One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.

In his 1945 essay “Notes on Nationalism,” Orwell describes how political passions and class hostility can lead some intellectuals to accept wildly implausible wartime claims. He gives an example he says he heard asserted—that U.S. troops were in Europe not to fight Germany but to suppress an English revolution—and then delivers the line as a pointed comment on how such beliefs can take hold among the intelligentsia.

Orwell is arguing that ideological commitment can override common sense. He suggests that certain far-fetched ideas are more likely to be embraced by politically driven intellectual circles than by ordinary people, because the former can rationalize almost anything in service of a narrative.

I have heard it confidently stated, for instance, that the American troops had been brought to Europe not to fight the Germans but to crush an English revolution. One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.

This is one of those views which are so absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them.