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How sad.
But that's been our mantra for the past decade: How sad.
It's now or never
Conspiracy theories
and outright lies that used to fester on the sidelines are now
mainstream schools of thought among folks who are desperate to confirm their
beliefs and suspicions. This kind of frightening detachment from
reality has always been a nagging undertow running beneath society, but it’s
gotten so much worse over the past decade.
It starts at the top. Tuesday, November 5, 2024, may be our last meaningful chance to reject this rot that’s eating away at the core reality that binds us
together as a country.
Every election is pitched as “the most important of our lifetime.” But there have been precious few moments in American history when we’ve faced a crossroads over our shared sense of reality. It’s not just a question of what policies we want—it’s a question of whether we exist in the same universe or not.
If you think things are bad now, it's almost assuredly going to get worse if the nation’s foremost conspiracy theorist and unabashed liar is elected to sit behind the Resolute Desk again.
If you think things are bad now, it's almost assuredly going to get worse if the nation’s foremost conspiracy theorist and unabashed liar is elected to sit behind the Resolute Desk again.
Endless lies
It’s not a partisan statement to call Donald Trump a conspiracy theorist and unabashed liar. He’s proven time and time again that he’s more than willing and handily able to create his own reality when the real world doesn’t suit his needs.Let’s leave aside Trump's 34 felony convictions and attempted coup d’etat—and just stick to the weather.
The former president’s tenuous grip on reality is exemplified by his fraught relationship with the field of meteorology.
His very first lie upon entering office on January 20, 2017, involved the new president telling a group of supporters that it didn’t rain on his inauguration—even though video clearly showed it raining about one minute into his address. It's the avalanche of little lies that pave the way for the big lies.
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| Trump drew on a NHC forecast map to extend the cone to Alabama on Sept. 1, 2019 |
He mistakenly warned Alabama that Hurricane Dorian would be “much worse than anticipated,” then used a Sharpie to alter a National Hurricane Center forecast map rather than admit he was wrong. The fracas ended with the White House threatening to fire NOAA’s leadership if they didn’t participate in the ensuing coverup.
He proposed slashing more than $75,000,000 from the National Weather Service's budget in 2020, which would have fired 250 meteorologists, curtailed critical surface and upper-air weather observations, and ended a valuable research project to study tornadoes in the southeastern U.S.
He issued a controversial pardon while Category 4 Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas because he “assumed ratings would be far higher” while people were already watching the news.
He delayed meaningful aid to Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria by conditioning billions of dollars in disaster aid on political goals like prohibiting the island from raising the minimum wage, and implied that further aid to the island was contingent upon the territory's political leadership showing "appreciation" for him.
He opposed sending federal aid to California during the state’s deadly 2018 wildfire season because it’s a heavily Democratic state. He reportedly only agreed to send aid after finding out he won the counties affected by the wildfires.
He did the same exact thing with Washington state—only they didn't receive their disaster aid until Trump left office.
And those are just the lowlights of his four-year term.
And those are just the lowlights of his four-year term.
Lies are a group effort
One of his biggest supporters in Congress—who once questioned if California’s wildfires were started by Jewish-controlled space lasers—accused an unnamed "they" of controlling the weather in the wake of Hurricane Helene. |
| Hurricane Milton on October 7, 2024 |
She certainly wasn’t alone herself in fanning the flames of that bizarre conspiracy theory. So many folks took to social media with cult-like fervor to accuse the government of controlling the weather to punish red states that meteorologists received death threats over the ordeal and NOAA had to dedicate time and resources to debunking the false claims.
Again…how sad.
A high-stakes outcome
We know what happened before. But what are the consequences of a second Trump administration? Let's bypass everything else and keep sticking to the weather.
Project 2025, his potential administration's blueprint for a second term, calls for restoring Schedule F to remove protections from civil service employees. This change would make vast swaths of federal workers fireable by the White House.
Remember Sharpiegate? Under that proposed plan, he likely could've fired every meteorologist at NWS Birmingham for not playing along with his coverup. This could jeopardize any of the career scientists who work for NOAA if they unknowingly run afoul of the administration's will.
Trump would likely see his party in control of both chambers of Congress. This grip on power would afford him the opportunity to make those $75,000,000+ in cuts to the National Weather Service, following through on what he tried to do during his final year in office.
An emboldened Trump would come into office knowing he would face no real consequences for his actions. Firings, squashed investigations, denying aid, drawing on weather forecasts, interfering with research—everything is on the table when nobody is around to say 'stop.'
And then there's the presidency as a role model for everyday Americans. He would again use the highest office in the land to trumpet lies and conspiracy theories about every topic under the sun, including the weather.
Bad hurricanes, lethal tornadoes, and devastating floods will happen during the next president's four years in office. He'd have his say in the messaging and response to those disasters—just as he did during Dorian, just as he did during the wildfires, and just as his entire orbit did during Helene and Milton.
If you think it's bad now how many lies and conspiracy theories everyday people are bouncing around on social media, wait until their most powerful enabler sits in the Oval Office again.
The real world is scary enough without making stuff up
Conspiracy theories are
security blankets for adults
frightened by a rapidly changing and interconnected world in which bad things sometimes
happen. It's scary and upsetting that tornadoes and hurricanes and wildfires can wipe away entire communities in moments.
It’s more comforting to believe that bad things
happen because bad people are making them happen. If bad things aren’t
random—if bad things are controlled by bad people—then we might have a
chance to stop those tornadoes from forming, to stop that hurricane from
hitting land, and to keep those wildfires from charring everything we’ve known
and loved.
Unfortunately, a growing percentage of the American public has fallen so detached from reality that they’re unwilling or completely unable to believe that the real world doesn’t work that way. They’re more eager to believe that their perceived enemies control hurricanes than they are to accept basic elementary school meteorology.
Unfortunately, a growing percentage of the American public has fallen so detached from reality that they’re unwilling or completely unable to believe that the real world doesn’t work that way. They’re more eager to believe that their perceived enemies control hurricanes than they are to accept basic elementary school meteorology.
There is one presidential candidate willing and eager to allow that alternate universe to flourish, to shred the reality that binds our society together in order to get what he wants.
This is too important. Please don't let him succeed.
[Image of the White House courtesy of Unsplash.]
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