Paul Krugman: Why 'vile racist conspiracy theories' on Ohio train derailment 'make no logical sense'

28 February 2023

Almost a month has passed since a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials derailed near East Palestine, Ohio. Since then, residents of East Palestine — which is near the Pennsylvania state line and is about 40 miles northwest of Pittsburgh — have been complaining of headaches, nausea, skin rashes and other ailments. And Erin Brockovich, the environmental activist famously portrayed by Julia Roberts in a 2000 movie, has been sounding the alarm and warning that residents of the Rust Belt town are facing an environmental nightmare.

\MAGA Republicans have had an overtly partisan response to the crisis, pointing the finger at President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. And some of them, including former President Donald Trump, Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk and Fox News host Tucker Carlson, have described the suffering in East Palestine as a racial issue and claimed that Democrats are neglecting East Palestine residents because they are mostly white, conservative, working class and Republican.

Liberal economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is vehemently critical of GOP responses to East Palestine in his February 27 column, emphasizing that "racist conspiracy theories" about the tragedy are not only "vile" — they also "make no logical sense."

"The events in East Palestine would seem, on the face of it, to strengthen the progressive case for stronger regulation of industry and hurt the conservative case against regulation," Krugman explains. "Instead, however, the right is on the attack, claiming that blame for the disaster in Ohio rests on the Biden Administration, which it says doesn't care about or is even actively hostile to white people. This is vile. It's also amazing. As far as I can tell, right-wing commentators have just invented a whole new class of conspiracy theory — one that doesn’t even try to explain how the alleged conspiracy is supposed to work."

The economist/Times columnist notes that MAGA Republicans have been pushing a variety of conspiracy theories, from claiming that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump to saying that "the war in Ukraine isn't really happening, that it’s some kind of fake." But claiming that Democrats are indifferent to the East Palestine horror because of the victims are mostly white, according to Krugman, takes "conspiracy theorizing” to "a whole other level."

"When Tucker Carlson suggests that this 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 is this even supposed to have worked?" Krugman argues. "How did Biden officials engineer a derailment by a private-sector train company, running on privately owned track, which lobbied against stronger safety regulations?…. Something bad happened to conservative white people, so surely, woke progressives must have been responsible."

Read Paul Krugman’s full New York Times column at this link (subscription required).

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