In the USA the conspiracy theory goes off the rails with the train – 02/28/2023 – Paul Krugman

On February 3, a train carrying hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. Some of the contents immediately caught fire. Three days later, authorities released and burned additional material from five tank cars. Those fires caused high levels of harmful chemicals in the local air, although the Environmental Protection Agency says the pollution was not severe enough to cause long-term health damage.

Train derailments are quite common, but we can see that this one could become a political issue. After all, the Obama administration tried to improve rail safety, for example by requiring superior modern brakes on high-risk trains, and then the Trump administration reversed those regulations. Turns out those regulations probably wouldn’t have prevented the Ohio derailment because they were too limited to cover that particular train. Still, events in East Palestine seem, at first glance, to strengthen the progressive case for stronger regulation of industry and undermine the conservative case against regulation.

Instead, however, the right is on the attack, claiming the blame for the Ohio disaster lies with the Biden administration, which it says doesn’t care about white people, or is even actively hostile to them.

This is vile. It’s also amazing. As far as I can tell, right-wing commentators have just invented a new breed of conspiracy theory, which doesn’t even attempt to explain how the supposed conspiracy is supposed to work.

Conspiracy theories generally take two forms: those that involve a small, powerful group and those that require thousands of people to be in cahoots to hide the truth.

Historically, theories about powerful groups have often been linked to anti-Semitism, the belief that the Elders of Zion and/or the Rothschilds were shaping history – a view held by some really powerful people, including Henry Ford. These days, however, the most high-profile example is QAnon, with its claim that a secret network of pedophiles controls the US government. And at this point, of course, QAnon supporters wield significant power in the House Republican caucus.

The problem with secret cabal theories is that, while they are generally absurd, they are difficult to definitively disprove. Is President Biden really a shape-shifting alien lizard? The White House doctor will say no, but how do you know he’s not a lizard too?

The other type of conspiracy theory, on the contrary, seems to be easy to refute, because thousands of people would have to participate in the plot, without a single one leaving the ranks. An excellent example of this, still with great influence on the right, is the claim that climate change is a hoax. To believe that, you have to claim that thousands of scientists are conspiring to falsify the evidence. But that hasn’t stopped the belief that climate change isn’t real from becoming widespread on the political right in the United States, and perhaps even dominating it.

The Big Lie about the “stolen” 2020 election appears to fall into the same category, requiring election officials across the country to commit malfeasance. However, the vast majority of Republicans told polls that they did not believe Biden actually won.

And there’s a new conspiracy theory floating around: that the Ukraine War isn’t really happening, that it’s some kind of hoax. Who could believe that all reporting, all footage is made up? Well, Donald Trump’s first national security adviser is apparently now a real supporter of the war on Ukraine, and I won’t be surprised if we start hearing that from a lot of people on the right.

But the Ohio derailment conspiracy theory takes this to an entirely different level. When Tucker Carlson suggests it happened because East Palestine is a rural white community, with another Fox News host going so far as to say that the Biden administration is “spilling toxic chemicals on poor white people,” how could that have happened? How did Biden officials engineer a derailment of a private sector rail company, operating on privately owned tracks, that had lobbied for stricter safety regulations?

The government didn’t skimp on disaster relief either. Several federal agencies quickly arrived on the scene, and Ohio’s Republican governor said of the federal response, “I have no complaints … we’re getting the help we need.”

But it does not matter. Something bad happened to white conservatives, so surely conscious progressives, “woke”, must have been responsible.

Given what we’ve learned about Fox’s handling of allegations of a stolen election — feeding the Big Lie in public while mocking it in private — a good guess is that the network and other right-wing commentators know perfectly well that their accusations about the derailments are rubbish. But they know their audience and probably believe it’s good business to come up with racist conspiracy theories, even if they don’t make any sense.

Of course, there’s no point in appealing to the better nature of the right. But let me make a plea to the mainstream media: please don’t report this as if there is a real controversy over who is responsible for the disaster in East Palestine.

_{Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves}

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