The Things They Hate and Acts of God
The New American Normal
[This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. If you have suggestions or feedback on how I can earn your paid subscription, shoot me an email: cmclymer@gmail.com.]
Last night at 8:47pm ET, right over the Potomac River near DCA, in full view of the heart of the Nation’s Capital, a U.S. Army Black Hawk on a training run for the 12th Aviation Battalion out of Fort Belvoir, Virginia collided in midair with American Eagle Flight 5342, a regional commercial jet that originated from Wichita, Kansas and was only moments away from safely landing.
There were three service members aboard the Black Hawk. There were 60 passengers and four crew members aboard the passenger jet. All 67 souls are presumed deceased.
Lost among those in the jet were more than a dozen passengers associated with U.S. Figure Skating, including coaches Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov—the 1994 World Pairs Figure Skating Champions—and four members of the UA Steamfitters Local 602 union.
In normal times, a horrific tragedy like this would demand a national pause of grievances, however brief, and Americans of all backgrounds would take a moment to breathe and reflect and hold space in their thoughts for surviving loved ones.
But those times are long gone, never coming back, extinct, and so, it feels increasingly inaccurate to call them “normal.”
Maybe “The Before Times” works. Maybe “back in the day” does, too. But “normal” does not because however much we wish otherwise, the past 22 hours are smack dab in the New American Normal.
The New American Normal means that every tragedy must be immediately plundered by the morally bankrupt for useful accusations and recriminations and erroneous oppo.
Whatever was once sacred and off-limits can now be promptly assessed for its value in shameless mudslinging, and American media will weakly push back and then forget about it in less time than it takes Amazon to overnight your latest wine-induced, impulse buy.
As I tracked the live updates of the crash last night, I felt ridiculous and slightly ashamed when the thought crossed my mind: Will Trump use this tragedy to attack political opponents?
And I easily pushed the thought out of my mind because it was so clearly absurd. This was simply a brutal tragedy in which far too many things went wrong, all lined up at the worst possible time, and politics has no place in this moment.
Not even Trump would be so shameless, I thought to myself. Take it down a few notches, Charlotte. Your distrust and paranoia aren’t helping anyone.
By noon today, the shame over my unhelpful paranoia would be replaced with shame over my searing naïveté.
As Americans were waking up and pouring themselves coffee and getting their kids ready for school, Republican Congressman Andy Ogles of Tennessee appeared on Fox Business and told host Maria Bartiromo:
“But, you know, to your point, I think you have to look at this with eyes wide open. See what happened. You know, human error? Was it some sort of equipment failure? Did DEI play a role in this type of thing?”
A short while later, Donald Trump stood behind a podium in the White House Briefing Room and told reporters that DEI policies at the Federal Aviation Administration “could have been” the cause of the crash.
When pressed by reporters how he could blame diversity policies for the tragedy less than 24 hours after the crash—without a shred of evidence, before the investigation could offer even significant preliminary details—he said:
“Because I have common sense, OK, and unfortunately, a lot of people don’t.”
He took aim at former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who, of course, is an openly-gay man:
“He was a disaster as a mayor, he ran his city into the ground, and he’s a disaster now. He’s just got a good line of bullshit” and “He’s run it right into the ground with his diversity.”
You got that, right? Quick translation: Secretary Buttigieg was only appointed because he’s gay, and thus, last night’s crash was the result of appointing a gay transportation secretary.
J.D. Vance followed him at the podium and claimed that “hundreds” of people had applied to be air traffic controllers (ATCs) over the past decade and “were turned away because of the color of their skin.”
Vance, of course, was implying that hundreds of white people were intentionally not hired to be ATCs because they’re white and, by extension, that last night’s disaster is the result of hiring Black people and people of color generally under DEI policies.
There is no evidence to support this claim. It’s as much a lie as when Vance shamelessly claimed during the campaign that Haitian migrants were stealing and eating their neighbors’ pets, a deeply racist conspiracy theory that was thoroughly debunked by The Wall Street Journal.
So, there you have it, folks. Diversity is the enemy of our nation, gay people and Black people can’t be trusted in positions of grave responsibility, white people and straight people are being denied their due, and planes are crashing as a result.
It was an absolute masterclass in thoroughly disgusting, ghoulish, soulless, shameless propaganda.
If you were a top Democratic leader, how would you respond to this? I assume most of y’all would show a lot of anger, at minimum, and call this out for the unapologetic white nationalism that it is, right?
Here’s what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said:
“Listen, it’s one thing for internet pundits to spew off conspiracies, it’s another for the president of the United States to throw out idle speculation as bodies are still being recovered and families are still being notified. It just turns your stomach.”
It just turns your stomach. Idle speculation. Golly gee. No condemnation of the unbridled racism and homophobia. No fact check on the erroneous and shameful claims made by Trump and Vance. No energy. A pulse barely above the resting heart rate.
Weak. Profoundly weak. Heartbreakingly weak. “Where are our leaders and what are they doing while fascism runs amok” weak.
Leader Schumer might as well have said: “White supremacy. Boy, I don’t know.”
This afternoon, an internal report by the Federal Aviation Administration revealed that the ATC who would usually be solely tracking helicopters in the area last night was simultaneously instructing planes on landing and takeoff — one person doing two critical jobs meant to be done by two separate people.
The FAA described the staffing at the airport tower during the crash as “not normal.”
It is one critical detail that will inevitably be part of many critical details, all painfully and tragically aligned at precisely the worst moment possible, and which we won’t fully know until the investigation has been completed.
The lynchpin of all this, of course, is that term: DEI.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Like the term “woke” before it, DEI has taken a starring role in the rightwing’s discourse as a catch-all for anything you hate, anything that’s uncomfortable, anything that seems inconvenient, and—perhaps most importantly—anything for which you need an easy absolution of personal responsibility.
It feels like some poetic irony that “dei” also happens to be Latin for “of god.”
Dei gratia means “by the grace of God.”
In Dei nomine means “in the name of God.”
Vox populi, vox Dei means “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”
In the rightwing’s atrocious political parlance, “DEI” pretends to be a defense of merit, but it’s actually an absolution of personal responsibility by aggrieved racists and homophobes and misogynists and whomever the hell else need to be centered in all things at all times in all ways.
“DEI” is the card you play when it’s someone else’s fault, not yours. It’s beyond your control. It’s the progressives. It’s the Democrats.
Their intentional oppression of good white Christians is so relentless and unaccountable that it might as well—only a bit sarcastic—be an act of God.
All your struggles, all your suffering, all your failures, all your frustrations, somehow, someway, all come back to DEI.
A helicopter crashes into a plane over the Potomac? Blame DEI.
Your wife left you? Blame DEI.
Your children can’t stand you? Blame DEI.
You didn’t get the job or the promotion you spuriously thought you deserved?
Blame DEI.
Your mediocrity isn’t the issue. It’s the failure of those around you to ignore your mediocrity and honor your entitlement.
No personal responsibility. No accountability. No sense of shame.
It’s beyond your control. Nothing you could do. Might as well be an act of God.
In that context, the worship of Trump makes too much sense. He tells you nothing is ever your fault. You’re doing the best you can. You’re supposed to be rich and happy and free of shame. You’re supposed to be selfish and angry. Hatred for others is then understandable.
You don’t really need to earnestly pray to God for guidance, who inexplicably calls on you to a higher standard, with all Her accountability and discipline and lessons on humility and lectures on empathy.
Trump is right there, always comforting: You’re not really mediocre, and even if you are mediocre, it shouldn’t matter. You’re a white man in the greatest country on earth. You’re entitled to all your heart’s desires. I will remove every obstacle. I will make you whole. I, alone, will make you happy.
The New American Normal is about the struggle to enshrine a false idol and remove any and all who get in the way of that.
In Trump nomine.
Air traffic controllers have been in short supply for DECADES. If all those white men didn't make it though training that is no one's fault but their mediocrity. And frump fired heads of depts. and froze hirings. This is all on frump. Period.
Charlotte,
Thank you for this thoughtful reflection and commentary. The they resonate with me. The spectacle of Trump doing this sickens me. Anyone with any decency would never do that, and the response of Schumer was a travesty, so spineless and weak. He needs to resign sooner rather than later.
Be safe and watch your six.
Steve Dundas