It all began with a video from Sky News of a reporter berating Mayor Karen Bass at LAX upon her arrival back to the city from Ghana. “Fire chiefs say that they are really stretched to the limit and running out of water. What have you got to say to that?” Bass did not respond as she stood on an airport ramp, appearing to be cornered by reporters as members of her team stood next to her.
“Have you no response to that? Do you owe citizens an apology for being absent while their homes were burning? Do you regret cutting the fire department budget by millions of dollars mayor… Elon Musk says that you are ‘utterly incompetent,’ are you considering your position?”
The video went viral on social media platforms such as Instagram and youtube, garnering over 128,000 views. Harsh criticism and judgment has landed at the door of Mayor of LA, Karen Bass. Yet, she remains steadfast in helping LA county develop efforts to assist survivors of the Eaton Canyon and Palisades fires. The fires began with intense Santa Ana winds, sweeping the Southland beginning on Jan. 7. As of Jan. 22, at least 27 people have died due to the natural disaster.
Severe critique
The eruption of harsh critique is due to the fact that Bass was on a presidential delegated trip, according to her public schedule – and the White House – to attend the inauguration of Ghana’s new president. During her governmental trip to Ghana, a natural disaster – that Los Angeles was ill equipped for, took the Southland by storm.
Opinions of her leadership and response by others such as Donald Trump, Rick Caruso, Elon Musk and their supporters — have made attempts at orchestrating a public dogpiling of Bass—swaying the public’s perception of her leadership. This is accomplished by resorting to blame, assigning all California city officials, most notably Karen Bass, with implications of Bass being ineligible to lead. A Change.org petition was created for Mayor Bass to resign on Jan. 8, signed by citizens, with over 160,000 signatures as of Tuesday.
Bass’ former mayoral candidate and opponent who she defeated in 2022, Rick Caruso, said “ this is an absolute mismanagement of the city and I’m going to be honest, we’ve got a mayor that’s out of the country and we’ve got a city that’s burning.”
According to a statement provided to Fox 11 Los Angeles, Caruso went on to say, “It looks like we are in a third world country, and we’ve got a lot of tough questions that we need to ask the mayor and the City Council and our representatives and the county representatives. Why didn’t you work to mitigate this?” Caruso, a real estate developer, has made it a point to seemingly hold Bass accountable, while relying on help from his allies, Donald Trump and Elon Musk who voiced their support.
Donald Trump utilized his social media platform, Truth social, to further play the blame game. Trump said the following on Jan. 8, a day after the fires erupted. “Fire has been spreading rapidly for 3 days — ZERO CONTAINMENT. Nobody has ever seen such failed numbers before! Gross incompetence by Gavin Newscum and Karen Bass… And Biden’s FEMA has no money — all wasted on the Green New Scam! L.A. is a total wipeout!!!” He went on to share more posts, also targeting Newsom, demanding that he also resign and repeatedly dogpiling on both city officials.
Many speculators and Democratic strategists said that the public is seeking a person to blame, and Bass is the easiest target outside of Gov. Gavin Newsom. According to POLITICO, Rob Quan, an organizer of Unrig LA, said “nationally, there’s just a pile-on. If you look at her replies (on social media) now, she could be posting a video of her literally running into a burning building and taking a child out of there, and people would still be replying ‘resign!’”
The owner of the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, even shared a post on his X account, stating that Bass cut a total of $23 million from LAFD’s budget, implying that it is one of the reasons for lack of preparation for the current wildfires.
In a statement provided to Our Weekly, Bass has clarified all misinformation and kept focus on repairing the damage that has been caused by the wild fires for survivors. “Mayor Bass is leading our city through one of the worst crisis in our history. Hurricane-force winds and unseasonably dry conditions drove these firestorms – misinformation surrounding this crisis has been staggering” said Zach Seidl.
The statement continued, “Today, Mayor Bass announced Steve Soboroff as Chief Recovery Officer who will kick off phase one of the City’s massive rebuild and recovery effort. This follows a sweeping Emergency Executive Order Mayor Bass issued earlier this week to clear the way to rebuild homes fast and that will do everything she can to get Angelenos back home. She has secured the federal, state, and local resources we need to kill these fires and is moving forward on an all-of-the-above plan for recovery.”
Budget cuts of 2024 -2025 LAFD funding
Misinformation about budget cuts affecting the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) that Mayor Bass approved last year also contributed to the severe national criticism she has received. The city’s budgets and other publicly accessible information were investigated more thoroughly by Our Weekly. In October , LA City Controller posted a graphic chart on his X account, answering the question that many have, “Where are our tax dollars going?”. It confirmed LAFD’s funding was cut by $17.6 million without including equipment, salaries and expenses.
In May 2024, a union contract was in talks of negotiation between the city of Los Angeles and the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, the firefighters union. In order to increase benefits and salaries to union members, a union contract for 2024-2028 was voted for approval by the City Council on Nov. 5. The contract explicitly stated the fiscal year 2024-2025 would cost $76 million.
Fire Chief Kristin Crowley sent a memo through the LA Fire Commission to Bass, on Dec. 17 2024. In the report, she said the LAFD is contending with “unprecedented operational challenges due to the elimination of critical civilian positions and a $7 million reduction” in overtime work hours.
The new contract approval for LAFD’s budget in 2024-2025 fiscal year boosted from $819.6 million to $895.6 million. This illustrates a $58.4 million increase from the previous year’s budget. Therefore, despite budget cuts, LAFD’s overall budget increased
Misogynoir
Misogynoir is a term coined by a Black feminist writer, Moya Bailey, that describes a prejudice that reflects itself upon Black women for being both, Black and a woman. It is similar to misogyny, which is defined as “a hatred, aversion to, or prejudice against women,” according to Merriam Webster.
According to Stephen J. Lewis of Northwestern Now, “Misogynoir brings together the words “misogyny” and “noir,” the latter meaning “black” in French.” Lewis said that the term was “created in a 2010 posting to the Crunk Feminist Collective blog to describe the specific oppression that Black women experience often characterized by a combination of racism and sexism.”
Could this be what Mayor of LA, Karen Bass is experiencing through the collaborative dogpiling of mainstream American media outlets, political figures, and wealthy billionaires that are all key players in the City of Los Angeles?
Carrying the weight of a leadership role in a city that is populated by over 9 million people, committing public service and weathering the storm, is familiar to Bass. Female actors Kym Whitley and Yvette Nicole Brown came to Bass’ defense in an interview with TMZ and suggested that racism is an essential part of Bass’ public lashing.
“We have fires every year and I don’t remember, in the 30 years that I’ve lived in LA…I’ve never seen everybody react like this to the mayor,” said Brown. “… and blame one person for a natural disaster. Now what’s different this time… interesting isn’t it?”
Brown also said Bass is a Black woman in America who “has a spine of steel” and that criticism is “nothing new” due to the intersections of being both Black and a woman navigating a leadership role as a government official.
Actor and comedian Kym Whitley also shared her frustration with how Bass is being disparaged in public media. “We are mad for her… I’m happy to have the chance to stand behind her and support her… think about it. She has the city to take care of.” Whitley continued, “These people don’t understand how large (the criticism) is… because a lot of people are sitting in other parts of the city. They’re not in the fire, they’re not in the smoke. They are sitting at home watching tv. Why do they want to blame someone? This is not the time to blame anyone.”
Despite the overall circus surrounding her initial first publicly televised response on Sky News, Bass has consistently used her voice to encourage Angelenos to stay strong, participate in helping, and assist survivors in developing measures to rebuild despite the detrimental effects of the wild fires. Unfortunately, a dogpile is a part of what she is enduring as she focuses on helping Los Angeles.
