A Texas pediatrician deserves her job back

With a raise and an apology

See update for July 10, 2025, at end of post.

They’d have gotten me, too.

A pediatrician, Christina Propst, is out of a job after posting on social media,^[1] “Kerr county Maga voted to gut Fema. They deny climate change. May they get what they voted for.”^[2] Kerr County is the epicenter of recent flash flooding along the Guadalupe River in Texas in which “[a]t least 110 people are dead”^[3] and “[m]ore than 170 people are known to be missing . . . raising the possibility that the death toll could surpass 200 in what is already one of the deadliest flood events in the past five decades.”^[4] And the county, of course, along with the state in general, voted for Donald Trump in 2024.^[5]

There are consequences to climate change denial. The flooding in Texas might not be directly attributable to the climate crisis, but the climate crisis makes extreme weather more probable.^[6] It requires humans to adapt in ways which we are manifestly failing to do, therefore threatening our survival.

And there are consequences to gutting the Federal Emergency Management Agency when states are not prepared to take up the slack.^[7]

White Christian nationalists are suffering those consequences right now. So are folks who aren’t white Christian nationalists: The way I first found out about the flooding was when one of my cousins asked my aunt about her house in Bandera (she, it, and her friends are all safely high and dry).

Even if my aunt hadn’t had property near the flood zone, I probably wouldn’t have commented. As a society, we have made decisions that will, in many cases, have consequences that our children will suffer more than we will. And in most cases, I can do little more than repeat what I have said many times in the past. I’ve pretty much given up on setting our society straight, let alone on a sustainable path. We are doing ourselves in, we fully deserve it, and that’s all there is to it.

But I doubt I would have been more temperate than Propst, the pediatrician. The response she got was bad enough: “We were made aware of a social media comment from one of our physicians. The individual is no longer employed by Blue Fish Pediatrics. . . .

 “We strongly condemn the comments that were made in that post. That post does not reflect the values, standards or mission of Blue Fish Pediatrics. We do not support or condone any statement that politicizes tragedy, diminishes human dignity, or fails to clearly uphold compassion for every child and family, regardless of background or beliefs.”^[8]

This does raise my hackles. First, we hear much too often that when we face the consequences of our own stupidity, and someone dares to point out our stupidity, that they are ‘politicizing tragedy.’ It happens with extreme weather. It happens with gun violence. It happens pretty much whenever anyone uses the ample evidence of this stupidity to point out that white Christian nationalist policies are stupid. And it’s a way of evading facing that stupidity and the need to change those policies.

Second, when people are warned that their policies are stupid and, instead of responding in anything like an appropriate manner—like changing their policies—stick their heads in the sands of denial, we need to acknowledge that those people are stupid. If that diminishes their dignity, so be it. They chose to be asses—that’s on them. And third, no, they don’t deserve compassion, precisely because they chose to be asses and that choice is costing people their lives.

Their children do deserve compassion, first because they couldn’t vote for smarter policies and are therefore blameless, and second because they are being raised by asses. Note that in her intemperate remarks, Propst targeted people getting what they voted for,^[9] thus excluding the children and anyone who didn’t vote for white Christian nationalism.

Propst deserves her job back with a raise and an apology.

Update, July 10, 2025: I should have expected this would happen: White Christian nationalists are blaming cloud seeding, whose effect on precipitation is miniscule, for the flooding even though the company involved was operating 100 miles away from Kerr County and ceased the operation when it saw remnants of a tropical storm approaching.^[10]

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^[1] Ramon Antonio Vargas, “Texas pediatrician ‘no longer employed’ after post about pro-Trump flood victims,” Guardian, July 8, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/08/texas-floods-pediatrician-maga

^[2] Christina Propst, quoted in Ramon Antonio Vargas, “Texas pediatrician ‘no longer employed’ after post about pro-Trump flood victims,” Guardian, July 8, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/08/texas-floods-pediatrician-maga

^[3] Cara Tabachnick et al., “Death toll in devastating Texas flash floods climbs to at least 110, dozens still missing,” CBS News, July 8, 2025, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-hill-country-severe-floods/

^[4] Anumita Kaur, Angie Orellana Hernandez, and Patrick Svitek, “At least 173 people missing in Texas floods as death toll rises to 109,” Washington Post, July 9, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/07/08/texas-flooding-missing-death-toll/

^[5] Ramon Antonio Vargas, “Texas pediatrician ‘no longer employed’ after post about pro-Trump flood victims,” Guardian, July 8, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/08/texas-floods-pediatrician-maga

^[6] William James Burroughs, Climate Change in Prehistory: The End of the Reign of Chaos (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University, 2005).

^[7] Gabriela Aoun Angueira, “Trump’s plan to begin ‘phasing out’ FEMA after hurricane season burdens states, experts warn,” Associated Press, June 11, 2025, https://apnews.com/article/fema-hurricane-season-trump-eliminate-state-funding-25fb7714414e17fa51156be7e91a4474

^[8] Blue Fish Pediatrics, quoted in Ramon Antonio Vargas, “Texas pediatrician ‘no longer employed’ after post about pro-Trump flood victims,” Guardian, July 8, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/08/texas-floods-pediatrician-maga

^[9] Ramon Antonio Vargas, “Texas pediatrician ‘no longer employed’ after post about pro-Trump flood victims,” Guardian, July 8, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/08/texas-floods-pediatrician-maga

^[10] Will Oremus and Nicolás Rivero, “He seeded clouds over Texas. Then came the conspiracy theories,” Washington Post, July 10, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/07/10/texas-floods-cloud-seeding/