We are arguing about almost everything today, but it would seem that from time to time there are situations that we perceive similarly. For example, erstwhile a flood or hurricane comes, we all see a powerful natural disaster, a disaster in nature. We perceive to the advice of meteorologists and cooperate with relief services. It doesn't substance what organization you vote for, what media you perceive to or what you think of Taylor Swift.
Oh, sweet naivety! The United States is just investigating this hypothesis of unity against natural disasters. Result: negative.
It turns out that any people, erstwhile they see hurricanes, see a conspiracy by the Democratic Party. erstwhile he listens to meteorologists, he says they're paid agents who artificially produced the hurricane. The staff of the national Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are actually representatives of the Occasional Services who blow off Trump voters and focus on helping “illegal immigrants”.
Propaganda scenario
These are all genuine conspiracy theories that are circulating in the American right-wing environment present in connection with fresh hurricanes, Helena and Milton.
Of course, conspiracy theories are not a novelty in our world, but their modern release made in the USA (although partially made in Russia – which in a minute seems to introduce innovative “quality”.
For any time, conspiracy theories have appeared rapidly in consequence to current events, and the social media has reached hundreds of millions of people. In addition, they are promoted not only by anonymous online troll accounts, but besides by leading figures of the American political scene. Moreover, they are now besides supported by the latest artificial intelligence tools.
The strategy looks something like this: individual invents a communicative about the government creating a hurricane to take over the area North Carolina under the lithium mine. past trends in social media.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican organization congresswoman, writes on platform X: “Yes, they can control the weather. It is absurd that individual is lying and saying it is impossible.” The post has over 40 million views.
Greene suggests that the hurricane is most affected by areas inhabited by many Republican organization voters.
At the same time, another communicative begins to circulate on X: state services do not want to aid Trump voters. The communicative begins with rumors “a friend heard.”
For Fun join the Russians. erstwhile Hurricane Milton hits Florida, Russian state agency RIA Novosti makes available on his authoritative telegram channel photos depicting allegedly flooded Disneyland in Orlando. In fact, the paintings were false and the amusement park was not flooded. The photograph is circulating on the X platform.
Three cents is added by an old friend – Elon Musk. It suggests that the national Emergency Management Agency, alternatively of helping the victims, allocates its resources to aid "illegal immigrants".
The recipients of these messages may get lost in detail, they may even reject any stories as ridiculous, but they inactive get a punch line that connects all these stories: the government is playing you, do not believe state services and technological institutions, watch out for immigrants and democrats.
Any effort to bring order into this mess immediately meets with the controversy that it is an attack on freedom of speech, censorship and choking public debate. X users eat 1 conspiracy explanation after another, occasionally sipping them with Musk posts, which ensures that X is the only reliable origin of information and conventional media are compromised.
Fear Helps
Stupid people believe in stupid things, their problem – individual will say. However, this does not reflect the seriousness of the situation, due to the fact that spreading conspiracy theories on a massive scale has real and lamentable effects on society as a whole. Again, a good example is what happens in the U.S. over hurricanes.
First of all, members of state services, specified as the national Emergency Management Agency, feel demotivated and intimidated. They have good reasons.
"The lies about the consequence to the hurricane have caused threats and calls for force against the national government. For example, a call to send militias to face the national Emergency Management Agency due to alleged refusal of assistance. And besides to shoot at agency officials and/or harm the staff of the emergency services of this agency," says the report Institute for strategical Dialogue.
The meteorologists, who were considered part of the conspiracy, besides got in. Katie Nickolaou, a Michigan meteorologist, says she and her colleagues are receiving news that scientists should be killed and their equipment destroyed.
“Many people said that I created and directed the hurricane, any presume that we control the weather. I had to explain that the hurricane has 10,000 atomic bombs, and we don't have a chance to control it. The rhetoric became more aggressive, especially erstwhile people started saying that the people who created Milton should be killed" – comments for ‘Guardian’ Nickolaou.
"The Modern Republican organization has an army of people on social media with immense coverage, who simply spread these misinformation," adds climatologist Chris Glonger.
An immense device of fear
Glonninger's on point. Conspiracy theories about hurricanes are not spontaneous. They usually have their sources around the Republican Party, and they are surely popularized by the politicians of this organization and institutions and people who support it – specified as Musk.
And this is simply a recurring pattern -- whether it's climate change, vaccines, hurricanes, or, for example, FBI reports on crime in the US. Yes, you read well, even crime statistic have become the subject of conspiracy theory.
It comes down to the fact that the Democrats have introduced a fresh "woke" methodology that deliberately subverts statistic to cover up the crime epidemic. Indeed, the FBI. changed the system crime reporting, but the decision taken in 2015 was not implemented until January 2021, at the very end of Trump's term. Moreover, another data that has nothing to do with FBI data besides confirms that the crime rate is decreasing.
Guess who decided to spread the theory? I'll give you a hint that his name is Elon, and he's been actively supporting Trump's run for respective months.
Republicans have possibly created a thing without precedent in the past of Western democracy: a large device to deny any aspect of reality. Natural phenomena, government statistics, service activities – everything is suspicious, everything can be questioned, everything becomes part of 1 large game of their political enemies.
Charlie Warzel, "The Atlantic" journalist, is right erstwhile writesthat the word “disinformation” has ceased to reflect the seriousness and scale of what is happening: “It is nothing but a cultural attack on any individual or institution that acts in reality. If you're a meteorologist, you're a target. The same applies to journalists, election workers, scientists, doctors and paramedics. These professions are different, but they are connected by the fact that they all gotta deal with and describe the planet as it is."
You don't request an inflated imagination to realize what a dangerous phenomenon this is for democracy.
Belgian philosopher Chantal Mouffe claims: “Conflicts in liberal democracies cannot and should not be eliminated due to the fact that designation and legitimacy of conflict are the essence of modern democracy.” I agree – conflict is simply a natural state of democracy, a sign of its health. However, in order for democracy to function smoothly, we request a common foundation – respective foundations that most people agree on. Otherwise, it is hard to make a unchangeable society. It is hard to talk or even reason to argue erstwhile the inhabited planet is completely different. erstwhile there is no agreement on basic, observable phenomena and even hurricane begins to be interpreted in completely different ways.
The Republican propaganda device was created to attack their political opponents, the Democratic Party. The effect, intended or not, is to break trust in all institutions of a democratic state. Given the strength of the Republican organization and the fact that it is an inspiration to the right around the world, we have a problem that becomes 1 of the biggest challenges not only for the US but for most democracy.
