07 May
News and Analyses, A Foreign Perspective
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World Politics
United States
Former Massey Energy CEO, convicted in deadly mine disaster, seeks party’s nod to fight for ‘West Virginia people’, not ‘China people’
Don Blankenship has targeted Mitch McConnell while his opponents target each other. Photograph: Steve Helber/AP
After the Upper Big Branch mining disaster of April 2010, in which 29 people died, the former Massey Energy chief executive Don Blankenship was found guilty of willfully violating mine safety and health standards. Sentenced to 12 months in prison, he was released in May last year.
On Tuesday, he could win the Republican nomination for US Senate in West Virginia.
The millionaire is in the middle of a chaotic three-man race, with the US congressman Evan Jenkins and the state attorney general, Patrick Morrisey. The winner will take on an incumbent Democrat, Joe Manchin, in a state Donald Trump won by nearly 40 points.
There are few polls in West Virginia, but those that have been carried out have shown large numbers of undecided voters. The rough consensus among pundits is that Jenkins and Morrisey are neck and neck, with Blankenship just a bit behind. In a state that includes areas of metropolitan Washington and Pittsburgh as well as Appalachian coal fields, it is difficult for any candidate to break through, particularly as registered Republicans are still outnumbered by Democrats.
There are few ideological divides in the Republican race, which has proved a contest to see who can best pledge fealty to Donald Trump and in doing so distance themselves furthest from the Washington swamp he famously pledged to drain.
On Monday morning, Trump weighed in. He did not do so because Blankenship has run controversial television ads in which he talks about “China people”. He attacked because the former CEO is seen to be unelectable in the general election.
“To the great people of West Virginia,” the president tweeted. “We have, together, a really great chance to keep making a big difference. Problem is, Don Blankenship, currently running for Senate, can’t win the General Election in your State … No way! Remember Alabama. Vote Rep. Jenkins or A.G. Morrisey!”
Nationally, Republicans started to run anti-Blankenship ads in April. They did not just focus on the Upper Big Branch disaster. Instead, they attacked him for pumping “toxic coal slurry” underground while using a private system to give his own mansion clean water. The ads ended with a question: “Isn’t there enough toxic sludge in Washington?”
If you reckon the 11 September terrorist attacks might have been an “inside job” or there is a nefarious new world order doing whatever it is the illuminati do, what are you likely to think about the causes of climate change?
Academics have suggested that people who tend to accept conspiracy theories also underplay or reject the science showing humans are causing rapid and dangerous climate change.
But a new study that tested this idea across 24 different countries found the link between so-called “conspiratorial ideation” and “climate scepticism” only really holds in the US.
University of Queensland psychology professor Matthew Hornsey and colleagues surveyed 5,300 people to test the link between climate “scepticism” and acceptance of four internationally propagated conspiracy theories around the assassination of President Kennedy, the 11 September terrorist attacks, the death of Princess Diana and the existence of a new world order.
Conservatism and climate
The study also tried to tease out the links between the rejection of human-caused climate change and the ideologies that people hold.
It’s here that the study offers the greatest cause for hope, Hornsey says. He has developed a form of “jiujitsu” persuasion technique that he thinks might work.
There’s been a general acceptance that people who have broadly conservative or rightwing ideologies tend to rail against climate science because it rubs their worldview up the wrong way. That is, that tackling climate change will require broad interventions from governments.
But Hornsey’s study finds that “there is nothing inherent to conspiratorial ideation or conservative ideologies that predisposes people to reject climate science”.
Instead, it suggests vested interests have managed to reshape the conservative identity with “ignorance-building strategies” in two countries – the US and Australia.
Hornsey agreed to expand on the study by answering further questions by email.
You found that in the US people’s climate “scepticism” was more aligned to a conservative worldview than any other country surveyed. Why do you think the US is in this position?
I think it’s a result of two things. First, a lot of the big business interests that are threatened by climate change are situated in the US. My overall argument is that there’s nothing inherent to political conservatism that makes people want to reject climate science.
Rather, the link between conservatism and climate scepticism only emerges in countries that are economically threatened by the notion of responding to climate change. When the vested interests are high (in terms of the fossil fuel industry, for example) then there is more of a motivation for big business to engage in an organised campaign of misinformation around climate change. These campaigns often develop as a collaboration between the fossil fuel industry and conservative thinktanks, media and politicians, and are designed to “coach” conservatives to believe that the climate science is not yet settled. From this perspective, conservatives don’t spontaneously feel the need to reject climate science; they only do so when they are taking their cues from conservative elites, and these cues only emerge when the economic stakes are high.
Second, America has an unusually intense brand of conservatism, one that has a particularly strong opposition to government interference in the free market. Climate science is a nightmare for these people, because in some ways it does imply a big-government response designed to regulate industry.
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