Ryan Coogan: Why Elon Musk’s hurricane of misinformation has finally gone too far

With Hurricane Milton making its way to the Florida coast, Ryan Coogan explains why conspiracy theories promoted by right wingers on Twitter/X could make this terrifying disaster even worse – especially for Republicans

A Lee County Sheriff’s officer patrols the streets of Cape Coral, Florida (Marta Lavandier/AP)

Being a Democrat sounds like hard work. There are all those satanic meetings to attend; all those vaccine microchips to keep track of; and, according to Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, they even control the weather.

Yes, the American political right has continued its rapid divorce from reality, amping up the conspiracy rhetoric in recent years to levels that your craziest uncle would call “totally reasonable and proportionate”. No claim is too wild, no story too out-there. It would honestly be funny, if it didn’t have the potential to get so many people killed.