The people of East Palestine, Ohio, just want help, truth and accountability after a freight train wreck smothered their town with a toxic cloud and left them afraid to drink the water.
“I don’t feel safe, because I don’t know what the future holds for my town,” said lifelong East Palestine resident Jessica Conard during a Wednesday evening CNN town hall. Her comment encapsulated a remarkable and pervasive feeling of mistrust among residents toward assurances by state and federal officials that their air and water are safe.
“This has the potential to really decimate a small town like us,” Conard added.
A massive clean-up is underway, officials are testing local water systems, wells, streams and creeks, and multiple investigations are beginning.
But these Ohioans in the epicenter of an environmental crisis, which suddenly arrived on their doorsteps on February 3, are also becoming political extras on an early stage for GOP White House candidates like former President Donald Trump.
Whenever disaster strikes in divided America, toxic politics isn’t far behind, and derailments – like hurricanes, industrial accidents and transportation meltdowns – come with a political scorecard that adversaries leverage to try to damage those in power.
Republicans are using the derailment to claim that while President Joe Biden is lavishing billions on Ukrainians he visited in a daring trip to wartime Kyiv this week, he is neglecting needy Americans back home.
“You are not forgotten,” Trump said after traveling to East Palestine on Wednesday – although lacking the power of his former office, he has more capacity to boost his slow-moving 2024 campaign than to fix the disaster.
The train wreck is also a fresh hazard for a Democratic rising star, Pete Buttigieg. The former presidential Democratic candidate’s role…
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