America’s hurricane wreck of an election

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It is hard to say exactly when Kamala Harris’s momentum began to slow. But it was somewhere between her mauling of Donald Trump in last month’s debate and the point when Hurricane Helene made east coast landfall. That storm, which has wrought the worst devastation in years, is now followed by the equally menacing Hurricane Milton. Amid the flooding, evacuations and death has been a gale surge of disinformation about the US federal government’s alleged negligence. Everything is apparently Harris’s fault, including the weather. 

It would be a fool’s errand to forecast the storm’s impact on next month’s election. George W Bush’s mishandling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 came after his re-election, though it may have fed into the Democratic sweep in the following year’s midterms. Contrary to expectations, Helene’s wreckage could even benefit Harris’s turnout as the heavily Republican areas of rural Georgia and North Carolina have been hit harder than their cities. Florida, which is next on the hurricane season’s target list, is no longer a swing state. 

The point is that almost anything — beyond the proverbial transoceanic flapping of a butterfly’s wings — can tip the result in what is essentially a toss-up election. The chances that Harris could lose to Trump and vice versa are even. “Experts” who claim to know the outcome are bluffing. No opinion pollster can drill into the heads of a few hundred thousand swing state voters who do not yet know their own minds.

Though he needs no invitation, Trump’s propensity to take this to a category five election is thus even greater than normal. That is what he is doing. In the past few days he has claimed that Harris used the Federal Emergency Management Authority’s money to house illegal immigrants; that Democrats are diverting aid away from Republican-voting areas; that Joe Biden has not even bothered to call Republican governors of the affected states; and that government relief is missing in action. 

Each of these is untrue or a bad distortion. Many nonetheless have been amplified by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and owner of X on which he daily promotes such disinformation. Fema is indeed perennially short of cash. But it is not Democrats who vote against its funding. Moreover, Trump is demonstrably guilty of that which he accuses Biden and Harris of. As president in 2020, he made it publicly clear that states with friendly Republican governors would be given Covid funding priority.

On the rule of thumb that Trump’s accusations are confessions, his rhetoric presages the storm wreckage of America’s 2024 election. It is not just Trump who implies that the assassination attempts against him in July and September were plots by the Democratic establishment. So does his running mate, JD Vance, his campaign staff and his various surrogates, including Musk. It is not just Trump who claims that voting on November 5 will be rigged. Standing beside him last Saturday, Musk said: “This will be the last election in America if you don’t vote.” Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, called the election a fight of “good versus evil”. 

This is not the kind of rhetoric that can be switched off the day after a defeat. Millions of Republican voters believe that very bad people are planning to rig this election. It follows that what happened on January 6 2021 was no aberration. Trump has promised to pardon the January 6 “martyrs” and release its “hostages” from jail. That also serves as a forward-looking green light for anyone who tries the same. The chances that Trump would refuse to concede should he lose are high. He faces several delayed criminal trials. Harris’s career was built on being a public prosecutor. She is unlikely to appoint a timid attorney-general. 

Plan A, of course, is to defeat Harris by any means necessary. In that quest, Musk is a powerful ally. It does not matter whether he is driven by pique — as owner of Tesla he was wounded by his exclusion from a 2021 White House summit on electric vehicles — or by his thirst for tax cuts. He may also have been on an ideological road to Damascus. To judge by Musk’s posts, he believes in the “great replacement theory”, according to which Jewish liberals are bringing in illegal voters to outnumber white Americans. 

The point is that Musk’s unmatched firepower is at Trump’s disposal. Musk is the Henry Ford of the 2024 election. The plutocratic automaker was a strong backer of Charles Lindbergh’s antisemitic America First movement in the build-up to the second world war. America now faces another gathering storm. Whoever wins a month from now, disaster relief will probably be needed.

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