The MAGA Maniacs Are Going All In on Deranged Hurricane Conspiracies

First, they tried to claim that FEMA deep state ideological arand it didn’t work. So the die-hard MAGA-rats moved on to the real heart of the all-powerful cabal that is pushing American history to the left: weather control. Taking a lead from that reliable arbiter of rational discourse, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, they began, as Florida prepared for Hurricane Milton’s landfall, to sound the alarm that the series of devastating hurricanes bearing down on the Southeast was orchestrated from on high. – and from the sinister, power-grabbing left. As communities in Hurricane Helen’s path began to dig out of damage last week, Greene repaired to her X account to warn her million-plus followers: “Yes, they can control the weather. Lying and saying that it cannot be done is ridiculous.”

Green’s crazy, undocumented claim at first seemed like a sideshow to the crisis, reminiscent of her infamous claim that the 2018 California wildfires were actually man-made Jewish space lasers. (It should be noted that legions of weather conspiracists on the right have also taken up this ugly side of Greene’s disinformation career, trashing the Jewish officials involved in Helen’s rescue, the constant barrage of online hateto the point where they now fear for their safety.)

However, when Hurricane Milton slammed into west Florida, causing a new round of devastation, the weather control thesis moved into the hot center of the MAGA conspiracy — so much so that President Joe Biden was forced to deny it in a TV interview.

MAGA’s core argument—if you can call it that—is that the forces of liberal world domination have “geoengineered” suspiciously timed storms as another weapon in their vast arsenal of shape-shifting election interference. Far-right conspiracy site Gateway Pundit increased Green’s claims with a set of recommendations from other paranoia merchants. The article highlights the findings of no less an authority than Robert Kennedy Jr., who said nefarious deep state actors have seized control of the weather through the Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum. “They’re exacerbating the problem and selling us the solution,” Kennedy announced under his breath. “The solution they want is greater social control.”

Other MAGA-affiliated merchants have shown an obvious connection: “They” use hurricanes to destroy Trump supporters! Never mind that it’s strangely outlandish to imagine that a power-crazed, weather-altering elite group of scientist ideologues would use the staggering power of hurricanes to manipulate voter turnout as opposed to, I don’t know, terrorizing the country as a whole and anointing themselves demigods. which determine the weather. And never mind that speculation about a large liberal storm cabal contradicts MAGA’s statement last week that FEMA was doing the petty work of liberal social engineers by diverting scarce funds and resources to undeserving migrants: whether the overlords of the deep state are the all-powerful Simon Barr Sinisters or the hapless social DEI trained workers?

But, of course, sequential reasoning is hardly important here. The point is to permanently and permanently secure the status of MAGA followers as protagonists of Byzantine conspiracies that offend them. And in the context of the real forces behind this unprecedented wave of devastating hurricanes, the other major goal here is to make these storms look like something other than what they are: a catastrophic product of climate change.

Abandoned by empirical conditions they proudly rejected as delusions, paranoid rightists took aim at the comforting narratives of persecution espoused by their great leader. Indeed, compared to Donald Trump’s appalling record as a weather conspirator, Marjorie Taylor Greene is a strict shill. How Rolling Stone reporters Asawin Subsaeng and Adam Rawnsley wrote in 2022 that one of Trump’s first acts in office was to convene national security officials and other White House aides to ask whether China was using “hurricane cannon” to cause inclement weather in the United States. He also wanted to know if America should consider bombing China in retaliation for this perceived betrayal. “It was too stupid for words,” one former Trump official recalled. Trump’s interest in this potential act of Chinese comic book villainy has come up so often that White House aides have taken to referring to it as the “hurricane weapon thing.” Trump also liked to tout his own meteorological prowess, despite his lack of understanding of how climate and weather actually work: which is how he infamously ended 2019 brandishing weather map drawn by Sharpie on television in 2019 to support his prediction that Hurricane Dorian was approaching the Alabama coast. (Spoiler: It’s not) During that same stupid hurricane season, Trump floated the idea attack hurricanes with nuclear bombs dispersing them is a proposition that offers the opportunity to be equally insane in terms of meteorology and fissile weapons.

It’s no wonder Trump’s supporters are mimicking his paranoia about improved weather. “Biden and Harris are messing with the weather!” there was one typical outbreak on X. “Hurricane Milton was sent to Florida just like another hurricane to destroy Florida!!” (FYI, the “other hurricane” did the most damage in Tennessee and North Carolina — though then again, maybe the cabal ordered Milton up right after Helen missed.) follower account X MAGA hedge fund manager Grant Cardone noted Milton’s rare trajectory to the east ask if they believe “Government uses technology to manipulate weather and storms,” ​​in the same begging-the-questions rhetoric that J.D. Vance uses to promote blood libels against immigrants.

Other commentators have already pointed out the ways in which the current MAGA-branded battery of weather hoaxes parallels election denial on the right and indeed serves as a likely trial run for the stream of lies, accusations of fraud and threats of violence sure to follow if Trump loses the election again in November. All of this is true, but in another sense, this messy response to the climate disaster is not what you get if you deny Donald Trump the presidency; this is what you get when you successfully select it.