Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) advanced an unhinged conspiracy theory about Hurricane Helene on Thursday, as much of the southeastern U.S. continues to struggle to recover from the storm’s devastating flooding, leaving residents desperate searching for missing loved ones and mourning the aftermath of the hurricane. 215 people killed.
“Yes, they have control over the weather,” Greene wrote Thursday evening on X, formerly known as Twitter. “It’s ridiculous when someone lies and says it can’t be done.”
Yes, they can control the weather.
It’s ridiculous when someone lies and says it can’t be done.
— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) October 4, 2024
Greene did not specify who “they” were in her tweet (although such insinuations are typically anti-Semitic and would not be out of place if they came from a congressman who once blamed wildfires on Jewish space lasers). But another message, from earlier in the day, seemed to suggest Greene was blaming Democrats.
“This is a map of hurricane-affected areas with an overlay of a political party’s electoral map showing how hurricane devastation could impact the election,” Greene wrote Thursday morning, appearing to accuse Democrats of concocting a storm to kill hundreds of their fellow Americans, and leave thousands homeless, as part of a plan to ensure that Republican voters cannot participate in next month’s elections.
The card Greene posted appears to have been created by Matt Wallace, a dodgy crypto influencer and conspiracy theorist with over 2 million followers on X. “It took me a long time to make!” Writing on September 30, Wallace posted an image of the card. “I created a map showing the path of Hurricane Helene’s destruction with an overlay of the 2020 election results… The storm seemed to almost methodically miss the bluest parts of those crucial swing states, while simultaneously hitting the red parts destroyed. What a crazy coincidence!”
“If I were a conspiracy theorist, I might assume this is a large part of why Biden and Kamala are still prioritizing aid to illegals over aid to civilians affected by the storm,” Wallace wrote. “I would also wonder if it was all by design.”
Of course, Wallace is indeed a conspiracy theorist. And that goes for Greene too. Their Hurricane Helene conspiracy theory is completely baseless and emerged from a far-right media ecosystem that has long been obsessed with the government’s supposed ability to control the weather for nefarious purposes. These theories have come to fruition, especially with Elon Musk’s current version of X.
Disinformation purveyors have often focused on the practice of cloud seeding, which involves manipulating clouds to produce more rain. The technique, however, doesn’t create storms — especially not the storms that a secret cabal of Democrats could direct to hit a prescribed set of counties where people are likely to vote for former President Donald Trump.
Trump himself has made several false claims about the storm, including that Democrats are purposefully withholding aid from red, Republican counties, and that the Biden administration has not spoken to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp about the storm response. (President Joe Biden and Kemp have both independently confirmed they have spoken. Kemp, a Republican, has praised the federal government’s response to the storm.)
Meanwhile, state officials in the Republican Party have posted messages imploring their voters not to share Greene’s kind of conspiracy theories.
“Friends, may I ask a small favor?” North Carolina Senator Kevin Corbin (R) wrote on Facebook. “Will you all help STOP this conspiracy theory garbage floating around all over Facebook and the internet about the floods in [western North Carolina]. Example: FEMA steals money from donations, body bags ordered by the government have been rejected, bodies are not buried, the government controls the weather from Antarctica, the government tries to get lithium from WNC, piles of bodies left in hospitals, and so on. and on. Please help stop this mess. It just distracts from people trying to do their jobs.”
The garbage Greene shared in her message to
In 2022, Greene also spoke at a white supremacist conference where her fellow speakers praised Adolf Hitler and called for the hanging of Dr. Anthony Fauci. Nevertheless, she has risen to prominence in the Republican Party since taking office. She currently sits on the House Homeland Security Committee and spoke at the Republican National Convention in August.
