New York (AFP) – Was it God feeling angry? A dire portent? Or perhaps Joe Biden’s superhero alter ego pursuing Donald Trump? Many were reluctant to admit that the 4.8 magnitude earthquake rattling New York on Friday was just an unimpressive little shake. This is New York after all. And with a rare total eclipse set to blot out the sun up the eastern United States on Monday, some are already looking for answers. “God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent. Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come,” Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene — a noted conspiracy theorist even in normal times — wrote on X. “I pray that our country listens,” she posted.
On the other side of the political spectrum, some spotted that the epicenter of the quake was close to Trump’s New Jersey golf club in Bedminster. The MeidasTouch group, which opposes Trump, highlighted the New Jersey map under a meme of “Dark Brandon” — a version of Biden in which the 81-year-old president is depicted grinning with red laser beams shooting from his eyes. Others poked fun at the doomsayers with a little doomsaying of their own. “Old Gypsy woman: *turns over a tarot card that shows an Earthquake in NYC just days before a total solar eclipse*,” wrote Robert McNees, described as a physicist, on X. “Sources say that New Yorkers should expect a swarm of locusts following the earthquake, floods and eclipse. Rumblings of concern about plagues so soon before Passover,” another poster on X wrote.
New York is also the US media capital, ensuring an unparalleled ratio between the number of journalists and relative lack of news to cover. In the ensuing race for original headlines, perhaps The Guardian will be recorded as the winner, with: “US man was getting vasectomy as earthquake struck.” According to the article, he emerged from the experience as smoothly as everyone else in the city that never sleeps. “It mostly felt like a speed bump,” he told the outlet.
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