Last November while sitting Shiva with a group of Boomers in mourning for the liberal democracy that their and The Greatest Generation built, one mourner said

“the people who elected Trump have to suffer the financial, environmental, health and other consequences of their choice.  Some of their children must die, because unless that happens America is lost”. 

Henry Darger

There was some shock and lots of pushback, especially to the dead kids’ comment, at the time hypothesized as resulting from a measles outbreak.

One dissenter pointed out that regardless the nature of the killer calamity, its wrath would not be selective.  No one’s kids would be passed over.  But I thought then and think now “she’s got a point because unless that happens, including deaths of innocents, a far greater number of kids and others will suffer and die.”  A basic utilitarian principle in pursuit of “the greatest good for the greatest number of people.”

But before last week the efficacy of that formula seemed dubious, assuming that suffering, death and devastation would show Trumpers that their unvaccinated chickens were coming home to roost.  They, like their leader, appeared to be doubling down after each disaster.  Neither the countless stories about how the tariff tantrum was wreaking havoc on American businesses, nor the tens of millions of deaths projected to occur in Africa from gutting PEPFAR and USAID, and not even kids dying in an actual measles outbreak, in Texas of course.  None of that seemed to make any difference to the Trump faithful.

Rob Kelly

Then came Independence Day, proof of an Old Testament, just and angry, God.  A predictable and predicted flash flood hit Texas, of course.  It was just like another killer flood that had hit the same Texas Hill Country in 1987.  And as the tragedy played out simultaneously with Trump signing and gloating over his disgusting reconciliation package, the question of “who’ll save the poor little girls?” became a national chorus, even among the cultlike Trump base.  And as the number of little girl corpses steadily increased, the answer became clear.  None of the people and agencies that Texans and Americans chose and paid to protect them and save them.  Not Kristi Noem, who runs Homeland Security and FEMA for Trump.  FEMA fiddled while the corpses floated to the surface of the Guadalupe River in Kerr County Texas.  We learned that Noem had to personally approve any FEMA expenditure over $100K and its and her tardy, shifty and shifting response to the ongoing nightmare was and continues to be must see TV.  Thousands of calls to FEMA went unanswered, comprising more than two-thirds of the calls made by victims of the disaster.

Not DOGE, as it was revealed that the meteorologist in charge of “warning coordination” in Kerr County had accepted the coercive early retirement package DOGE/Musk offered months before and had not been replaced.

Greg Abbot

Not Rob Kelly, the highest elected official in Kerr County, who said that the Guadalupe Basin is “the most dangerous river valley in the United States” but explained that an available and widely utilized flash flood warning system had not been installed because “taxpayers won’t pay for it.”  In fact, it never had been put to taxpayers and $ billions of FEMA money available for systems like this went unclaimed by Texas and other states’ officials.

Not Texas Governor Greg Abbot, who when asked who was to blame for the deficient preparation and response answered with his signature Texas Tough response that the question was “the word choice of losers” – presumably including parents of the little girls who were asking that question.

Natalie Merchant

Not Trump, who answered the same question about responsibility and blame with “only a very evil person would ask a question like that.”  Trump’s own assessment was “I think everyone did an incredible job under the circumstances.”

Years ago when Natalie Merchant asked “who’ll save the poor little girl[s]” her answer was Henry Darger, the outsider folk artist whose 15,145 page illustrated novel “In the Realms of the Unreal” depicted suffering little girls and boys and Darger’s despair and commitment to save them.[1]  But that was in the “realms of the unreal” where Trump loyalists apparently dwelled until July 4, 2025.

[1]   The Ballad of Henry Darger composed and performed by Natalie Merchant (2001).