Weather Machines

 In his 1941 memoir of wartime France, Scum of the Earth (a book that seeks to trace the psychological and historical roots of France's ignominious capitulation in the face of Nazi aggression)—Arthur Koestler at one point shares a particularly instructive episode of political history. 

He notes that Leon Blum's left-wing Popular Front government in the 1930s at one point undertook a program for the relief of French farmers. Having noticed that the farmers were getting shafted on payments to a retail monopoly, the Blum administration stepped in to buy produce from the farmers directly. As a result, payments to farmers increased several times over. 

One might think that this would generate some good will for Blum's socialists in rural France. But au contraire. 

Koestler explains that the French fascists immediately started circulating a rumor that the government was holding out on the farmers. Even though Blum's policy had more than tripled the money they received for their produce—this very increase (the fascists discovered) could be used to plant a seed of suspicion against the administration. 

"If they can increase the payments that much, then they must have even more money they aren't telling you about. They must be holding it back!" the argument went. And of course, it didn't take long for the fascists to sprinkle in some antisemitism against Blum to really make the argument stick. 

The French fascists propagandizing in this way, meanwhile—Koestler laconically notes—were mostly funded by the same retail monopolies who had previously been stiffing the farmers on payments, before the government stepped in to stop it.  

I couldn't help but think—when I read this passage last weekend—that it captured something profound about our political era as well. After all, the past four years have been a lesson in how little good will a center-left administration receives for policies that actually help people; and how easy it is to get people to vote against their own interests if you know how to work the primal veins of bigotry. 

Biden, after all, spent four years creating clean energy jobs that overwhelmingly flowed to deeply conservative rural areas. He provided federal aid to counties decimated by climate disasters in North Carolina and elsewhere—while promoting climate-friendly initiatives that would help prevent these kinds of catastrophes from occurring in future. 

Trump, meanwhile, has spent his first six months in office slashing food and medical aid that rural communities rely on; eliminating green energy initiatives that would help mitigate climate change; and dismantling federal agencies like NOAA and the National Weather Service that help save lives during natural disasters. 

Then, a horrific disaster strikes rural Texas—in the form of historic flooding. And what happens? The right-wing propaganda machine springs to life. It cries: the Democrats must have caused the disaster by secretly manipulating the weather! Marjorie Taylor Greene gets in on the act—introducing legislation in the House of Representatives promoting bizarre conspiracy theories about weather-control. (So the Guardian reports.)

The actual fact—namely, that Trump is cutting funds for the programs that respond to and mitigate these kinds of climate-fueled disasters—is immediately buried in ludicrous lies. The real conspiracy—cutting life-saving government programs and then trying to shift the blame when innocent people predictably lose their lives as a result—is too obvious and out in the open to be interesting. 

So people invent outré fantasies—like that the "deep state" must have seeded the clouds in order to drown the people of Texas. 

The same thing happened with the North Carolina hurricanes last year. The truth about federal support for affected communities was quickly lost amid a welter of AI-generated deepfakes showing preposterous scenes that anyone should have been able to detect immediately were obvious frauds—like Donald Trump personally wading into the flood waters in order to rescue puppies. 

Apparently, the facts of political psychology haven't changed much between the 1930s and the present.  The "Big Belly" depicted in Brecht's "Song of the Stormtrooper" still knows how the game is played—find a scapegoat; point a finger at the Left; at immigrants; at Jews; at minorities—at anyone just so long as no one points a finger at the real culprit—Big Belly himself. 

I don't say that these kinds of scams always work. I still think it's the case that you can't fool all the people all the time. I still think people eventually see through propaganda and lies—even if it takes a while. And so—I still say—with Carl Sandburg—that when that day comes:

When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.

The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.