Marjorie Taylor Greene suggests that “they” caused Hurricane Helene

Some things in there This World is Inevitable: Death, Sunrise, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)'s Response to Tragedy with Pure Madness.

At least 215 people were killed by Hurricane Helene, a category four storm that hit Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia last weekend. Thousands remain without power and access to essential supplies as the federal government works to provide relief after the deadliest storm to hit the continental United States since Hurricane Katrina. But in the wasteland of social media, some are trying to use the tragedy as a breeding ground for political conspiracy theories.

“Yes, they can control the weather,” Greene wrote on X Thursday night. “It's ridiculous for anyone to lie and say they can't.”

It is unclear who the “they” are that Greene is referring to in this scenario. If any of her posts on Thursday are any indication, she's talking about the Democrats. . Greene shared a map of the states affected by Helene with an overlay of their political leanings by county. “This is a map of the areas affected by the hurricane with an overlaid electoral map by political party showing how the devastation from the hurricane could impact the election,” she wrote.

In case you missed middle school science class, hurricanes are large, powerful storms that form over warm tropical waters when evaporation rises into the atmosphere – condensing into storm systems – and creates a low pressure zone into which the wind flows. As water continues to evaporate from the ocean's surface, the cycle can create a large vortex of heavy rainfall and strong winds known as a tropical cyclone. When this phenomenon forms in the Atlantic (and becomes strong enough), it is called a hurricane.

Hurricanes can be incredibly devastating, but they are not a man-made phenomenon or something that can be plausibly controlled by human intervention. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which conducted research into various ways to deflect or disperse tropical cyclones in the 1960s, possible methods “fall short because they do not take into account the size and power of tropical cyclones.”

Following the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, there was a large-scale mobilization at the federal and state levels to provide assistance to communities affected by the storm. The effort was bipartisan and widely praised by the governors of affected states. However, MAGA Land has rushed to politicize the tragedy in service of former President Donald Trump's campaign.

Earlier this week, before a visit to a disaster area in Valdosta, Georgia, Trump baselessly claimed that “the federal government and the Democratic governor of (North Carolina) are doing everything they can to not help people in Republican areas.”

Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Alex Jones — who has claimed the government has “weather weapons” capable of triggering floods, tornadoes and hurricanes — falsely claimed Thursday that “Biden has ordered the withdrawal of over a thousand military helicopter crews in the South.” .”

“The hurricane conveniently destroyed the reddest areas in four Southern states, leaving Trump voters unable to cast votes in the upcoming election!” Now Democrats don't want the state's rural areas brought back online to ensure that the blue cities can steal it again,” Jones wrote.

More conspiracy theories circulated on TikTok, with some users claiming the hurricane was intentionally caused to level the area to boost lithium mining. “To be clear, Hurricane Helene was a weather-altered storm designed to displace residents of western North Carolina so that a land grab could take place,” reads a video with over 100,000 views.

Natural disasters are traumatic events that often force humanity to come to terms with the fact that – despite centuries of technological progress and social development – we are often powerless in the face of nature. They are the perfect breeding ground for conspiracies that attempt to attribute a human cause to an inhumane tragedy, and Helene is by no means the first instance.

Rep. Greene, ever the shit-stirrer, has been a prolific voice in spreading such conspiracies. Who among us can forget when she blamed Jewish space lasers for the deadly 2018 California Camp forest fire?