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Homes and cars were damaged in the Avenir development by a tornado from Hurricane Milton on October 10, 2024, in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
To the victim belongs the spoils: Why is there such a big political fight to become a victim?
The real victims of the deadly hurricanes Helene and Milton are the citizens of Florida, North Carolina, and four other states. Republicans and Democrats alike. Hurricanes don’t distinguish between voters, and all people are deserving of the same level of support. At least 230 people were killed by Hurricane Helene just weeks ago, and now, as I write this, the carnage of Milton, which just ripped through Florida, is still being assessed. How these victims vote should have no place in the discussion.
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, aka MTG, has pitched a different theory: She believes the real victims of the hurricanes are Republicans, who are being targeted by Democrat-controlled storms to tilt election results.
“Yes they can control the weather,” she wrote on X after Hurricane Helene. “Anyone who says they don’t, or makes fun of this, is lying to you. By the way, the people know it and hate all of you who try to cover it up.”
Who are “they,” exactly?
MTG explained on social media that the hurricanes are partly controlled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (I assume that is …“Deep Weather”?). Then she brought out the maps for the kicker.
“This is a map of hurricane affected areas with an overlay of electoral map by political party shows how hurricane devastation could affect the election,” she wrote on X, suggesting that Republican voting districts are being targeted by the … Democrat-controlled hurricanes.
A few months back, I wrote an article called “Fake Clouds, Seeding Doubt” to debunk the weather conspiracy about a well-known program called cloud seeding that has been used to promote small amounts of rain in drought-prone areas. It has been used for more than 50 years and is not even close to controlling the weather with massive hurricanes. That is all paranoid nonsense, but very much on-brand for a Category 5 conspiracy theorist like MTG. Who can forget her 2018 antisemitic theory that Jewish-controlled space lasers caused forest fires?
As Ian Bremmerwrote yesterday, the disinformation surrounding the genuine FEMA support for the victims of Hurricane Helene has proven dangerous, but it is just part of a bigger storm surge of campaign disinformation about everything from abortion to immigration to taxes to crime. Beneath it all, there is one strategy: Make your supporters feel like victims.
This is an old political tactic because it bonds a tribe of voters with a sense of identity against perceived and real threats, and, more importantly, it provides moral validation for counter-action. If the system is stacked against you, then any response — including, say, peaceful or violent protests — becomes justified. Vandals become activists. Insurrectionists are transformed into patriots.
A strategically cultivated sense of victimization is where the extremes on the right meet the extremes on the left. Some left-wing groups discovered the benefits of self-declared victimization long ago, and they have used it as a cudgel to silence debate, destroy property, and create odious conditions of political correctness.
Some groups on the right see themselves as constantly targeted by Big Pharma, Big Tech, fake media, biased justice systems — and now, by hurricanes.
This dynamic played out in painful ways on Oct. 7, marking one year since the brutal massacre of 1,200 innocent people in Israel and the kidnapping of 250 more by the terror group Hamas. For many in Israel and around the globe, the anniversary of Oct. 7 was a day to remember and honor those victims of Hamas.
But for some who have criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy toward Palestinians and see his military actions in Gaza as an illegal form of collective punishment, Oct. 7 was a day of resistance.
Each side made the case that they are the real victims and therefore their response is justified, but in the endless regression of victimization and partisanship — you did this, but you did that first, etc. — basic morality got lost. One case of victimization doesn’t invalidate another.
Protesting Israel’s war tactics in Gaza against Hamas and the horrifically high civilian death toll is valid in any democracy — and it’s as common an occurrence inside Israel as it is outside of it. But should that prevent the acknowledgment and condemnation of the massacre of 1,200 innocent people in Israel? Should that disqualify a sovereign country’s right to self-defense against a terror group?
At its worst, the self-identifying of victimhood can be used to lend a moral fig leaf to cruel actions, but even victims of the worst violence must adhere to the rule of law, the rules of war, and the protection of human rights. That is not a sign of weakness in a society, but a sign of strength.
It also doesn’t mean you have to fall into the trap of false moral equivalency or mealymouthed both-sidesism. Calling out lies or excesses does not always reveal political bias, but an adherence to facts and humanity.
In the military, one of the worst sins is stolen valor, when someone pretends to have done things they didn’t do or pretends to have served when they didn’t. On the campaign trail, we see something else: stolen victimization.
Instead of focusing on the actual victims of violence — or weather — the stolen-victim folks make it all about them, hoarding the attention so it can be used for their political agendas, treating the suffering of people as props for their latest campaign.
In the hurricane of voices on the extreme right and left claiming the mantle of victimization, the partisanship divides grow deeper, and what democracies need most to solve problems gets lost: basic empathy.
Waffle House closed several Florida restaurants in anticipation of Hurricane Milton.
Hard Numbers: US Southerners “Waffle” about the weather, Rent inflation continues to ease in Canada, Investors get nervous about US election, Manitoba looks to slash machete sales
2.1: Rents in Canada rose just 2.1% on an annual basis in September, the slowest rate of growth since October 2021. The data marks the fifth straight month in which the rate of rent increases fell. Back in May, it was at a whopping 9%. At the provincial level, rents in Ontario fell more than 4%, pulled downward by a drop of more than 8% in Toronto. Meanwhile, in Saskatchewan, rents rose by 23.5% as a result of higher demand for the province’s relatively affordable housing.
20.9: How nervous are investors about the prospect of a disputed US presidential election? The Cboe Volatility Index, which measures the perceived risk of severe stock swings within a 30-day period, has risen 6 points since September and now stands at 20.9, a level that is usually associated with moderate to high expectations of turbulence. Fears about a disputed US election are part of that, according to investors.
5,000: Do you happen to be thinking of selling a sword, machete, or other large-bladed weapon in Manitoba? You’d better act fast. The province’s lawmakers are debating a new bill that would tighten the rules around the sales of such weapons. Only people over the age of 18 with a photo ID would be permitted to buy them, and sales records would be maintained for two years, with fines for individuals as high as CA$5,000 for rule breakers. The bill follows high-profile machete attacks in the province.Satellite image of Hurricane Milton as of 8 p.m., on Oct. 8, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Florida braces for Milton, First survey of transgender US students, TikTok faces new legal challenges, BJP defeated in Kashmir, Dominican Republic escalates deportations
9: Millions have boarded up, sandbagged, and evacuated their homes in Florida this week as Hurricane Milton barrels through the Gulf of Mexico toward the Sunshine State. Deemed a Category 5 storm on Tuesday, with winds reaching speeds of up to 180 mph, Milton is expected to weaken slightly but still bring an "extremely life-threatening situation" when it makes landfall Wednesday night. Meanwhile, the Federal Emergency Management Agency – still busy with the impact of last month’s Hurricane Helene – reported this week that only 9% of its personnel, or 1,217 staffers, were available to help with new disaster relief efforts.
3.3: About 3.3% of US high school students identify as transgender, according to a new survey. The first-of-its-kind study also revealed 2.2% of students are questioning their gender identity. About 10% of transgender students reported suicide attempts, 10 times that of cisgender boys. Transgender issues are at the center of America’s culture wars – while most Americans favor discrimination protections for transgender people, support for restrictions on transgender care and education is significantly higher among Republicans than among Democrats.
13: TikTok is in legal hot water again as 13 US states and the District of Columbia have filed a lawsuit against the short-form video platform alleging that it breaks US consumer protection laws and has exacerbated a mental health crisis among teenagers. The suit comes as TikTok faces the prospect of being banned outright in the US next January unless it cuts ties with its China-based parent company ByteDance.
42: An alliance committed to restoring Kashmir’s autonomy within India won the region’s elections, which culminated on Oct. 8, taking 48 of the local legislature’s 90 seats. The vote was the first since Kashmir was stripped of its special status in 2019 by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose Hindu nationalist BJP party won just 29 seats in the Kashmir election. However, the BJP also looked set to win a surprise victory in the state of Haryana – a result that the opposition Congress party is contesting.
7,000: The Dominican Republic has deported at least 4,900 Haitians since last Thursday alone. The move is part of a new policy in which the Dominican government says it will deport up to 10,000 undocumented migrants weekly amid rising concerns about crime and lawlessness. The government of Haiti, which is currently mired in a severe political, economic, and humanitarian crisis, has blasted the deportations as “an affront to human dignity.”