Scott Gurvey's Public Offerings

Give us a break. My California friends have been teasing me over the northeast’s breathless reaction: “Breaking News: Earthquake Shakes New Jersey and Surrounding Areas.” The lede read:

New Jersey, April 5, 2024 — A 4.8 magnitude earthquake sent boredom tremors through the New York City area and parts of New Jersey this morning. The temblor struck at approximately 10:20 a.m. and was centered about 5 miles east of Lebanon, New Jersey.

MSN/USA Today

I felt it, but I wasn’t sure what it was until I saw the bulletins. I did feel a 4.0 aftershock about 6:00 p.m. The only other earthquake I’ve ever felt occurred when I was in Palm Springs.

In California, I am told, it is not unusual to feel a quake every other month and until the Richter scale magnitude of the quake hits seven, there is little to worry about. In fact, reports indicate other than the appearance of a few cracks in an apartment building in Newark, which did not impact the livability of the structure, there was no damage and no injury to people. Still, the event stands out as one of the strongest felt in New Jersey in many years. So, there was a certain “novelty” factor at play.

In asking you to give us a little understanding for our reaction, I ask you to consider that the quake was a welcome break from the boredom of news around here. I don’t know what monopilizes the headlines in other parts of the country, but here in the Northeast it has been a constant parade of Trump. Trump trials. Trump finances. Trump speeches. Trump social media posts. It seems to never end, never change, and it doesn’t respect normal living hours because Trump posts his scathing attacks on anyone who opposes him at all hours of the day and night.

New York is also the home to the criminal hush-money case involving Stormy Daniels. And the civil case accusing Trump and his companies of scheming to dupe banks with financial statements inflating his wealth. And the civil case Trump has already lost to E. Jean Carroll for his continued social media posts about her claims that he sexually assaulted her. He previously lost a New York case for the original assault and defamation.

The quake knocked all this right off the front page, at least for the day. And it occupied hours and hours of cable TV time. It also managed to lead the national television network news. That is not unusual, all but CNN are based in New York City. Since there was really nothing beyond the headline to report the wall-to-wall coverage looked a little silly after an hour or so, but it was a break from our monotony.

So, I ask you to give us a pass and just smile at our overreaction. We got back to the same old same old same old soon enough.

By the time the day had ended Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who famously claimed that Jewish space lasers were the cause of the California wildfires, got religious posting on social media that events should be heeded as an omen from God. “God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent,” Greene wrote on X. “Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come. I pray that our country listens.”

The claim was quickly qualified by the platform’s review community, which wrote that “Monday’s eclipse was predicted hundreds of years ago, it will not have been caused by contemporary actions,” and that “earthquakes occur naturally and happen (on average) more than 30 times a day across the world, although many are too subtle to feel.” But flagging the truth didn’t stop Greene’s theory from gaining traction online and circulating through the far-right ecosystem.

It may be, however, that Green is on to something. I took note that the earthquake’s epicenter was just a few miles from Donald Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Message from above, maybe?

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