Better to blame bad leadership and policies
By Peter Certo
But the administration’s response to the tragic January
collision that killed 67 people over the Potomac is worth revisiting. Not only
because the loved ones of those lost deserve answers, but because it highlights
a MAGA playbook we’ve seen repeatedly now — and we’ll see again very soon.
We don’t yet know what caused the crash. But shortly before it, Trump
disbanded a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) safety committee, fired the
FAA administrator, and implemented a federal hiring freeze despite a shortage
of air traffic controllers. (Staffing at the local tower was “not normal” the night of the collision,
The New York Times reported.)
Speculation has even emerged that Elon Musk, the unelected billionaire bureaucrat who’s been
illegally gutting the federal government, urged the FAA
administrator’s firing in retaliation for past fines against his SpaceX
company.
Did any of that contribute? That’s for a proper
investigation to determine. But one thing’s for sure: It wasn’t the “DEI”
initiatives President Trump immediately blamed.
Trump suggested that unqualified minority hires caused the
accident because the prior administration thought “the workforce was too
white.” When pressed for even a shred of evidence, he shrugged that it was “common sense.” Administration figures like Vice President Vance stuck
with the claim even after learning that both pilots
involved were white.
The claim was ridiculous, but it sucked up attention that
might have gone to the Trump administration’s own moves instead. And that’s
exactly why we keep seeing lies like these — to protect incompetent politicians
and the corporate interests that prop them up.
Once you realize that, you’ll start noticing it everywhere.
For instance, there’s ample evidence that climate change contributed to Southern California’s horrific wildfires this winter. But rather than implicate the campaign-contributing fossil fuel companies that have supercharged these disasters, right-wing influencers blamed “DEI” hires like women firefighters.
About a year ago, when a foreign cargo ship destroyed
Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, the same crowd had nothing to say about
regulating shipping companies or infrastructure safety. Instead, they just started calling the city’s Black mayor,
Brandon Scott, the “DEI mayor.”
And finally, we saw an earlier version of this script when a
Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, spilling
toxic chemicals and burning them up in a noxious cloud over the impoverished
town.
Norfolk Southern had skimped on maintenance, overstretched
its workers, and plowed the savings into stock buybacks rather than safety. The
company had also poured money into Ohio’s statehouse, which killed a bipartisan
rail safety bill the company had lobbied against.
The talking heads on Fox News didn’t have anything to say
about that — or about President Trump’s decision to nix an Obama-era regulation
to prevent accidents like these during his first term.
Instead, right-wing multimillionaires like Tucker Carlson
and Charlie Kirk claimed the accident happened because President Biden didn’t
care about the poor whites of rural Ohio. (Kirk even claimed the episode proved
there was a whole “crusade against white people.”)
At best, these obviously false claims suck the oxygen out of
any discussions that might involve the incompetence of politicians or misdeeds
of their corporate supporters. At worst, they foster division for its own sake.
Neither makes us safer.
As Trump, Musk, and their allies illegally purge federal
agencies and open the floodgates to corporate malfeasance of all varieties,
more disasters like these are almost inevitable. And just as inevitably,
they’ll blame DEI, immigrants, LGBTQ people, or some other scapegoat when that
happens.
For our hard-earned tax dollars, most of us just want the
government to protect our communities and our planet — even when that’s less
profitable for a few corporations. But to get that, we’ll have to pull together
across the divides their backers like to drive between us.
Peter Certo is the Communications
Director of the Institute for Policy Studies and editor of its OtherWords.org
editorial service. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.
