As we've said before, if you want to understand the Republican party of 2024, you first have to understand feral disinformation in 2024.

Trump thanks Laura Loomer in Iowa. pic.twitter.com/5bearArX0o

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) January 16, 2024

Just in case you're not up to date on your conspiracy theories...

The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is a University of Alaska Fairbanks program which researches the ionosphere – the highest, ionized part of Earth's atmosphere.

The most prominent instrument at HAARP is the Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI), a high-power radio frequency transmitter facility operating in the high frequency (HF) band. The IRI is used to temporarily excite a limited area of the ionosphere. Other instruments, such as a VHF and a UHF radar, a fluxgate magnetometer, a digisonde (an ionospheric sounding device), and an induction magnetometer, are used to study the physical processes that occur in the excited region.

Initially HAARP was jointly funded by the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).^[1] It was designed and built by BAE Advanced Technologies. Its original purpose was to analyze the ionosphere and investigate the potential for developing ionospheric enhancement technology for radio communications and surveillance.^[2] Since 2015 it has been operated by the University of Alaska Fairbanks.^[3]

 ...

HAARP is the subject of numerous conspiracy theories. Various individuals have speculated about hidden motivations and capabilities of the project. For example, Rosalie Bertell warned in 1996 about the deployment of HAARP as a military weapon.^[36] Michel Chossudovsky stated in a book published by the Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform that "recent scientific evidence suggests that HAARP is fully operational and has the capability of triggering floods, hurricanes, droughts and earthquakes."^[37] Over time, HAARP has been blamed for generating such catastrophes, as well as thunderstorms, in Iran, Pakistan, Haiti, Turkey, Greece and the Philippines, and even major power outages, the downing of TWA Flight 800, Gulf War syndrome, and chronic fatigue syndrome.^[8][38][39]

 With apologies for repeating a point we've made before, a majority of the GOP believes in conspiracy theories and a substantial segment of the party bases its decisions on them.

 

When we talk about rational decision-making we inevitably are making some pretty big assumptions about beliefs and available information.  If you believe there is an all powerful group that covertly rules the world and you believe that the military industrial complex possesses and has used a secret weapon that can control the weather, it is not all that unreasonable to speculate that a freak weather event of which might help the candidate with the strongest establishment ties was engineered by that group.

We're not talking about the fringe here.  These are beliefs held by much, often most of the party and endorsed by influential figures.  Every time you see a think piece about what Republicans really want, it needs to start with a section on what Republicans really believe.