{"id":13767,"date":"2024-10-15T11:46:27","date_gmt":"2024-10-15T16:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=13767"},"modified":"2024-10-15T11:46:29","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T16:46:29","slug":"the-hurricane-conspiracy-complex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2024\/10\/15\/the-hurricane-conspiracy-complex\/","title":{"rendered":"The hurricane conspiracy complex"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The big question around these back-to-back hurricanes in the southeast U.S. is not why they are happening (that\u2019s easy enough to answer<\/a>), but why so many people<\/a> find it easier to believe they were artificially generated by the U.S. government, the \u201cdeep state,\u201d FEMA<\/a>, industry, or some euphemistic \u201cthey\u201d (and we know who \u201cthey\u201d are<\/a>) for some nefarious purpose, such as harming Republicans<\/a> before the election, seizing people\u2019s land to access lithium deposits<\/a>, testing out their space lasers, falsely convincing us that climate change is real, and so on — than it is to believe in the science of anthropogenic climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conspiracy theories have flourished in the last few weeks, and they follow in the grooves of longerstanding theories about chemtrails, geoengineering<\/a>, the deep state, the climate change “hoax,” and so on (see here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here,<\/a> and in my earlier series of posts<\/a> for some background on this).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question, then, is why some people fall for theories that are so much less congruent with known facts than the more obvious, empirically parsimonious answer — that climate change is real and getting worse, and that scientists have known and demonstrated that for years. But this isn\u2019t just about knowledge versus ignorance. It reflects a deep failure of trust in public institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the causes of that failure? In the U.S. (and in what we could call \u201cGreater America,\u201d which like a \u201clong twentieth [or any] century,” is the world beyond the U.S. that is most influenced by U.S. media discourses), I would suggest that there are three main causes, all of them quite real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

(1) Real political corruption and<\/strong> government overreach:<\/strong> That there has been a \u201crevolving door<\/a>\u201d between power and money in U.S. politics is no secret; it\u2019s a feature<\/a> of the system. And the history of U.S. governmental organizations engaging in covert practices — as with Watergate, CIA activity to overthrow democratically elected governments<\/a> or to conduct secret experiments<\/a> on people in the 1950s and 1960s, and so on — or simply lying to the public, as with the Bush administration\u2019s arguments preceding the second Iraq War, is long and undeniable. If it doesn\u2019t make you naturally skeptical of government claims, it should. That it has done so on the political left<\/a> and<\/em> on the political right makes this an “equal-opportunity” cause, and a historically deep one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(2) Real right-wing efforts to undercut public institutions and public trust in those institutions: <\/strong>The five-decade long program to discredit \u201cbig government,\u201d initiated by right-wing think tanks<\/a> in the 1970s, institutionalized under Reaganism (and Thatcherism in the U.K.), and accompanied by deregulation of media industries and declining funding for public education, public media, public science, and consumer protection, is similarly undeniable. It has borne its fruit to the extent that many Americans today live in a world shaped not by critically informed consumption of accountable media reporting on accountable politicians and accountable scientists, but by the skewed worldview<\/a> of Fox News, Breitbart, Newsmax, OAN, Sinclair Media, Donald Trump, and now X\/Elon Musk<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not that left-wing organizations are immune to skewing the news or misperceiving causes. It\u2019s just that the right is much better funded (because it represents more billionaires, whose class interest is to keep their wealth rather than share it), has been more unified in its goals (since the socially and politically \u201credistributive\u201d 1960s, against which they have been reacting), and has more to lose. (Well, we all have a planet to lose, but that\u2019s something they prefer to ignore.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in the last ten years, the work of foreign media agents has contributed dramatically to the spread of disinformation. Those foreign media agents aren\u2019t necessarily \u201cright-wing,\u201d but their interests happen to converge today with the right, as we see in Russian funding of right-wing political parties in numerous countries, the Epoch Times\u2019<\/em> support for Trumpism, and many other examples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(3) Real and, at times, growing inequalities between the beneficiaries and the victims of the neoliberal policies that have dominated U.S. and global politics since the 1980s<\/strong>: Neoliberal<\/a> economic policies (deregulation, trade agreements lacking in labor or environmental standards, et al.) have resulted in the loss of millions<\/a> of working-class jobs, with employers often moving to other countries. Losing a job is no trivial thing; it is in many ways like losing a life. Meanwhile, neoliberal policies have also<\/em> generated economic growth, with its benefits going more to those who participate more in the global economy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While they are hardly its prime beneficiaries, university-educated people (alongside Hollywood stars and cultural figures) have come to be seen as the \u201cliberal elites\u201d who\u2019ve benefited from this top-down redistribution of wealth. (That\u2019s where cause #2 has fed strongly into cause #3.) Prominent among those perceived \u201celites\u201d are scientists<\/a>, especially those whose research confirms things — like climate change — that can only be addressed through government intervention. Alongside them are the representatives of \u201cwoke culture\u201d so demonized by right-wing political actors. The idea that these groups constitute a “globalist elite” is a perception<\/em>, not exactly a reality. But the wealth gap between rural or rust belt communities decimated by neoliberal policies and well-off urbanites is real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These three causes have interacted to create the mistrust in public institutions that we have today. That includes the institutions of government (especially by Republicans when Democrats are in power), of media, of science, and of public health. The right’s (#2) shift to populism has taken full advantage of trend #3. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second part of the “big question,” then, is how to combat these misperceptions and regain public trust in the institutions we need to address today’s very real challenges. In a political environment already poisoned by polarization between mutually incompatible worldviews, that’s not easy. But explicitly acknowledging each of the above factors would be a good start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The big question around these back-to-back hurricanes in the southeast U.S. is not why they are happening (that\u2019s easy enough to answer), but why so many people find it easier to believe they were artificially generated by the U.S. government, the \u201cdeep state,\u201d FEMA, industry, or some euphemistic \u201cthey\u201d (and we know who \u201cthey\u201d are) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[520594,690660,691215],"tags":[711051,711174,520579,628446,628444,711175,520709,711173,711176,4478,16843,628587,711178,17815,455022,711177],"class_list":["post-13767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-politics","category-cultural_politics","category-politics_postpolitics","tag-climate-change","tag-climate-hoax","tag-conspiracy-culture","tag-conspiratistics","tag-conspiratology","tag-geoengineering","tag-global-media-literacy","tag-hurricanes","tag-marjorie-taylor-greene","tag-media-ecology","tag-neoliberalism","tag-network-propaganda","tag-political-corruption","tag-twitter","tag-u-s-politics","tag-x"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-3A3","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10961,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2020\/07\/30\/the-new-media-regime\/","url_meta":{"origin":13767,"position":0},"title":"The new media regime","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"July 30, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Here\u2019s a back-of-the-envelope hypothesis on the \"new media regime\" and some open questions that follow from it. Two groups are faring best these days under the current (new) media regime.* The first is surveillance capitalists, who have developed ways to monetize and harvest new data technologies directly for the accumulation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Media ecology"","block_context":{"text":"Media ecology","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/media_ecology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/07\/matrix-code.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/07\/matrix-code.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/07\/matrix-code.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9294,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2017\/06\/02\/trump-vs-the-world\/","url_meta":{"origin":13767,"position":1},"title":"Trump vs. the world","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 2, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Trump's speech on his decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord included so many questionable statements, it's hard to know where to start. Fortunately, others have. Among the better fact-checks are the Washington Post's (this one\u00a0and\u00a0this one), FactCheck.org's, NPR's, PolitiFact's, and the\u00a0Huffington Post's. Foreign Policy's summary (which comes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1198,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/02\/15\/climate-denialism-as-hysteria\/","url_meta":{"origin":13767,"position":2},"title":"climate denialism as hysteria?","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Dipping once again into the public debate around climate change science -- today it's in the responses to MIT climatologist Kerry Emanuel's op-ed in the Boston Globe, to which no less than 15 comments were added in the couple of minutes it took me to write these first couple of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"ft0p3003d3_00001.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2010\/02\/ft0p3003d3_00001.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12628,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2022\/07\/29\/readings-on-ecofascism-and-far-right-ecologism\/","url_meta":{"origin":13767,"position":3},"title":"Readings on ecofascism and far-right ecologism","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"July 29, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"While it's easy to overuse the term \"ecofascism,\" applying it to things that don't necessarily deserve it (the debate might be a little like the one I've been following over whether Putinist Russia qualifies as fascist), it's important for anyone involved in environmental issues to have a sense of where\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-culture"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecoculture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/EcQmYSeE4rc\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13434,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2023\/12\/09\/angel-of-apocalyptic-history\/","url_meta":{"origin":13767,"position":4},"title":"Angel of Apocalyptic History","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"December 9, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"My talk at the recent \"Apocalyptic Anxieties\" conference, at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, is available for viewing at the SFU Institute for the Humanities YouTube page, or below. Here is an abstract of the talk: From the Angel of Apocalyptic History to the Optimism of the Will: Climate Hope\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthropocene"","block_context":{"text":"Anthropocene","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/anthropo_scene\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10288,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2019\/12\/02\/the-epistemically-challenged-states-of-america\/","url_meta":{"origin":13767,"position":5},"title":"The Epistemically Challenged States of America","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"December 2, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Or, Why Ukraine- and Russia- literacy should now be mandatory studies for every voting American One could start with another question: Why are both the politics of climate change and politics in general so polarized these days? Political polarization, after all, remains the main complaint of Americans, and it has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cultural politics"","block_context":{"text":"Cultural politics","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/cultural_politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/ifwtWF485HU\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13767"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13778,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13767\/revisions\/13778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}