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.

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.

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........

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