Trump followers will risk their lives rather than admit their leader is wrong — it will get worse if he wins
Of all the lies Donald Trump tells, perhaps the most preposterous is that he cares about his own voters. That was evident in 2020, when Trump repeatedly downplayed the threat of COVID-19, even calling the pandemic a “hoax.” His followers got the message, risking their own lives first by refusing to socially distance and then, going further even than Trump himself, refusing to vaccinate. The result was that excess deaths were 43% higher for Republicans than Democrats in the months after the vaccines were released. Trump’s lie killed his own voters by the thousands.
At the heart of Trump’s pandemic lies was a sociopathic calculation: His lies and conspiracy theories would offset the loss of MAGA voters to COVID deaths. That bet did pay off, as most of the excess Republican deaths occurred after the election. Trump is making the same bet again in 2024 with his lies about Hurricanes Helene and Milton. He’s spraying lies about the federal response that have rapidly spread throughout social media, convincing his followers to take risks with their own safety. His lies will kill people. He doesn’t care, though, because he’s betting that he can offset the losses by using these lies to turn out more voters.
The big lie Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, are telling is that President Joe Biden has cut off federal help to hurricane-affected areas so that he can write fat checks to undocumented immigrants instead. Every word of this is a lie, of course. As state and local officials have repeatedly told the public, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been working tirelessly to help people get to safety and to help them rebuild in the aftermath. There is also no evidence that “illegal” immigrants are being cut government checks, much less being put up in the lavish lifestyle the MAGA liars are claiming. And then there’s the underlying implication that Republicans want to help. It’s a lie. Many of the Republicans spreading misinformation amid natural disasters voted against FEMA funding mere weeks ago. Project 2025 outlines Trump’s plan to decimate FEMA if he returns to the White House.
On Wednesday, Biden pushed back during a hurricane briefing, speaking directly to camera about Trump’s “onslaught of lies” and reminding viewers that these lies harm “volunteers and first responders” who are “risking everything, including their own lives.”
On “The View,” Vice President Kamala Harris called the lies “the height of irresponsibility and frankly callousness,” adding that Trump “lacks empathy on a very basic level.”
These lies during tragedy aren’t just gross, but deadly. As we saw during the pandemic, Trump supporters will shape their behavior around his lies, either because they believe him or just as a show of loyalty to the MAGA cause. In this case, that could mean rejecting aid, ignoring calls to evacuate, or even threatening aid workers who they have been told are agents of the “deep state.” As the American Red Cross said in a statement, “It also disrupts our ability to deliver critical aid and affects the disaster workers who have put their own lives on hold to assist those in need.” One state official in North Carolina outlined how serious the threat is to Politico:
“The scale of the misinformation — and simply the number of posts and the eyeballs that each of those are being given online, particularly on [X] — that is what is different and truly scary,” the official said. “This has felt like you’re in the Thunderdome, and people are just piping this noise in. They create this great confusion. It creates chaos and a crisis moment where you need people to be able to work together and come together.”
Trump’s hurricane of Milton lies: MAGA has a deadly addiction to disinformation | Salon.com