A storm of lies: the politics of hurricane season

Back-to-back hurricanes have wreaked havoc across America's southeastern states in the past month, said Rex Huppke in USA Today. And as if officials didn't have enough on their plate, they're also having to contend with a mass of lies and misinformation.

The primary source of this stuff is Donald Trump. Among his recent false claims is that Democratic officials had gone "out of their way to not help people in Republican areas"; that Kamala Harris had spent all the federal relief funds on housing illegal migrants; and that President Biden hadn't been in touch with governors in affected states. Trump's lies have been amplified by his "minions": Elon Musk tweeted that federal officials had been "ferrying illegals" into the country, instead of "saving American lives"; the Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested that the government can control the weather, and was deliberately directing hurricanes towards Trump country.

If anyone has sought to exploit this crisis, it's Harris, said Kirsten Fleming in the New York Post. She interrupted the storm clear-up last week by accusing Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, of refusing to take her call, saying it was "irresponsible" and "selfish". He insisted that he didn't know she had called, pointing out that he had been rather busy. Harris is right that a natural disaster is a time to work together and not to play politics. Shame she didn't take her own advice.

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There's a difference between playing politics and deliberately propagating lies, said Elaine Godfrey in The Atlantic. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has had to set up a dedicated webpage for debunking the rumours spread by Trump and his allies. It doesn't augur well for the 5 November election. Given the closeness of the race, the result could remain unresolved for a few days, creating ripe conditions for a similar campaign of misinformation. Instead of hurricane-related conspiracy theories, there'll be claims of "secret bins full of uncounted ballots". Instead of being blamed for hogging relief funds, undocumented migrants will be accused of illegally voting en masse. "The Maga loyalists in Congress and the pro-Trump media ecosystem will amplify these claims." Musk will helpfully fan the flames on X/Twitter. It has been a bad hurricane season, but in a little over a fortnight, America could be engulfed in "a storm of a different kind".