MAGA-inspired outrage machine has a new target in this election

“Never make predictions, especially about the future,” New York Yankees manager Casey Stengel famously said. In the sport of politics we are in peak prediction mode this week – and Saturday night will reveal what surprises are in store.

I’ve been part of many elections where the polls have got it spectacularly wrong – most shockingly in Labor’s 2019 loss and most painfully in Donald Trump’s 2016 win.

Both were a result of the fact that while we obsess about the number of people who report a certain opinion at a given moment in time, we pay much less attention to the strength of that opinion. Large and unpredicted swings between polls and actual results are usually a reflection of the “softness” of the opinions held by those being polled – the likeliness they will change their mind. Too often we report public opinion as if it is chiselled in stone.

We experienced this collectively as a nation in 2023. The prime minister, encouraged by polls that showed up to 75 per cent support for an Indigenous Voice to parliament, ploughed ahead with a referendum to enshrine it even after Peter Dutton’s denial of bipartisanship.

As we found out, in the face of a barrage of unprecedented disinformation and a sophisticated MAGA-inspired outrage machine, that support turned out to be very soft. Over the course of the campaign it evaporated – on polling day the Yes vote garnered less than 40 per cent.

Similarly, we have in recent years taken the same levels of support for renewable energy as if they are chiselled in stone. More than 70 per cent of Australians support the transition to renewables, and more ambitious climate targets. Most pundits take broad social licence for a transition to clean energy – a fancy way of saying the community is on board – as a fait accompli.

But renewable energy is right now facing a barrage of unprecedented disinformation and a sophisticated MAGA-inspired outrage machine, akin to what we saw during the Voice. Its very purpose is to undermine the social licence under which renewable energy projects operate. Having lost the argument on the existence of climate change, as the world proceeded to burn before our eyes, opponents quickly pivoted instead to undermining support for renewables.

While the Voice had to withstand a torrent of misinformation-based attacks on social media, from “say NO to save Australia Day” to “farmers will need a permit to put up a fence”, renewables face the same.

Social media is ripe with anti-renewables outrage. Hysteria over offshore wind farms killing whales (they don’t). Hysteria over solar fields ruining pristine farmland (they don’t). Hysteria over vehicle fuel-emissions standards banning utes (they don’t) or ruining the weekend (they don’t).

A pro-nuclear, anti-renewables ad by a group called Rainforest Reserves Australia. The source of their funding is unknown.

But to think these campaigns are limited to a few angry crackpots up late at night, smashing their keyboards in all caps, is to miss the bigger picture – there is a consistent thread linking the targets of their hysteria to ideas that challenge the prolonged use of fossil fuels. This is part of a co-ordinated global effort to erode support for energy transition.

Did we think the global $10 trillion fossil fuel industry would give up without a fight?

The latest data from our Populares AdTracker shows anti-renewables groups have in aggregate outspent the federal Liberal Party in social media advertising in the past 30 days. Yes, you read that right; in the critical weeks of an election campaign, these third-party groups are outspending the major party they support.

Groups like Advance Australia – the same Advance that drove the misinformation-laden No campaign against the Voice – are joined by groups like the astroturf “Australians for Natural Gas”, “Nuclear for Australia” or “Energy for Australians”, and “Coal Australia” (at least that last one says what it is on the tin).

Then there’s Australians for Prosperity, run by former Queensland Liberal National Party MP Julian Simmonds, funded by the coal lobby in Queensland and currently spamming teal seats with anti-teal disinformation. It is based on the anti-renewables precursor to MAGA, Americans for Prosperity.

Researchers in the US have linked these sorts of anti-renewables misinformation campaigns back to fossil-fuel donor and think-tank networks like the Atlas Network. In Australia, Atlas members include the Institute of Public Affairs and Centre for Independent Studies. Unsurprisingly, our anti-renewables movement walks, talks and quacks just like its global counterparts.

These networks are not grassroots, they are deep-pocketed. As we’ve seen in the Illawarra, where many in the community now oppose offshore wind, these misinformation campaigns begin with industry backing, are amplified by aligned media and politicians, but soon bleed into real-world, genuine community opposition.

Renewables will not be able to survive that kind of loss of social licence if it is replicated elsewhere. In order to transition our economies and societies to net zero – and a liveable climate – we will have to undergo a great deal of change, and fast. That will only be possible if the community is on board. It will take a hell of a lot of community support.

Right now, we have it. But the strength of that broad public support remains to be seen. Similar levels of support for the Voice to parliament couldn’t withstand the co-ordinated outrage, misinformation and hysteria machine levelled against it. Will renewables be able to?

Ed Coper is an expert on disinformation and the author of Facts and Other Lies: Welcome to the Disinformation Age. He is the chief executive of Sydney-based agency Populares, the communications agency responsible for the digital advertising for the major teal independent campaigns.

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