The formula for quick-rise hate
It's a modular form of self-radicalization, the IKEA of bigotry
Just to underscore the point I made in my last essay, we now see far right-wing figures doing their level best to cast blame for the LA fires on lesbian firefighters and Black people. “DEI equals DIE” is the quip, according to Hasan Piker, noting that Matt Walsh and Libs of TikTok are the two most visible bigots in this brigade.
What I mean to scrutinize here, however, are 1) the timing and 2) the conveyance.
The event is one of great visibility and tremendous human misery. Many people are tuned into this news story, whether or not they know someone who is directly affected. Realistically, the story has eclipsed even the insane saber-rattling of Donald Trump earlier this week, where he threatened to militarily invade the territories of allied countries. The fires are absolutely gripping.
Not to let a disaster go to waste, the xenophobes, racists and bigots have come out to piggyback on this crisis, so as to associate this misery with go-to scapegoats in the minds of their followers.
That’s the formula, one that has been in effect for many years now. The point I was making the other day, though, was that due to our current media environment — exacerbated just this week with Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement of the canning of fact checkers at Meta — we will now see an efflux of this intentional spreading of conspiracy theories. The spread will go unchecked and will flourish.
The insinuation regarding the LA firefighting brass is that the fire chief, Kristin Crowley, who is female and a lesbian, is responsible for the fire raging out of control. This then is meant to cast her as incompetent, as a person hired for no other reason than to meet a quota.
Matt Walsh, host and commentator at the Daily Wire, tweeted,
Los Angeles deliberately set out to exclude white men from becoming firefighters, and now they don’t have enough firefighters to prevent their city from burning to the ground. DEI is a cancer that destroys everything it touches.
This idea, as Piker notes, is so far from reality as to be excruciatingly insane. A person cannot reach that level of responsibility without also having an enormous track record of skill, training, and accomplishment.
These bad-faith critics intentionally malign what DEI actually is so as to denigrate anyone who could possibly fall under its auspices. The underlying supposition is that competence can only be found in “non-DEI” candidates — i.e., White males. This is entirely illogical but acquires the force of emotion (and thus a sense of validity) when tied to these wrenching stories.
That’s what this 21st-century rumor mill will do. We’re seeing it in many places, including, for example, Elon Musk’s interference with British politics with his libelous statements about a grooming sex scandal. His words have helped to inflame anti-Pakistani views in a case that has been investigated and already addressed and which certainly does not implicate all people of Pakistani descent.
The same thing occurred with the brouhaha from the summer over Imane Khelif, the female boxer in the Olympics who was rumored to have been transgender (she is not, but that was the word that was plastered all over the right-wing media ecosphere). Her eligibility was seen as unfair, as fraudulent, and it was by her participation that the right wingers were able to insert their bigotry against transgender people into a story where that issue didn’t even figure.
Recall also Trump’s pinning of a supposed lack of funds at FEMA during Hurricane Helene, claiming that administrators misappropriation those funds towards immigrants instead. “They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank,” Trump said.
This was false, but the truth or the falsity of the claim was not of importance. The point was to deepen animosity toward those deemed undeserving, those Not Like Us, in a time of suffering, chaos and confusion.
There’s a formula: you pick apart the crisis, you pair the crisis with an emotional plight, then you pin the plight on a pre-selected scapegoat. Wash, rinse, repeat.
We’re going to see more of this. Honestly, it’s bewildering, how those who get snookered by this get taken every time. We should all be aware of it, as it’s meant to pit us one against the other.
Seems that the larger purpose they hope to achieve is to push us all to run toward white males for proper governance. Over the last few decades, as people with expertise who happen to be not white males get opportunities, they feel SO threatened. They just will not accept equality. Unfortunately, the big big money bags, like Musk, are gaining power. Manipulation. Distraction. And exploiting awful tragedy.