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Dear John,

As per the standard Friday routine, here’s an update on what’s going on across the pond. There’s just twenty-four days left until Americans go to the polls.

The Eye of the Storm – How Team Trump is Using Conspiracies for Political Gain

On Wednesday, Hurricane Milton made landfall on the Florida coast. It brought tornados, dangerous winds, and 30-foot waves of water. It comes in the aftermath of another climate disaster, September’s Hurricane Helene, which ravaged the Carolinas with flooding and power outages.

Catastrophic events like these are supposed to be moments of national solidarity, where a country comes together to rebuild, repair, and grieve. In a better political landscape, it would also be a time to acknowledge the reality of our heating oceans, which the science unequivocally links ([link removed]) to more frequent and more catastrophic Atlantic storms.

But America’s best and brightest have other ideas. The two recent storms have initiated a deluge of tinfoil hat conspiracies online, hampering relief efforts for political gain.

It started with false claims, echoed by Donald Trump and Elon Musk, that federal hurricane relief funds were being spent on illegal immigrants. It stirred up a blue-tick frenzy on “X”, spreading lies about the natural disaster in order to foment anti-migrant anger online.

But that was just the beginning. Notable crank and (somehow) Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene began repeating claims that the government is “geo-engineering” the weather events. “Yes they can control the weather” she wrote on X. Asked about the “they” she referred to, Greene refused to elaborate – but given her past comments about “Jewish Space Lasers ([link removed]) ,” there’s a fair guess who she’s referring to.

American right-wingers have used the conspiracies to disparage the national weather service and FEMA (The Federal Emergency Management Agency), in some cases even posting pictures of aid workers and declaring them “traitors ([link removed]) .”

All of this from the people who brought you “they’re eating the cats.” The vast majority of these conspiracies came from pro-Trump accounts, and were widely repeated by Republican officials.

It’s no coincidence that this is all happening just weeks out from a major election. These conspiracies are a means to an end. They’re weaponising a natural disaster to stir up political anger, to further demonise migrants and to make the case for privatising America’s disaster relief infrastructure ([link removed]) – something Republicans have been drooling over for years.

On Musk’s X, these conspiracies are rewarded with likes, views, followers, and even money. The site’s new right-leaning algorithm actively encourages posts like these to go viral, spreading these false claims far and wide before they can be debunked.

Social media platforms, as they exist today, are creating an environment where nothing is true and everything – even catastrophic storms that used to unite the country – can be weaponised for political gain. In a society like that, it’s no wonder that democracy seems broken.

In other US Election News:
* Barack Obama has joined Harris on the campaign trail as a surrogate, speaking to the University of Pittsburgh;
* Some analysts areclaiming ([link removed]) that Trump’s winning odds have surged, but the polls still look extremely close;
* Trump has officially ruled out ([link removed]) a second Presidential debate with Kamala Harris.

That’s it for this week.

All the best,

Matt Gallagher

Communications Officer

Open Britain
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