How culture wars work: The example of the gas stove battle

Demagoguery: political activity or practices that seek support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by using rational argument; the term is formally applied to just democracies, but I apply it to all kinds of political regimes including autocracies, theocracies, plutocracies, kleptocracies and the like 

Virtue signaling demagoguery

Summery: How culture war works

This, or fairly close variants, is how America’s radical right political, religious, commercial and social culture war works.

• Find an issue that can be weaponized, preferably on moral grounds, e.g., climate change, gun safety laws, abortion or gas stoves
• Demagogue it to appeal to emotion like bigotry and irrational fear to maximize public disinformation, confusion, distrust, polarization, irrational fear, anger and other emotion-driven irrationality
• Find and quietly fund experts to publicly lend credibility to the demagogues (or liars-deceivers-dividers)
• Unleash the conspiracy theory crackpots and fund their divisive free speech to pollute as many minds as possible with their cynical dark free speech
• Use free speech (campaign  contributions) to buy sympathetic politicians and powerful bureaucrats by pandering to their ideologies and their self-interest
• Let already sympathetic anti-democratic politicians demagogue[1] the issue on their own, with or without special interest input 
• Maintain a well-funded torrent of demagoguery, lies, slanders and the like for as many years or decades as needed to kill the threat, or to delay it as long as possible

That is how it works every time. That’s probably how it has worked for decades or centuries. The NYT describes the current gas stove culture war:

When Multnomah County in Oregon convened a recent public hearing on the health hazards posed by pollution from gas stoves, a toxicologist named Julie Goodman was the first to testify.

Studies linking gas stoves to childhood asthma, which have prompted talk of gas-stove bans in recent weeks and months, were “missing important context,” she said. Levels of pollutants in the kitchen, particularly a well-ventilated one, were negligible, Dr. Goodman told people at the November meeting. In fact, she said, the simple act of cooking itself, “baking, frying and sautéing,” also released emissions that had nothing to do with gas.

What Dr. Goodman didn’t tell the crowd was that she was paid to testify by a local gas provider. Dr. Goodman is a toxicologist who works for Gradient, a consulting firm that provides environmental reviews for corporations. She appeared at the county hearing on behalf of NW Natural, the local utility that is heavily reliant on gas, an affiliation she didn’t state during her testimony.

In recent months, Dr. Goodman has also worked with the American Gas Association, the industry’s main lobby group, to help it counter health concerns linked to gas.  

In an interview, Dr. Goodman said she was transparent about the approach and processes she followed in her research, including disclosing the funding she receives. She said that it had been an oversight not to have mentioned that she had been paid to testify at the Multnomah hearing on behalf of the gas utility, and she said that the opinions she expressed represented her own, not necessarily the utility’s.  

She said she wasn’t saying that the epidemiological studies showed that gas cooking doesn’t cause asthma. Still, “when considering the entire body of literature, the available epidemiology evidence is not adequate to support causation with respect to gas stoves and adverse health effects,” she said.

Whether many Americans will continue to cook and warm their homes with gas, or instead switch to electricity, has become one of the most divisive issues in public health, as well as the fight over climate action.  

The gas industry has fought back. In at least 20 mostly Republican-led states, gas utilities have persuaded lawmakers to pass bills that forbid cities from pursuing prohibitions on gas, calling them too restrictive and costly.

In the quoted parts of the NYT article, one can see some of the prominent traits in culture war tactics. The expert attacks the evidence of adverse health effects as inadequate. Both the cigarette and oil industries argued for decades that the evidence was inadequate and more research was needed. Both of those industries still argue that the evidence is inadequate for (1) the second hand cigarette smoke issue, and (2) the climate change issue. That is standard culture war delay, deceive and confuse tactics.

Also note the crackpottery and lies that Goodman spews. She claims that her opinions were her own, not the utility’s. That is a bald-faced lie. No utility is ever going to pay any expert to publicly say anything that they believe is threatening to their revenues and profits. This is standard culture war quiet deceit tactics. 

It is also worth noting that Goodman is a public relations consultant, not a practicing scientist. She is a hired gun. Consultants will say just about whatever her clients pay her to say, otherwise they would have few or no clients.

Also note that corrupted radical right Republican politicians are in the mix. Focusing on and corrupting rigid ideologues is also a standard culture war tactic. Ideologues are usually much easier to corrupt and manipulate than realists because their ideology is right and everything contradictory or inconvenient is despicable garbage and lies.

Finally, NPR commented on how fast and easily the culture war gas stove front opened up:

Gas stoves became part of the culture war in less than a week. Here’s why.

At the beginning of January 2023, the health and climate effects of gas cooking stoves in homes was an issue policy makers and academics were studying.

Then, on Jan. 9, Bloomberg News published an interview with Richard Trumka, Jr., a commissioner on the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, who suggested that the government might consider stricter regulation of new gas stoves in response to health concerns about indoor air quality.

Within days, those stoves had become fodder for partisan influencers and campaign merchandise.

“God. Guns. Gas Stoves,” wrote U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, (R-Ohio) on Twitter.

Florida Gov. Ron Desantis’ political organization quickly came out with aprons for sale in the style of a yellow Gadsden flag, once an icon of the Tea Party, but with a gas stove where the rattlesnake usually sits.

“Not only is Biden coming for your paycheck, he is coming for your stove. You heard me right. The White House is now attempting to ban all gas ovens and burners,” said Fox News host Sean Hannity.

Each of these pro-stove declarations came after Trumka had already clarified that the agency “isn't coming for anyone's gas stoves.”

Footnote:

1. In my firm opinion, demagoguery is inherently anti-democratic because it takes power from citizens to form beliefs and act on the basis of facts, truths and sound reasoning. By definition, demagoguery relies on denying, distorting or downplaying inconvenient facts, truths and sound reasoning. Control of power is why dictators, theocrats, plutocrats, kleptocrats and the like are almost always hard core demagogues. For average citizens, knowledge is power, while ignorance and false belief is weakness. Dictators, theocrats and the rest want that power for themselves and they always rely on serious demagoguery to get it .