WASHINGTON: No one predicted that a hurricane could end up tilting US elections that already involves several hot button issues such as immigration , inflation, abortion, and gun rights among others. But the sudden build up into a second Category 4 hurricane of a tropical storm named Milton, just over a week after Hurricane Helene tore through several eastern states, threatens the paradisiacal outlook for Kamala Harris .
Floridians woke up Monday morning to alerts from the National Hurricane Center that Milton was just few kms per hour short of a Category 5 monster hurricane as it barreled towards Tampa at 240kmph. While its current path is expected to take it from the Gulf of Mexico across Florida and into the Atlantic (rather than inland as Helene did), the expected battering is another windfall for MAGA propagandists and conspiracy theorists.
Led by Donald Trump , MAGA blowhards are already milking the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, spreading vicious rumors that the Biden-Harris administration is diverting billions of dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Agency ( FEMA ), which manages disaster relief in US, to illegal immigrants and foreign nations, while neglecting American citizens.
Despite being rebuked by the agency and independent experts that this is untrue, Trump continued to spread the canard on Monday, posting on his Truth Social platform "The GREAT people of North Carolina are being stood up by Harris and Biden, who are giving almost all of the FEMA money to Illegal Migrants..."
"On top of that, Billions of Dollars is going to foreign countries! NORTH CAROLINA HAS BEEN VIRTUALLY ABANDONED BY KAMALA!!! DROP HER LIKE SHE DROPPED YOU - VOTE FOR PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP. MAGA2024!" Trump added, making capital out of a hurricane.
Some Trump surrogates went further, alleging a deep government conspiracy to divert hurricanes to Republican strongholds and denying their voters assistance to force them to evacuate. "Yes they can control the weather. Here is Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan talking about it. Anyone who says they don’t, or makes fun of this, is lying to you," Trump acolyte Marjorie Taylor Greene, a much ridiculed conspiracy theorist and Congresswoman said, posting a link to Brennan talking of future possibilities like stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) as a way to combat climate change .
She attracted swift smackdown from critics, one of whom wrote "your nonsense twists science, exaggerates speculative tech beyond reason, and fuels baseless conspiracy theories... seriously, read a book or two and get some help. Professional help. You need it."
Other MAGA conspiracy peddlers went further, posting videos of devices such as Alexa saying Hurricane Milton was a Cat 5 and had already passed through Florida after making landfall in Ft Myers, causing widespread damage.
Amid the political tempest, there is little attention being paid by candidates to the issue of climate change, which some critics say is what is causing repeated hurricanes. Trump himself has often mocked climate change at his campaign rallies, sneering that global warming will raise the water level to rise by a few inches a year, and if anything, it will create more oceanfront property.
“The biggest threat is not global warming, where the ocean is going to rise one-eighth of an inch over the next 400 years … and you’ll have more oceanfront property,” Trump asserted in an interview with Elon Musk last month, while arguing nuclear proliferation ought to be the bigger concern.
Trump has since doubled down on spurious allegations that Harris is diverting FEMA funds to illegal immigrants, who he says are beign drafterd into the voting process to ensure a Democratic win.
Floridians woke up Monday morning to alerts from the National Hurricane Center that Milton was just few kms per hour short of a Category 5 monster hurricane as it barreled towards Tampa at 240kmph. While its current path is expected to take it from the Gulf of Mexico across Florida and into the Atlantic (rather than inland as Helene did), the expected battering is another windfall for MAGA propagandists and conspiracy theorists.
Led by Donald Trump , MAGA blowhards are already milking the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, spreading vicious rumors that the Biden-Harris administration is diverting billions of dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Agency ( FEMA ), which manages disaster relief in US, to illegal immigrants and foreign nations, while neglecting American citizens.
Despite being rebuked by the agency and independent experts that this is untrue, Trump continued to spread the canard on Monday, posting on his Truth Social platform "The GREAT people of North Carolina are being stood up by Harris and Biden, who are giving almost all of the FEMA money to Illegal Migrants..."
"On top of that, Billions of Dollars is going to foreign countries! NORTH CAROLINA HAS BEEN VIRTUALLY ABANDONED BY KAMALA!!! DROP HER LIKE SHE DROPPED YOU - VOTE FOR PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP. MAGA2024!" Trump added, making capital out of a hurricane.
Some Trump surrogates went further, alleging a deep government conspiracy to divert hurricanes to Republican strongholds and denying their voters assistance to force them to evacuate. "Yes they can control the weather. Here is Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan talking about it. Anyone who says they don’t, or makes fun of this, is lying to you," Trump acolyte Marjorie Taylor Greene, a much ridiculed conspiracy theorist and Congresswoman said, posting a link to Brennan talking of future possibilities like stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) as a way to combat climate change .
She attracted swift smackdown from critics, one of whom wrote "your nonsense twists science, exaggerates speculative tech beyond reason, and fuels baseless conspiracy theories... seriously, read a book or two and get some help. Professional help. You need it."
Other MAGA conspiracy peddlers went further, posting videos of devices such as Alexa saying Hurricane Milton was a Cat 5 and had already passed through Florida after making landfall in Ft Myers, causing widespread damage.
Amid the political tempest, there is little attention being paid by candidates to the issue of climate change, which some critics say is what is causing repeated hurricanes. Trump himself has often mocked climate change at his campaign rallies, sneering that global warming will raise the water level to rise by a few inches a year, and if anything, it will create more oceanfront property.
“The biggest threat is not global warming, where the ocean is going to rise one-eighth of an inch over the next 400 years … and you’ll have more oceanfront property,” Trump asserted in an interview with Elon Musk last month, while arguing nuclear proliferation ought to be the bigger concern.
Trump has since doubled down on spurious allegations that Harris is diverting FEMA funds to illegal immigrants, who he says are beign drafterd into the voting process to ensure a Democratic win.
