Why Trump Lies About Natural Disasters

He hates solidarity.

Ruins after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake

Over the last ten years, Donald Trump has been faced with a number of serious national disasters. Whether dealing with hurricanes in Puerto Rico or a global pandemic, his response is, by now, well-established. His instinct is to use life-threatening crises to punish governments and people he feels are not sufficiently supportive of MAGA. Alternately, he denies that the crisis is actually occurring, because he does not want to admit that bad things can happen when he is in power.

In short, Trump sees natural disasters entirely through the lens of his own narrow self-interest. when the worst happens, he immediately tries to figure out how he can leverage that worst to harm his (perceived) partisan enemies, or how he can avoid blame.

Trump’s response is especially telling because disasters can actually benefit politicians. Hurricances, earthquakes, pandemics, and other natural disasters can lead to a rally around the flag effect for leaders who are willing or able to show a modicum of compassion and competence. Rudy Giuliani, before descending into Trump lickspittle disgrace, gained national, bipartisan admiration because he projected compassion and courage on the day of the 9/11 attacks.

Trump could never do that, which is why he’s been unable to capitalize politically on the assassination attempt which targeted him. His one move is a churlish, compulsive pivot to division. That’s why he’s such an unpopular partisan figure. But it’s also core to MAGA, a movement which would prefer losing with hate to winning with solidarity.

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Hurricane Helene

Trump, and his movement, has approached the flooding in North Carolina with his usual fund of irresponsibility and selfishness. He has lied about relief efforts repeatedly, continuously, and with stubborn callousness. He’s said that Georgia governor Brian Kemp could not get in touch with President Joe Biden and federal authorities, which is a lie. He’s also said that North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and Biden were deliberately refusing to send help to Republican areas—a lie. He’s said that there are no FEMA funds for disaster relief because the money has been sent to undocumented immigrants. Which is also, you won’t be surprised to hear, a disgusting lie.

These lies have real consequences. Trump’s giving fuel to other conspiracy theorists—like Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who tweeted that “they” control the weather. Twitter used to be a powerful tool for coordinating disaster relief and informing people about how federal aid was being distributed, who was in danger, and what kind of help might be expected. Now that Trump supporter and fascist propagandist Elon Musk has bought it, the site is buried in garbage.

These lies and conspiracy theories can hinder relief efforts. Emergency responders have to take time fielding calls from and reassuring people who believe the lies. People may also end up putting themselves at risk if, for example, they are told someone is in danger who is not, or if they’re told not to trust FEMA relief personnel.

Local Republican officials on the ground are answerable to local residents. Also, if they have any conscience at all, they don’t want to see their constituents drowned or killed or even needlessly frightened during a horrific disaster.

Local officials also dislike the suggestion that they are failing to adequately respond. When Trump says relief efforts are failing in red areas, he’s trying to target Biden. But of course he’s also impugning the Republican officials who are responsible for getting relief to their voters.

As a result, Trump’s lies have drawn a lot of pushback from Republicans in affected areas. Brian Kemp said Trump was wrong in claiming he was not in touch with Biden. Kevin Corbin, a Republican North Carolina state senator, posted on Facebook begging people to stop spreading “conspiracy theory junk.” North Carolina US Senator Thom Tillis rebuked conspiracy theorists in aan interview on CBS News.

Republicans like Tillis and Corbin aren’t necessarily mentioning Trump by name. But the implication is clear enough. His lies are not just endangering people on the ground; they’re also splitting his own party. Trump spreads disinformation in order to boost his chances in November. But it’s quite plausible that his obvious indifference to suffering could alienate people—including Republicans—in swing states, not least by pitting Republican party actors against each other.

Lying to people about natural disasters can lead to major political backlash. This is why before the MAGA era, most politicians—even politicians who embrace other ugly tactics—didn’t tend to violently politicize natural disasters. Trump’s handling of Covid, as just one example, contributed to his 2020 loss. You’d think he might reassess.

Fascists hate solidarity

Trump is of course intellectually and emotionally incapable of reassessing. No doubt in what passes for his orange brain matter, he thinks he’s a brilliant strategist for lying about natural disasters over and over, contributing to chaos and possibly to needless deaths.

If the strategy isn’t brilliant, though, and if he has evidence that it in fact lost him an election, why return to it again and again?

I think the answer is that disasters can be a major spur to solidarity and unity—and Trump, as an instinctual gutter fascist, loathes solidarity, and rejects it even when it could plausibly be used to his advantage.

In her wonderful 2009 book, A Paradise Built In Hell, Rebecca Solnit examines a range of natural and human caused disasters, including the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Disaster films and zombie movies suggest that people respond to events like these with selfish panic, causing a war of all against all. But looking at the records, Solnit found that people in fact often become their best selves in the face of apocalypse. Individuals risk their lives to rescue strangers. If they have food, they give it away. They offer shelter; they participate in search and rescue.

Not for everyone, in every situation, but for many people remarkably often, Solnit says, disaster creates a kind of anarchic utopia, in which people, cut adrift from their usual social networks and governments, come together to aid one another. “Horrible in itself,” Solnit says, “disaster is sometimes a door back into paradise, the paradise at least in which we are who we hope to be, do the work we desire, and are each our sister’s and brother’s keeper.”

Pulling together to help one another is, Solnit suggests, a blueprint for a better world, built on trust and shared struggle. It’s a model of a society without hierarchy or hyper policing—which is to say, it’s a model of an antifascist society.

Trump, and his MAGA dittoheads, do not want a society in which people pull together, in which hierarchies are flattened, in which police are irrelevant. Trump sows chaos and lies in the face of disaster in part because he hopes to gain political advantage. But even when he might do better to push unity and show swing voters that he cares about everyone—he just can’t do it.

The reason he can’t do it is that he loathes the very idea of solidarity and neighborliness. The real disaster, for Trump, is the possibility that we might respond to disaster with love and care, rather than with fear, rage, and hate. Fear, rage, and hate are his only tools, and his only faith. He puts them above party, and even above winning. He has demonstrated, over and over, that he puts them above the lives of his constituents.