Liar, Liar...LA is on fire

At a moment of extraordinary human vulnerability and loss the immediate reaction of Trump, Musk and the right wing media was to lie about what was going on. So what is going on?

Photo by David Swanson / AFP

January 7th was my first day out of the house in weeks. I had spent the holidays like a hermit, doing little more than writing and researching for an upcoming project. Like many of us, I was emerging from my cave to re-engage with the world.

I flew to Los Angeles, where my business partner picked me up for a meeting in Beverly Hills. It was one of those ‘down and up’ trips that are so common in California - first flight down and last flight back in the evening.

Traffic wasn’t too bad by LA standards. We caught up on the freeway, talking about the holidays, family, and business plans for the new year. Inevitably, the conversation turned to Trump’s bizarre plans for Greenland, the Panama Canal, and the Gulf of America, and how we are bracing for more of the circus-level antics from our federal government – antics we hoped were behind us. Somewhere during our debate on the damage being done to our alliances, we noticed smoke on the horizon and then a series of fire engines maneuvering through traffic - a sight to behold if you’re not from LA.

“Looks like a fire,” my partner said. “Near the Palisades or hills around Malibu.”

We thought nothing more of it. In Southern California, fires are as common as road rage. We made our way to the meeting, and after three hours there and a quick stop at a WeWork for a Zoom call, we got back to the car to find the horizon eerily orange. Traffic was backing up, and the winds were ripping stronger than your typical Santa Ana dust-up.

Traffic was horrendous. Despite leaving with plenty of time, there was no way I was going to make my flight. I rescheduled to fly out of Orange County instead. The inbound flight to LA was one of the most turbulent I’d ever experienced, and there was every expectation from the attendant that the return flight would be far worse.

“Hurricane-level winds,” she said.

While switching flights on my phone, I checked BlueSky for breaking news on the fire and found nothing substantial. Reluctantly, I turned to Twitter (X), where I’ve cut back my time considerably. Unfortunately, Twitter remains far and away a better app for breaking news.

However, the fires in Los Angeles exposed how Twitter has also become a dangerous source of misinformation during crises. This was a story unfolding minute by minute and the kind of situation where Twitter once shined. I distinctly remember the moment I realized Twitter was an invaluable part of our new media and news ecosystem - it was during the live manhunt and chase of the Boston Marathon bombers that live news was being reported by citizens before reporters even knew what was happening.

This was going to be one of those moments…until it wasn’t.

Almost immediately, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and other right-wing online influencers used the moment of great human fear and despair to attack ‘wokeism’, DEI, and liberal politicians. While most of these attacks were complete nonsense and outright lies, the deeper issue was that the immediate response from some of the loudest voices on the planet was to attack and destroy rather than help at a time when human decency should have prevailed.

These fires had nothing to do with raking the chaparral (you can’t safely do controlled burns in urban areas) or water reservoirs. Yes, water storage is a very real issue in California, but reservoir capacity is at an all-time high. Nor was it about the failure of elected officials to regulate water pressure. Water pressure problems result from gravity between high and low-lying levels of outlets, not mismanagement. A false rumor about a $17 million cut in LA firefighting budgets ricocheted around the internet rapidly, when in fact, the budget for LAFD increased by millions last year. Worse, somehow this became about the sexual orientation of the woman in charge of the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Hurricane-level winds and an extremely dry environment make for a fast-moving tinderbox. No amount of water, manpower, or manicured hillsides can stop that basic fact. We have not developed the technology to fight fires in winds that move at 100mph because we’re not used to winds at that speed in California.

Another false claim suggested that Joe Biden’s presence in LA grounded firefighting planes, preventing the use of fire retardants. In reality, helicopters and drop planes were grounded due to dangerously high winds – not presidential security. And no, you can’t create a firebreak in a cul-de-sac of homes. Isn’t it strange how disasters in blue states are blamed on local politicians, but hurricanes in Florida or North Carolina are blamed on federal bureaucrats and the deep state?

It’s always the enemy. Always.

This will likely be the costliest disaster in California history, and within hours of its unfolding, we have already been fed an onslaught of lies moving faster across the internet than the fires across the Southland. Memes blaming DEI initiatives, or Trump’s mindboggling statement about the Delta Smelt, were completely false. Disinformation has become its own wildfire – and that’s no coincidence.

That’s the greater threat we face at the moment.

When leadership requires humanity, we get despotism. When tragedy calls for community, we get division. When cooperation is essential to overcome the massive forces of nature, we get finger-pointing and blame. When our safety requires accurate data and information, we get lies, lies, and more lies. Every time.

Trump will have more than a bullhorn and the bully pulpit this time. He will have Twitter (X) directly pushing falsehoods, not just echoing them. There will be Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax all conspiring to spread his falsehoods. Facebook will no longer be using fact-checkers because Zuckerberg chooses instead to kiss the ring in a thinly veiled effort to maintain AI competitiveness. Bezos is silencing dissenting voices at the Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times announced it will be putting bias meters on its own articles after adding pro-MAGA voices to its editorial board.

The goal is control. To force submission to the loudest voices and their distorted version of “truth”. It is designed to erode everyone’s faith in reality until we all acquiesce to whatever outrageous narrative is being told. These fires are a tragedy – but it’s horrifying to think that the destruction of homes and property may be the least of what we’ve lost.