Will More People Vote For Marjorie Traitor Greene Now That She's Warning Them About Evil Eclipses?

Folks In Floyd, Whitfield, Catoosa Counties See Nature Same Way She Does

Historically, many ancient cultures interpreted eclipses as signs or omens from the gods, often viewing them as warnings or portents of impending doom. For example, Babylonian astronomers were among the first to record and predict eclipses. They believed that eclipses, especially solar eclipses, were omens and messages sent by the gods, invariably indicating displeasure or impending disaster. Similarly, in ancient Greek culture, eclipses were also viewed by many as ominous signs, interpreted as signs of anger from the gods. Chinese records dating back to at least the Shang Dynasty (1600–1046 BCE) document observations and interpretations of eclipses and claimed they were the result of a dragon devouring the sun or moon. They performed rituals such as drumming and making loud noises to scare away the dragon. Even as recently as medieval Europe, when Christianity was already the dominant belief system in Europe, eclipses were often interpreted through a primitive religious lens and seen as divine warnings or manifestations of God's displeasure. Some saw eclipses as signs of the apocalypse or impending disaster, leading to calls for repentance, prayer and donating to the Church.

The primitive mind still views eclipses and calamitous natural events like storms and earthquakes as signs of divine intervention or impending calamity. For educated people, with advancements in science and astronomy, man’s understanding of eclipses has evolved, and they are now primarily viewed as natural phenomena caused by the alignment of celestial bodies. However, echoes of the ancient beliefs and superstitions surrounding eclipses can still be found in some cultures today. Take northwest Georgia, one of the most backward areas in the Western Hemisphere.

Yesterday, the woman they sent to DC to represent them in Congress, crackpot Marjorie Traitor Greene— best known as a conspiracy nut who regularly makes insane claims unrelated to objective reality (like Jewish space lasers causing wildfires) sent this Tweet out to her followers:

The psychological background of beliefs surrounding eclipses, particularly those held by people who still interpret them in a supernatural or religious context today, is best understood through psychological frameworks like cognitive bias, a tendency for primitive and uneducated humans like Traitor Greene to seek patterns and assign meaning to random events. When faced with phenomena like eclipses, which can be awe-inspiring and seemingly beyond human control, someone like her and the kind of people who vote for her will invariably be more inclined to interpret them as messages from a higher power. People in that part of Georgia also have a tendency to attribute human-like characteristics, intentions, and emotions to natural phenomena (anthropomorphism) which leads superstitious people who don’t understand modern— monotheism— religions to interpret events like eclipses as deliberate actions by a supernatural entity, such as a deity expressing anger or delivering a message.

For someone like Tailor Greene there will always be a tendency to perceive intentional actions behind ambiguous stimuli. In the case of eclipses, she’ll detect agency where there is none, attributing the phenomenon to the actions of gods, spirits, or other supernatural beings and in primitive cultures like the one found in northwest Georgia people are more likely to interpret eclipses through a superstitious lens the way she was doing in her tweet yesterday. Belief in supernatural explanations for eclipses also stem from a desire for control and a fear of the unknown. By attributing eclipses to the actions of gods or spirits, someone like Traitor Greene and MAGAts in general feel a sense of control through rituals, prayers, or other actions aimed at appeasing these supernatural entities and mitigating potential harm.

That said, it’s worth noting that God sent the earthquake on Friday to warn heathens like Traitor Greene and the people who voted her into office to repent— putting the epicenter right next to Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, a sure sign that God wants Jack Smith to close down the ridiculous farce of a prosecution in Florida and move the stolen secret documents case to New Jersey.

Click-- no Georgia accent

I asked my friend Jill, a cognitive scientist about Traitor Greene’s tweet. “Overall,” she told me, “the psychological background of beliefs about eclipses involves a complex interplay of cognitive biases, cultural influences, emotional responses and the human tendency to seek meaning and control in the face of natural phenomena. These factors contribute to the persistence of supernatural interpretations of eclipses among certain individuals and communities, despite scientific explanations being available. Your friend Marjorie probably isn’t a believer in Jesus Christ but still identifies as some kind of a ‘Christian.’ She really doesn’t belong in any kind of a leadership position. I’m going to guess she’s a Republican, probably from the South. Is that correct?”