Republicans Are Using the D.C. Plane Crash to Peddle Racism
Bigotry, smears, and distortions.
IN THEIR FIRST TWO WEEKS since taking power, Donald Trump, JD Vance, and their allies in Congress are restoring a practice that the U.S. government tried to abolish more than half a century ago: officially sanctioned racial prejudice.
Last Wednesday night, 67 people died in a midair collision between a passenger jet and an Army helicopter near Reagan National Airport (DCA) in Washington, D.C. The next day, Trump showed up at the White House briefing room to blame the crash on a “diversity push” at the Federal Aviation Administration. He claimed that diversity, equity, and inclusion policies had sapped the agency of “naturally talented geniuses.”
Trump groused about hiring people with “intellectual and psychiatric disabilities,” but he soon segued to race. Years ago, “a group within the FAA . . . determined that the workforce was too white,” Trump complained, suggesting that subsequent efforts to hire minorities had led to the crash. “They actually came out with a directive: too white. And we want the people that are competent.”
When reporters asked Trump for evidence linking DEI to the crash, he came up empty. Instead, he told David Sanger of the New York Times that the inference was obvious:
Sanger: Mr. President, you have today blamed the diversity element, but then told us that you weren’t sure that the controllers made any mistake. You then said perhaps the helicopter pilots were the ones who made the mistake.
Trump: Yeah. It’s all under investigation.
Sanger: I understand that. That’s why I’m trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash.
Trump: Because I have common sense, okay? And unfortunately, a lot of people don’t.
This is naked bigotry. Attributing blame, incompetence, or low intelligence to a person based on nothing but race is prejudice. And anyone who calls such an inference “common sense” is openly espousing prejudice.
In subsequent remarks, Trump has continued to suggest that low intelligence caused the crash and that race or gender may have played a role. On Thursday night, when reporters asked about the two factors most likely to have contributed to the collision—too much air traffic at DCA and too few air traffic controllers—Trump stuck to his theory.
Reporter 1: Do you think that there’s too many flights coming out of that airport?
Trump: No. I think we need very smart people running the flights. . . .
Reporter 2: Was there a shortage of staff at the control tower at DCA last night that you were aware of?
Trump: Well, that’s part of competence . . . Competence would be, you’re not going to have a shortage.
The DEI theory fits Trump’s long history of bigotry: proposing to ban Muslims from the United States; declaring an American judge biased and unfit because “he’s a Mexican”; and claiming that Democrats moved Kamala Harris to the top of their 2024 ticket because although she was “very dumb,” they “wanted to be politically correct.”
HAVING AN OVERT BIGOT AS OUR PRESIDENT is bad enough. What’s worse is that other Republicans are parroting his smears. This weekend on Sunday Morning Futures, Vance backed up Trump, blaming the DCA crash on discrimination against whites:
There have been a number of lawsuits from people who would like to become air-traffic controllers—against the Obama and Biden administration—who basically said, “We were told not even to apply because of the color of our skin.” Because they were white people who wanted to be air-traffic controllers, and under the DEI regime of the Biden administration, they weren’t welcome. Well, what does that mean? Number one, it means that we don’t have the best and the brightest sometimes in these positions.
Vance was talking about an unresolved lawsuit filed nine years ago. He ignored the known problems that have since contributed to the shortage of air-traffic controllers, such as suspensions of training during the COVID pandemic. By casting blame and implicit aspersions on the intelligence of minorities, he shoehorned the crash story into Trump’s culture war against DEI.
On Meet the Press, Senator Eric Schmitt cited the same litigation:
Schmitt: DEI is poison. It’s hurt recruiting, it’s hurt hiring, it’s hurt retention. . . . And it’s evidenced by the fact that 1,000 people sued the air-traffic control for not being hired because of their race. . . .
Kristen Welker: Do you have any evidence whatsoever that diversity programs played a role in this crash? Because the president said he doesn’t.
Schmitt: Well, no one has said that. But I do think if you want to find a solution, you have to be honest about the problem. And the truth is, merit has taken a back seat to quotas.
Again and again, Republicans substituted prejudice for evidence. On CNN’s State of the Union, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy repeated the DEI talking point:
Jake Tapper: Is there any specific evidence that backs up . . . President Trump’s claims that DEI or FAA hiring practices are responsible in any way for this tragedy at Reagan National?
Duffy: So, Jake, I think the better question is, am I going to guarantee the American people that only the best and the brightest serve in this incredibly important body of the Department of Transportation? That they’re driven by safety, and DEI doesn’t matter?
On Face the Nation, Brian Mast, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, added “lifestyle” minorities to the list of dangerous hires:
Yes, there were very real errors that took place, both in the air-traffic control tower and with the helicopter pilots, it seems. But more systemically: Is there a big hiring problem across all federal agencies, to include the FAA, where they made the priority diversity and inclusion instead of excellence and performance? Yes, that’s the case. They made the priority appearance and lifestyle . . .
For the record, the only transportation secretary who didn’t preside over a fatal air crash in this century was the one who’s openly gay. But when you’re peddling prejudice, facts don’t matter.
THE FIRST TWO WEEKS of this administration have been so packed with assaults on the Constitution and the rule of law—political purges at the FBI and other agencies, usurpations of congressional authority, delegations of vast official power to an unelected oligarch, mass pardons for people who beat up police to overturn an election—that an episode like this one, which might have sparked outrage in a calmer time, can seem small by comparison.
But it matters. One hallmark of fascism is the scapegoating of minorities. Trump did it a decade ago when he called for a ban on Muslims. Now he’s doing it again as he blames DEI for our country’s problems, even a plane crash. He’s testing America’s appetite not just for purging illegal immigrants, but for blunt racial prejudice. And he’s got a whole party behind him.