With searches still ongoing for the six people who are missing in the wake of the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) joined other far-right conspiracy theorists in questioning whether the disaster was “intentional” on Tuesday afternoon.
The congresswoman was elevating to the mainstream what some right-wingers were already spewing online by the time the sun rose on the tragedy Tuesday morning. Some Twitter conspiracy theorists began suggesting something nefarious overnight, with many latching onto the baseless and far-fetched notion that Israel was behind the attack, in retaliation for the passage of a United Nations ceasefire agreement in Gaza. Others argued Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies in the U.S. had something to do with the crash.
The talk from no-namers on Elon Musk’s Twitter was quickly picked up by the usual far-right dudes who often use any tragic event to elevate talk of global war and feverishly declare the need for an uprising against the government: Andrew Tate, Alex Jones and Michael Flynn. Jones, well known for his role in spreading conspiracy theories about the parents of murdered Sandy Hook children, suggested the collapse was likely part of a broader “cyber-attack” and cryptically declared “WW3 has already started..”
Flynn latched onto Tate’s baseless claims that the accident was a precursor to a larger “Black Swan event.” Tate is, of course, the right-wing social media influencer who has been charged with rape and human trafficking in Romania.
“So first of all, Black Swan events are usually from the financial world, right? Well this actually will impact the financial world for sure,” Flynn, the national security adviser during Trump’s first month in the White House, told Jones Tuesday.
“But these are events that happen — that you know, you just can’t imagine that something like this is gonna happen,” he continued, before arguing without evidence that “absolutely we cannot” take “the idea that this was a terrorist attack off the table.”
Solid stuff.
By mid-day, slightly (slightly) less unhinged people like Conservative Political Action Committee leader Matt Schlapp began blaming everything from COVID-19 mitigation policies to drugs to President Biden’s infrastructure bill for the accident, claiming the legislation was too focused on climate policies.
While it is still early in the the aftermath of the collapse, authorities have already declared that upon preliminary investigation there is not reason to believe there was any foul play surrounding the incident. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore announced Tuesday that the ship issued a “mayday” call and lost power just before it ran into the bridge.
“There is no specific and credible information to suggest any ties to terrorism at this time,” the FBI’s Baltimore field office posted on Twitter. “The investigation is ongoing.”
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