With Hurricane Helene, Trump & reich-wing influencers/conspiranoids once again show that hurricanes not only have eyes, but assholes as well

DonOld Trump and a host of crass attention whores across the GOP and the reich-wing idiosphere have been ruthlessly exploiting the tragedy of Hurricane Helene, spreading lies and conspiracy theories to further their own interests. And unfortunately this isn't just harmless nonsense; it is causing panic and hampering recovery efforts.

Hurricane Helene has been one of the deadliest hurricanes to make landfall in the mainland United States in the modern era -- with more than 200 people dead as of this writing, hundreds more missing, and the death toll sure to get drastically worse, according to Rowan County, North Carolina Sheriff Travis Allen. Thousands of survivors have had their lives upended -- many have lost everything -- and it's an ongoing nightmare for victims and aid workers alike. Unfortunately but inevitably, Helene has also provided endless opportunities for #NeverWasMyPresident DonOld John Trump and a host of lesser attention whores to mouth off and exploit the tragedy for their own purposes.

It should come as no surprise that Trump is using the storm to further his political ends, while much of the American reich is also politicizing it, and the usual run of social media conspiranoids and conspicuous contrarians are milking the disaster furiously in their endless quest for a few precious drops of attention.

For his part, Trump has been busy pretending to care about the storm victims, while pretending that Kamala Harris doesn't care (spoiler: actually, she does care), and unjustly slamming the Biden administration for its response to the storm. From an AP story by Matthew Daly, September 30, 2024 (via the ABC News site):

Former President Donald Trump criticized the Biden administration’s response to the widespread devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, even as his supporters have called for cuts to federal agencies that warn of weather disasters and deliver relief to hard-hit communities.

As president, Trump delayed disaster aid for hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico and diverted money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in order to finance an effort to return undocumented migrants to Mexico. And Project 2025, backed by Trump supporters, would restructure FEMA to limit aid to states and says that the National Weather Service, which provides crucial data on hurricanes and other storms, “should be broken up and downsized.”

Trump claimed without evidence Monday that the Biden administration and North Carolina's Democratic governor were “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.” And Trump adviser Stephen Miller said President Joe Biden “failed to evacuate or rescue” U.S. citizens, “just like you failed in Afghanistan.''

And the Trumpian lies just went on and on. From AP, also on September 30:

Donald Trump repeatedly spread falsehoods Monday about the federal response to Hurricane Helene despite claiming not to be politicizing the disaster as he toured hard-hit areas in south Georgia.

The former president and Republican nominee claimed upon landing in Valdosta that President Joe Biden was “sleeping” and not responding to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who he said was “calling the president and hasn’t been able to get him.” He repeated the claim at an event with reporters after being told Kemp said he had spoken to Biden.

“He’s lying, and the governor told him he was lying,” Biden said Monday.

The White House previously announced that Biden spoke by phone Sunday night with Kemp and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, as well as Scott Matheson, mayor of Valdosta, Georgia, and Florida Emergency Management Director John Louk. Kemp confirmed Monday morning that he spoke to Biden the night before.

Like everything Trump does, this goes far beyond politix-as-usual. An October 4, 2024 piece on the conservative Bulwark site elaborates on the harm and chaos that Trump and his allies are causing with their campaign of lies.

Trump has argued that FEMA has depleted its storm relief funds because it spent much of that money “housing” illegal migrants. His allies have accused FEMA of confiscating property, of making people apply for help, of asking for cash donations, and of preventing everyone from Elon Musk to the Department of Defense from helping out with the response efforts. Virtually all of them have pushed stories insisting that Kamala Harris told storm victims they could get only $750 in aid. (That’s just one type of assistance they can get quickly, not the full amount available.)

Things have gotten bad enough that on Friday, FEMA took the step of posting a “rumor response” webpage. The White House put out a memo of its own accusing Republican leaders of spreading “bald faced lies” and “poison.” One official, speaking to The Bulwark, said they feared there could be on-the-ground confrontations involving people who believed FEMA was trying to plunder the dispossessed. 

Here is a direct link to FEMA's Hurricane Helene rumor response page.

To MAGAts, however, the fact that Trump and gang are out-and-out lying won't matter, nor will the government's attempts to set the record straight. And from what I've seen in various news reports, even some of the vics of the hurricane are apparently taking Trump's in-person appearances at some of the devastated areas as evidence that he actually cares about them (or more accurately, that he cares about something beyond getting their votes in November).

But, giving credit where it is due, infesting impacted areas with his orange presence and lying about Biden/Harris aren't the the only things Trump is doing. Despite his notoriously shaky history with charities, he -- or rather, his campaign finance director, Meredith O'Rourke --- has launched a GoFundMe that so far has raised more than 6.3 million bucks and counting, supposedly to help Hurricane Helene victims (or more specifically to help other charities that are providing hurricane relief).

Originally I wrote that the GoFundMe page did not actually list a charity, and it didn't, but this has since been updated; several charities are now named: Samaritan's Purse, Water Mission, Clinch Foundation, and Mtn2Sea Ministries. According to an October 2 update by the fund's organizer, "an initial disbursement" has been made and more will be made as donations continue to come in. Here's a fact check from Reuters, dated October 4, 2024. (But also see the last couple of paragraphs in this section.)

Notably, it's not at all clear if Trump himself has been among those who have made a contribution to this Very Worthy Cause...but I'm guessing not. And you have to wonder why. From The Daily Beast, October 1, 2024:

Former President Donald Trump has launched a GoFundMe to support those affected by Hurricane Helene’s path of destruction—but some are saying that the Republican presidential nominee, who is reportedly worth around $4 billion, could do a lot to help victims out of his own pocket. The “Trump authorized” campaign has already raised $3 million from some 19,000 donations since it appeared yesterday. The list of the campaign’s biggest contributors is a sampler of Trump’s most high-profile allies: it features musician Kid Rock, UFC CEO Dana White, hedge fund CEO Bill Ackman, and Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler, to name a few. It is unclear whether Trump himself has contributed to the campaign, but his name does not appear among the list of its top donors—those who gave between $5,000 and $500,000. Some wondered how much of an impact Trump’s personal wealth could make for those affected by Helene, however. “Why did Trump need to start a GoFundMe to raise money for hurricane victims?” reads a post with 22,000 likes from the X account @TheUSASingers. “Isn’t he supposed to be a billionaire? Can’t he just give them 10 million bucks?”

That Trump has formidable fund-raising clout is not in dispute. But more than funds are being raised: questions are being raised as well, at least by folks who aren't blinded and deafened by Trumplove. Even with the assurances by both GoFundMe and the fund's organizer, if you are willing to just take it on faith that every penny of every one of the contributions (minus GoFundMe's 3 percent cut) will go to the cause of helping Helene's victims... well, I've got a pair of gold clown shoes, a share in a social media company, and a $100k watch to sell you.

After all, as J.D. Wolf pointed out on the Meidas Touch site on October 4, the fund still has some basic transparency issues. After noting that Samaratin's Purse is an established charity (and that Trump had falsely taken credit for the charity's "truckloads" of hurricane relief supplies), Wolf added:

Trump's GoFundMe hasn't linked to the organizations for easy identification. MeidasTouch was able to find groups operating under the Water Mission and Mtn2Sea Ministries, but couldn't locate any entity providing hurricane relief under the name "Clinch Foundation."...

...We don't know the amounts Trump is donating to any of the groups or how much he has left to donate. With the Trump family history of impropriety involving charities, Trump needs to do better.

Also of note, the long-time President and Chairman of the Board of Samaritan's Purse is Christofascist and devout Trumpian Franklin Graham, who, among numerous other sins, defended Trump by deflection and whataboutism in the wake of the violent January 6 insurrection that Trump incited.* What I'm wondering is: will any of the funds donated to Samaritan's purse from the GoFundMe be redirected into Trump's pocket? It's not beyond the realm of possibility.

Harping on HAARP (and those evil Dems)
Meanwhile, in the larger reich-wing idiosphere, there's a new conspiranoid narrative in town: Democrats are responsible for Hurricane Helene. We've heard the wind blowing from the same direction before, regarding Dems being to blame for all manner of tragedy and evil and disaster, but here we go again. From The Daily Kos, September 30, 2024:

Brace yourself, because if you thought Donald Trump’s racist “cats and dogs” lies were bad enough, it won’t be long before this bit of QAnon and Q-adjacent insanity ends up in one of his rambling, incoherent campaign screeds.

I’m talking about Democrats controlling the weather.

Conservative influencer Matt Wallace, with his 2.1 million X followers, lays out the case here.

Don’t worry guys, weather modification isn’t real! It’s just a coincidence that Hurricane Helene is one of the most devastating “inland damage storms” in history and that hundreds of pro-Trump counties are being massively impacted during the most important election of our lifetimes. 

Obviously the elites would never be evil enough to create hurricanes designed to interfere with “democracy”… Pay no attention to the storms currently brewing in the Atlantic either! You can ask any mainstream scientist and they will tell you that it isn’t even possible to create those or target them at certain areas. 

Just stay silent. No need to vote or expose anything. You wouldn't want to be called a conspiracy theorist right? Couldn’t have that. So please ignore your own eyes and don’t share this post or investigate further.

In truth, of course, if there are bad guys in this tale of yet another storm of the century, Dems/liberals are definitely not it. More from The Daily Kos article:

...liberals didn’t control [Hurricane Helene]. In fact, we’ve been trying to tell anyone who would listen that these megastorms will become the norm if climate change remains unaddressed, and they don’t want to listen. Quite ironically, it is them, the climate deniers, who are in large part to blame. 

Instead, they’re claiming that HAARP—a research project in Alaska studying the ionosphere for communication and surveillance technologies—can’t just control the weather, it can even cause devastating earthquakes. 

High-profile conservative nutbags have spent the weekend blaming HAARP and the dastardly Democrats behind it for specifically targeting Trump counties for malicious purposes (you can see here, here, here, here, and here, just for starters).

The thing is, if Dems really had that much control over the weather, wouldn't they just target Mar-a-Lago, at a time when they were pretty sure Trump would be home, and/or hit key Trump areas closer to Election Day, and/or spare Asheville, North Carolina, a key blue area?

Alas, logic has rarely been a criterion for the conspiracy-minded. Among the logic-free loonies are reich-wing legislators such as Marjorie Taylor "Jewish Space Laser" Greene, who has been spreading the weather control narrative on Xitter. On September 30 she shared a map, created by the aforementioned Matt Wallace, that shows hurricane affected areas with an overlay of 2020 election results, and apparently is supposed to demonstrate that red areas have been targeted and blue areas spared. (In truth, the damage caused by Hurricane Helene has created challenges up- and down-ballot for both political parties, particularly in the battleground state of North Carolina.)

This is far from the first time that the conspiranoid loons have harped on HAARP and weather control and whatnot, and it won't be the last. I wrote about this back in 2017, in the wake of yet another devastating hurricane, Harvey (which hit my neck of the woods).

Apart from the election-manipulation narrative, other conspiranoid stories are making the rounds as well. In a recent post, a proudly Trumpian blogger claimed to know the real, true cause of hurricanes and floods, 'cause it's on seekrit government documents. The post links to a section on a conspiracy site called Stop World Control [spoiler: it's WEATHER CONTROL]. But and the blogger added her own pet theory about Asheville.

I fully believe that the flooding in Ashville [sic], NC was a purposeful land grab just like the direct energy weapons unleashed on Maui…

Ah, yes... the Maui Wildfire Conspiranoid Loonapaloooza. I wrote about that one too. Never one for originality, the Trumpanzee blogger is far from the only person to promote the land-grab lunacy re Hurricane Helene; in fact, apart from the election manipulation theory it's it's one of the top nutter narratives.

Not that setting the record straight on the weather-modification articles of faith will matter to those who are attached to conspiracy tales like orange glop to Trump's face, but there's this from Politifact:

Hurricane Helene was not a product of weather modification. That’s Pants on Fire!

There’s no proof that Hurricane Helene was formed through weather modification. Bart Geerts, professor at the University of Wyoming Department of Atmospheric Science, told PolitiFact that’s "false."

"NOAA confirms that there are no weather modification activities that could have resulted in Hurricane Helene. Hurricanes form on their own given the right conditions and that was the case with Helene," Monica Allen, director of public affairs for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Research division, told PolitiFact.

Allen cited Project Stormfury, a NOAA project in the 1960s that "involved seeding existing hurricanes." Attempted on four hurricanes, the project studied how seeding clouds with silver iodide could lead to a decrease in the hurricane’s strongest winds.

"This project ended in 1983 because it had, at best, mixed results, and there were concerns about unintended consequences," Allen said. "Since then, NOAA has done no weather modification."

But hey...that's what They want you to believe. Conspiranoids and conspicuous contrarians, of course, know better. And they will continue to let everyone know what they know throughout the aftermath of this storm and the next one and the next.

And it can't be emphasized enough that as Hurricane Helene recovery efforts continue, this is causing genuine harm to thousands of people. People are even threatening to kill FEMA workers because of the toxic lies being told by mega-influencers such as Trump's arguably most powerful ally at the moment, the profoundly evil Elon Musk.

It's gotten so bad that even some of the GOP officials who are actually in the thick of things are pleading for the nonsense to stop. North Carolina State Senator Kevin Corbin, to give but one example, wrote this on Facebook on October 3, 2024:

Friends can I ask a small favor? Will you all help STOP this conspiracy theory junk that is floating all over Facebook and the internet about the floods in WNC. Example: FEMA is stealing money from donations, body bags ordered but government has denied, bodies not being buried, government is controlling the weather from Antarctica, government is trying to get lithium from WNC, stacks of bodies left at hospitals, and on and on and on. PLEASE help stop this junk. It is just a distraction to people trying to do their job. Folks, this is a catastrophic event of which this country has never known. It is the largest crisis event in the history of N.C. The state is working non-stop. DOT has deployed workers from all over the state. Duke power has 10,000 workers on this. FEMA is here. The National Guard is here in large numbers. My Senate district is 8 counties and it takes 3 hours to drive across it in good weather…. And this disaster is 25 counties in N.C. This is going to take MONTHS if not years to overcome. Government will play a role in this cleanup. We are going to make sure the state chips in some massive money. But Government is not the total solution. YES, there are a lot of neighbors helping neighbors and that’s good and the way it should be. Please don’t let these crazy stories consume you or have you continually contact your elected officials to see if they are true. I just talked to one Senator that has had 15 calls TODAY about why we don’t stop …….. “fill in the blank.” 98% chance it’s not true and if it is a problem, somebody is aware and on it and not waiting for a post to go thru 10,000 people to be addressed. Thanks for listening but I’ve been working on this 12 hours a day since it started and I’m growing a bit weary of intentional distractions from the main job …. which is to help our citizens in need.

I hope Senator Corbin's message is doing some good, but my feeling is that the dedicated conspiranoids will just consider that Corbin has gone over to the Dark Side.

Meanwhile, as Trump blows on and lesser loons babble on, here is one of many sources of legitimate information about how you can actually help the victims of Hurricane Helene.

* While Franklin Graham's nose has an ugly orange stain, on the other hand, Graham's niece, Jerushah Duford (whose mother Virginia "Gigi" Graham Tchividjian is Graham's oldest daughter), has spoken out strongly against Trump and for Kamala Harris.

This post has been amended and updated since its original publication on October 3, 2024.
~ CC

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