Last night, at about 11:10 local time, Hurricane Helene made landfall in the Big Bend area of Florida, where the state’s panhandle curves down toward the peninsula. It was classified as a Category 4 storm when it hit, bringing winds of 140 miles per hour (225 km per hour). The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane wind scale, developed in 1971 by civil engineer Herbert Saffir and meteorologist Robert Simpson, divides storms according to sustained wind intensity in an attempt to explain storms on a scale similar to the Richter scale for earthquakes.
The Saffir-Simpson scale defines a Category 4 hurricane as one that brings catastrophic damage. According to the National Weather Service, which was established in 1870 to give notice of “the approach and force of storms,” and is now part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a Category 4 hurricane has winds of 134–156 miles (209–251 km) per hour. “Well-built framed homes can sustain severe damage with loss of most of the roof structure and/or some exterior walls. Most trees will be snapped or uprooted and power poles downed. Fallen trees and power poles will isolate residential areas. Power outages will last weeks to possibly months. Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks or months.”
Hurricane Helene hit with a 15-foot (4.6 meter) storm surge and left a path of destruction across Florida before moving up into Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Kentucky with torrential rain, flash floods, high winds, and tornadoes. A record level of more than eleven inches of rain fell in Atlanta, Georgia. At least 45 people have died in the path of the storm, and more than 4.5 million homes and businesses across ten states are without power. The roads in western North Carolina are closed. Moody’s Analytics said it expects the storm to leave $15 to $26 billion in property damage.
Officials from NOAA, the scientific and regulatory agency that forecasts weather and monitors conditions in the oceans and skies, predict that record-warm ocean temperatures this year will produce more storms than usual. NOAA hurricane scientist Jeff Masters noted that Helene’s landfall “gives the U.S. a record eight Cat 4 or Cat 5 Atlantic hurricane landfalls in the past eight years (2017–2024), seven of them being continental U.S. landfalls. That’s as many Cat 4 and 5 landfalls as occurred in the prior 57 years.”
President Joe Biden approved emergency declarations for Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina before Helene made landfall. Tennessee governor Bill Lee, a Republican, did not ask for such a declaration until this evening, instead proclaiming September 27 a “voluntary Day of Prayer and Fasting.” Observers pointed out that with people stuck on a hospital roof in the midst of catastrophic flooding in his state, maybe an emergency declaration would be more on point.
After a state or a tribal government asks for federal help, an emergency declaration enables the federal government to provide funds to supplement local and state emergency efforts, as well as to deploy the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to help save lives, protect property, and protect health and safety. Before Helene made landfall, the federal government placed personnel and resources across the region, ready to help with search and rescue, restore power, and provide food and water and emergency generators.
The federal government sent 1,500 federal personnel to the region, as well as about 8,000 members of the U.S. Coast Guard and teams from the Army Corps of Engineers to provide emergency power. It provided two health and medical task forces to help local hospitals and critical care facilities, and sent in more than 2.7 million meals, 1.6 million liters of water, 50,000 tarps, 10,000 cots, 20,000 blankets, 70,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and 40,000 gallons of gasoline to provide supplies for those hit by the catastrophe.
FEMA was created in 1979 after the National Governors Association asked President Jimmy Carter to centralize federal emergency management functions. That centralization recognized the need for coordination as people across the country responded to a disaster in any one part of it. When a devastating fire ripped through Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the day after Christmas in 1802, Congress agreed to send aid to the town, but volunteers organized by local and state governments and funded by wealthy community members provided most of the response and recovery efforts for the many disasters of the 1900s.
When a deadly hurricane wiped out Galveston, Texas, in 1900, killing at least 6,000 residents and destroying most of the city’s buildings, the inept machine government proved unable to manage the donations pouring in from across the country to help survivors. Six years later, when an earthquake badly damaged San Francisco and ensuing fires from broken gas lines engulfed the city in flames, the interim fire chief—who took over when the fire chief was gravely injured—called in federal troops to patrol the streets and guard buildings. More than 4,000 Army troops also fed, sheltered, and clothed displaced city residents.
When the Mississippi River flooded in 1927, sending up to 30 feet (9 meters) of water across ten states, including Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, killing about 500 people and displacing hundreds of thousands more, President Calvin Coolidge appointed Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover to coordinate the federal disaster response and pull together the many private-sector interests eager to help out under federal organization. This marked the first time the federal government took charge after a disaster.
In 1950, Congress authorized federal response to disasters when it passed the Federal Disaster Assistance Program. In response to the many disasters of the 1960s—the 1964 Alaska Earthquake, Hurricane Betsy in 1965, and Hurricane Camille in 1969—the Department of Housing and Urban Development established a way to provide housing for disaster survivors. Congress provided guaranteed flood insurance to homeowners, and in 1970 it also authorized federal loans and federal funding for those affected by disasters.
When he signed the Disaster Relief Act of 1970, Republican president Richard Nixon said: “I am pleased with this bill which responds to a vital need of the American people. The bill demonstrates that the Federal Government in cooperation with State and local authorities is capable of providing compassionate assistance to the innocent victims of natural disasters.”
Four years later, Congress established the process for a presidential disaster declaration. By then, more than 100 different federal departments and agencies had a role in responding to disasters, and the attempts of state, tribal, and local governments to interface with them created confusion. So the National Governors Association asked President Carter to streamline the process. In Executive Order 12127 he brought order to the system with the creation of FEMA.
In 2003, after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., the George W. Bush administration brought FEMA into its newly-created Department of Homeland Security, along with 21 other agencies, wrapping natural disasters together with terrorist attacks as matters of national security. After 2005’s Hurricane Katrina required the largest disaster response in U.S. history, FEMA’s inadequate response prompted a 2006 reform act that distinguished responding to natural disasters from responding to terrorist attacks. In 2018, another reform focused on funding for disaster mitigation before the crisis hits.
The federal government’s efficient organization of responses to natural disasters illustrates that as citizens of a republic, we are part of a larger community that responds to our needs in times of crisis.
But that system is currently under attack. Project 2025, a playbook for the next Republican administration, authored by allies of the right-wing Heritage Foundation and closely associated with Republican presidential candidate Trump and vice presidential candidate Ohio senator J.D. Vance, calls for slashing FEMA’s budget and returning disaster responses to states and localities.
Project 2025 also calls for dismantling the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and either eliminating its functions, sending them to other agencies, privatizing them, or putting them under the control of states and territories. It complains that NOAA, whose duties include issuing hurricane warnings, is “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.”
Right-wing politicians, parties and users often sow doubts about elections, ranging from election irregularities in the US to problems with postal voting in Germany. Why is this the case?
Only a few days before last weekend’s key elections in the German state of Brandenburg, the regional branch of Germany's far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) published a call on its Facebook page.
The message offered "indispensable tools" for voters to observe the elections and look out for "problems, fraud or mistakes." It linked to a podcast on the "most serious cases of electoral fraud in recent years."
The post also offered links to a group called "Ein Prozent," which brings together "electoral observers" and describes itself as "Germany's largest patriotic citizens' network." However, according to the country's intelligence services, "Ein Prozent" is a confirmed right-wing extremist organization.
This appeal by the AfD is part of a larger and long-standing strategy of sowing distrust in the democratic process before and after elections and calling out what the party sees as voter manipulation against it.
The distrust is also popular on social media under the hashtag "Wahlbetrug" (voter fraud in German). In the Brandenburg elections, which the AfD narrowly lost to the governing Social Democrats, dozens of posts on X (such as this oneand this one) alleged to show voter manipulation against the AfD.
The strategy is not exclusive to the AfD, but rather a narrative that is also seen in other countries, predominantly among right-wing populist parties and politicians who repeatedly bash the electoral process but rarely present waterproof evidence.
The claims, which to a large extent focus on postal voting, then fall on fertile ground on social media among their sympathizers.
For instance, the program of Austria's far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) for this Sunday's legislative elections specifically calls for voters "who care about democracy" to turn up in person at the polling station and not vote by post.
Postal voting, according to the FPÖ, opens the door to electoral fraud because "there are repeated inconsistencies and accusations that votes are collected and cast centrally in 'migrant communities' or retirement homes."
There are several posts on social media channels, such as this one, that seem close to the FPÖ calling for a "megademo" in case of voter fraud.
And beyond Europe, politicians like the former US President Donald Trump and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro have repeatedly pushed similar narratives.
Voter fraud claims are already making the rounds ahead of the US presidential election in November on various social media platforms. DW fact-checked several of the claims here.
The retirement-home theory
Daniel Hellmann, an expert at Germany's Institute for Parliamentary Research, told DW that these kinds of claims are being used not only to delegitimize political opponents but more broadly as an "attack on the credibility of the system as a whole."
It is also a narrative that seems to be becoming more prominent in the political debate, especially thanks to public figures like Trump.
The former US president blamed his election defeat in 2020 on a "rigged" voting system and in particular criticized mail-in voting by calling it a "whole big scam."
These claims echo similar narratives by the FPÖ in Austria and the AfD in Germany, which share the belief that postal votes are susceptible to manipulation.
German authorities, however, have stressed they are a proven alternative and "as secure as voting at the polling station."
And in individual cases where voter fraud may be suspected, investigations are carried out. In September's regional election in the state of Saxony, not far away from Brandenburg, police found postal ballots manipulated in favor of the Free Saxons party, described as a far-right extremist group.
Aiko Wagner, a political scientist at Berlin's Free University, explained that mail-in ballots are often criticized by parties like the AfD because they are seen as a less transparent way to vote than depositing the ballot in person.
This raises suspicions which, as Wagner adds in an interview with DW, are fueled even further when electoral results show the AfD performing worse among postal voters than among in-person voters.
This skepticism, for instance, was evident after the Brandenburg election.
AfD's co-leader Timo Chrupalla said in a press conference he didn't know whether AfD voters were generally not inclined to vote by post, but he added that it’s "no secret" that postal ballots are prone to be manipulated.
And he referred to what some call the "retirement-home theory." This is the idea that old people who cannot vote in person are not voting freely, but are rather put under pressure by specific parties.
Chrupalla said parties "go in and out of old people's homes," except the AfD, which is often denied entry. He didn't provide any evidence to support his claim.
Retirement home providers and nursing organizations have oftenrejected these kinds of accusations.
Moreover, the office of Brandenburg's returning officer told DW in an email that it hadn't received any information on electoral fraud allegations.
Nevertheless, Chrupalla's comments are arguably helping to sow mistrust in the electoral process, especially among voters of his party.
'Gateway' for conspiracy theories
It's not the only theory that is being linked to these claims about postal ballots.
Aiko Wagner described them as a "gateway" for conspiracy theories, as people can believe that something is being manipulated behind the scenes.
Wagner said they can fuel narratives such as there being "machinations of which the normal citizen is unaware" or "corrupt political elites that are betraying the true people."
Daniel Hellmann added another element –namely that many conspiracy theories have a kernel of truth from which a specific worldview is spun.
Hellmann says the kernel of truth in postal ballots is that it's more difficult than when people go to the polling station to ensure they're voting in secret.
This doesn't mean postal ballots are being structurally manipulated, but this kernel of truth is being used –as in the case of old people’s homes– to fuel doubts about a wider political process.
A political process that may be often questioned by right-wing populist parties, but is defended by most members of society as a core element of today's democracy. Despite these criticisms. Or even also because of them.
Do you? Can you? I can’t. I open the papers, scan the headlines, sort of shake my head, and don’t even bother. Is that bad of me? Am I being lazy, foolish, indolent, or is this…a sentiment you also share? Can’t read the news. Just feels totally disconnected from me. For me. So then what?
I’m bored.
Maybe you are too.
Of the way we think. Act. Feel. Are.
And I think that’s why I’ve stopped reading the news. Not because I’m sort of tired of doom and gloom. But because it’s just…anodyne. It feels pointless. Detached from reality.
If I open the news, I don’t see much in the way of how I think or feel. There’s no real sense of urgency. Yes, we all know Trump’s a fascist, thanks for finally saying it a decade late, I guess, here’s a pat on the back. Climate change? Mega-inequality? Predatory capitalism? Etcetera.
So. There I am. Sort of clicking around, looking for something that mirrors how I feel about the world, and I have to confess to you, I am bored.
But I don’t mean that as a complaint.
I mean it in the sense of…
Is It Just Me, Or is Our Civilization Paralyzed?
Why am I so bored?
This is a crucial juncture for our civilization.
But.
Our civilization is paralyzed.
This is it. You know what’s coming, I imagine, I say it often. This decade is the moment that we address our existential challenges, or we don’t.
And yet here we are, just paralyzed.
There’s the sense that things are barely staying functional, if that. If you like, that they’re dysfunctional, and just kind of holding on at the edge of collapse with their fingernails.
By things, what do I mean? There’s our politics. Enthused about the choice between Kamala’s neoliberalism lite and Trump’s…whatever it even is? I’m not, and I’d bet, unless you’re sort of a die-hard believer in the cult of personality of either one, you’re not either.
There’s our economy, which is always “booming”, if you ask elites, but never delivers for the average person. There’s always a bailout, subsidy, bonus, etcetera, for the powerful, but our economies stopped caring about the powerless long ago, it seems, and the idea that they could care, deliver, do much to raise living standards…that’s considered something of a joke by most, at this point, because we all know “the economy” is really only there to make the rich richer at this point.
There’s our societies, or lack thereof. Social contracts? What are those, even, anymore? I understand the enthusiasm around Kamala, and I guess, to a kind of forlorn extent, I share it, but let’s be real, she’s not exactly suggesting a new social contract. She’s stopped well short, because we all know that you can’t do that. It’s just not possible, a step too far, a giant leap in an age where even baby steps require all the might that’s left in the feeble, broken heart of our civilization.
I think discussing all that sheds a little light on why I’m so goddamned bored.
We’ve hit the limits of the possible.
The Limits of the Possible
And what’s left is now impossible.
Let me explain what I mean by using the example of climate change. It took us all the effort we could muster as a civilization. Decades of treaties, leadership, teeth-grinding efforts to build coalitions, get nations on board, and so on. It’s not that that was bad, that was good. But it only got us here, which is a place where carbon emissions are still rising.
They’re rising more slowly, and again, that’s good, in a lesser evil kind of way, but it’s not exactly enough.
And yet any further movement is now essentially impossible. It’s just not going to happen. Sure, you can buy into the pipe dreams of the various industries who want to claim that magically we’re going to reach a fossil-free future, but that’s just hype. There’s no real indication anymore that carbon emissions are going to slow, or even reverse, especially fast enough for us not to keep on warming the planet right past all its tipping points.
So. Do you see what I see in that example? Let me illuminate it.
We did what we could, as a civilization.
We reached the limits of the possible. Our limits of our possible.
And what’s left is now impossible.
But what’s impossible is what’s necessary, because we barely even scratched the surface of addressing our Grand Challenges and Existential Threats.
The Dent in History We Didn’t Make
Let me now put that to you more formally.
• Inequality is still rising
• Democracy is still in sharp decline
• Incomes are still stagnant or falling
• Emissions are still rising
• Politics is more dysfunctional than ever in contemporary times
• Society is divided, unsure, and pessimistic
These are the limits of our possible.
It’s not enough to say, as American pundits do, staring these mega trends in the face, that we’re doing well, or well enough. The world’s brighter minds are profoundly alarmed at where we are, from economists to planetary scientists to political scientists to visionary leaders of older generations, for a very good reason.
That reason isn’t just that things aren’t going well.
Rather, it’s that they’re not going well despite us making our best efforts to do something about them.
Our best efforts made no dent in any of these Existential Threats.
Not one.
What Happens When Our Best Isn’t Good Enough?
I want you to pause and think about that for a second with me. Really reflect on it.
This time, let’s use the example of America’s economy.
We’ve been discussing a sort of mind-blowing statistic lately, which is that median incomes for men are lower today than they were in 1979. You can take that in a broader sense, because of course women’s incomes started from a very, very low base.
Now think of all that’s happened since 1979. Reagan. Bush. Clinton. Bush Junior. Obama. Trump. Etcetera. Think of all their grand promises, plans, paradigms. Think of all they tried, and the legions of advisors, flunkies, lobbyists, cabinet members, involved.
None of it worked.
Unless you’re the cynical sort who believes that the plan was to basically strangle the middle class to death, and hey, maybe, looking at data that dire, you have a point.
The point I want to make, though, is that we’ve made no dent in our Grand Challenges. Not a single dent in a single one. And that’s sort of…insane…baffling…horrendous…when you think about it.
America’s primary challenge is to raise people’s incomes. So they can have a decent standard of living again. And when I say “not a dent,” you can immediately see: half a century of broken promises didn’t do anything. So incomes are flat or lower today, using the most basic measure, than they were 50 years ago.
That’s what “not making a dent” means.
In the case of carbon emissions, it means: they’re still rising. Sure, more slowly, but the point was to bring them down, to reverse the upwards trajectory.
That same pattern is true for inequality, democracy, society, etcetera.
(Freeing) Leadership in the 21st Century
So what do we do when we reach the limits of the possible?
That’s when we need leaders.
In the proper sense of the word.
Not just power figures. And this is where things get tricky. Is Kamala a leader in this sense? Not yet. Will she be one? I doubt it, because she shows no real signs of interest in taking on, much less seeing, our problems, in this way.
So we have a final failure before us, which is leadership.
And here, I hold up my hands.
I was supposed to be one of the guys who helped develop the leaders of the future. For those of you who remember my writings and column at HBR, that’s the sort of institution that’s supposed to take on that challenge.
But they failed at that, and I suppose, so did I.
We are failing at developing leaders in this truest and deepest of senses, and to illuminate it, we can think of the cliched example of, let’s say, Steve Jobs. What was he better at than all his peers? Redrawing the boundaries of the possible. Nobody thought a phone could do that. Nobody cared enough to.
That’s sort of where this highest level of leadership begins.
Today, we are failing abysmally at this. And no, I don’t really think that figures like AOC pass the test, either. Sure, you can propose more social housing, but it’s been pretty disastrous in places like Britain and parts of Europe. Not a magic bullet or a cure all. Sure, we can say that we’re social democrats, but take a hard look, because social democracy is not doing well at the moment.
Leadership is about redrawing the boundaries of the possible.
Our civilization does not have leaders anymore, of this calibre.
We’ve hit the limits of our possible, and nobody knows what to do.
So here we are, paralyzed.
Now, I can offer you all kinds of suggestions, and if you’re an old friend, you know them. Redesign our societies around well-being, so that our economies deliver higher living standards, instead of this mess we have today. Ditto for corporations and private sector institutions. But that’s not really the point either, because of course, I can’t do that by myself.
We need leaders of this calibre.
Or else we are going to stay paralyzed, in this most crucial of moments.
And if we do that, of course, our trajectory will not be a very good one.
How are we to develop those leaders? I don’t know if that’s so much the question. As freeing people to be them. Our institutions are straitjackets now, unless you’re kind of a sociopath, ruthless, domineering, amoral, and narcissistic. Anyone else is ruthlessly selected out as not strong or “smart” enough.
So we are going to have to redesign our institutions so that they free people to take on these challenges.
If leaders of Kamala’s category do that much, then at least there’s a pathway left to us. If they don’t, then the creative geniuses we need to redesign what’s left our civilization will be stuck there, their potential wasted away, and all the resources flowing to exactly the wrong kinds of people and personalities instead, not empathic, creative, authentic, wise, and allocentric kinds, but selfish, ruthless, and more or less sociopathic kinds.
Are second-tier, more functional, leaders of Kamala’s form—who are the best we currently have, and so I don’t mean that as an insult, just analytically—capable of doing that? I don’t know. But do they? That’s the question.
