pause by the ironic name of a large county that received some of the worst destruction: Buncombe.
American political history buffs will recognize this as a catchword for meaningless speech. “The usual story” of the origin of this word, as well as of its variations “bunk” and “bunkum,” according to North Carolina-centric online encyclopedia NCPedia, traces back to Felix Walker, a congressman from the western North Carolina county after he delivered a passionate speech in the 1820s on a militia pension bill to a nearly empty chamber.
The congressman reportedly explained afterward that he was “speaking … to Buncombe,” so the folks back home would know he was on the job.
To which someone reportedly — and appropriately — said, “and Buncombe your talk certainly was.“
Words can be funny things, but there is nothing amusing about the millions who remain without power and the many who lost their homes and businesses after back-to-back Hurricanes Helene and Milton. More than 200 died in Helene’s wake, and hundreds remain missing. Milton killed at least 20 people.
Nor is there anything funny about the increasingly bizarre and misleading claims circulating about the federal response to the storms.
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell said the conspiracy theories, especially those surrounding the agency, are “absolutely the worst I have ever seen.”
Indeed, there’s nothing new about conspiracy theories following catastrophes like vultures follow the scent of carrion. But the wildly bizarre theories about Hurricanes Helene and Milton have touched off a wildly improbable blizzard, laced with the suspicious scent of politics.
The grand tradition of presidents from both parties putting politics aside in times of calamity appeared to fall by the wayside in recent days, even as President Joe Biden urged Congress to end its recess early and return to Capitol Hill to approve emergency funding for hurricane recovery — even though his budget office hadn’t released the supplemental request that would kick off the process.
Biden also called Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump responsible for spreading misinformation about the federal government’s response to the storms.
He criticized Trump and others for spreading disinformation about the federal response, including the lie that the $750 payment people in the hardest-hit areas are eligible for from FEMA would be the only aid they get from the federal government.
“Mr. President Trump, former President Trump, get a life, man, help these people,” Biden said, later adding that he has no plans to speak directly with Trump.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic challenger, “spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants” and FEMA officials are “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.”
Criticizing a sitting president for the federal government’s response to an ongoing weather disaster is pretty easy. When it’s a month before a presidential election, it’s downright impossible to resist doing so.
But the consequences can be deadly. Disinformation about the Biden administration’s response to the storms has been running rampant on social media, including the rumor that if a person applies for disaster assistance, FEMA could confiscate their property.
That story led a listener to call into Sirius XM’s “The Dan Abrams Show” last week to share the story of his father-in-law, whose property near Asheville, North Carolina, was badly damaged by Helene.
Despite the destruction, the caller told Abrams that his father-in-law is unwilling to accept assistance from FEMA “because he’s a hard-core Trumper.”
Of course, Trump is not the only Republican spreading lies about the hurricanes or even the worst. That distinction may belong to U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican well known for entertaining conspiracy theories as long as they make Democrats sound bad. She actually blamed Helene on the Democrats, writing on X, “Yes, they can control the weather.”
Her fellow Republican Rep. Carlos A. Giménez of Florida seemed to have his priorities in better order when he suggested she have her head examined.
But we have yet to see Trump, the apparent source of much of this disinformation, take steps to become part of the solution, rather than add to the problems in episodes like these.
This is how Trump chooses to “speak to Buncombe.” In a tight race, he desperately needs all the votes he can get, and if getting them means lying to and further harming victims in this unfortunate corner of a key swing state, he seems to be deplorably fine with that.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.