Why Republicans keep blaming disasters on DEI

Yahoo

30-01-2025

Search and rescue teams hadn't even finished pulling the bodies out of the Potomac River before Donald Trump began blaming diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs for the disastrous Wednesday night plane crash between a military helicopter and a commercial jet outside Washington that likely killed 67 people.
During a rambling press conference Thursday, Trump pushed his theory that air traffic controllers were to blame, then claimed without evidence that the Biden and Obama administrations had lowered aviation hiring standards. He also criticized an effort to hire people with disabilities that existed throughout his entire first term in office.
'I put safety first,' Trump claimed. 'Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody's ever seen because this was the lowest level.'
Vice President JD Vance claimed: "If you go to some of the headlines over the past ten years many hundreds of people are suing the government because they would like to be air traffic controllers but were turned away because of the color of their skin. That policy ends under Donald Trump's leadership.'
Before Wednesday's collision, there hadn't been a major commercial airline crash on American soil in 16 years, when Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed during landing near Buffalo Niagara International Airport, killing all 49 people onboard.
When pressed about his claim DEI was responsible for the crash, which is under investigation, Trump responded: 'It just could have been.' He added that he reached the conclusion because 'I have common sense.'
It was only the most recent disaster for which Trump and his allies have blamed DEI, even though the facts don't support them.
As wildfires tore through the hills of Los Angeles this month, those on the right quickly boiled the crisis down to DEI, seemingly because Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is the first woman and second Black person to lead the city., and L.A. fire chief Kristin Crowley, a 22-year fire veteran, is the first woman and openly queer person to lead the department.
Trump's billionaire supporter and partner Elon Musk claimed: "They prioritized DEI over saving lives and homes,' sharing screenshots of a four-year-old L.A. Fire Department racial equity plan He then put a finer point on it, writing that 'DEI means people DIE' in response to a video of Crowley talking about using a DEI focus to attract the 'best and brightest' to the force.
Experts say a variety of factors caused the devastating fires, from drought conditions, to 100 mph Santa Ana winds, to neighborhoods built in dangerous fire zones, to a city water distribution system that was unable to keep hydrants filled fast enough to match a wildfire-scale blaze descending on a dense urban environment.
Part of the reason Crowley has spoken openly about fostering a more inclusive culture at the department is because it faced years of complaints and lawsuits about discrimination under her predecessors, issues which would also seem to get in the way of a focus on fire-fighting.
No matter how multi-faceted a crisis, the playbook against DEI has been run again and again.
When an extremist plowed his car into revelers and attempted to set off bombs during New Year's Day celebrations in New Orleans, GOP Rep. Dan Meuser told Fox News: 'The priority of the last four years has been DEI, not IEDs [improvised explosive devices] ...You talk to anyone who's willing to speak within these agencies, that's what their focus has been.'
When a shipping vessel collided with Baltimore's Key Bridge and brought it tumbling down in March, a Utah gubernatorial candidate blamed 'governors who prioritize diversity," even though the ship at issue allegedly had a record of shoddy maintenance. Meanwhile, online commenters deluged Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott with racist attacks, accusing him of being a 'DEI mayor.'
Mayor Scott and Maryland Governor Wes Moore are both Black and Democrats.
'We've been the bogeyman for them since the first day they brought us to this country, and what they mean by DEI in my opinion is duly elected incumbent,' Scott said in response to the attacks, claiming DEI attacks are a dog whistle for people who 'don't have the courage to say the N-word.'
The last four years have witnessed a sea change in how the country and its institutions consider race and identity.
The massive racial justice protests after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by police set off a nationwide conversation about anti-Black racism in the U.S. Yet police killings of mostly people of color continued and key police reform largely stalled at a national level. But some courts and the corporate world inspired a brief push to make workplaces more equitable and diverse.
That triggered a backlash.
In 2023 the Supreme Court, stacked with Trump-appointed justices, struck down affirmative action in higher education.
At the same time, Republicans pushed to ban books talking about identity and race, claiming schools at all levels were indoctrinating students with 'critical race theory,' a niche academic concept that seemingly came to stand in on the right for anything mentioning the existence of non-white people or racism.
In the corporate world, right-wing activists used viral social media campaigns to push major U.S. companies to drop DEI programs, and name brands like McDonald's, Walmart, and Harley all backed away from such programs.
While Trump and his supporters consistently argue that opposing DEI is in fact colorblind, with a focus on fairness and merit, it also can't be ignored how demonizing people of color is a core part of the Trump movement.
The president's 2016 campaign began with his claim in Trump Tower that Mexican immigrants were rapists and drug dealers, and the Republican has continued attacking minorities since, branding Black Lives Matter protesters as 'thugs,' claiming during the 2024 debates that Haitian migrants are eating cats, and accusing border-crossers of 'poisoning the blood' of America.
The MAGA movement, in other words, doesn't seem to actually want a society that ignores race and identity; they just won't admit admit what they're doing is identity politics too, just from the right instead of the left.
The consequences of all this DEI wrangling may seem philosophical, but they are very real and deeply ironic.
The perception that California leaders are a bunch of social justice warriors who can't be trusted seems to be feeding into recent Republican threats to impose conditions on disaster aid to the state, which is highly atypical.
The new administration has moved to end federal funding for DEI programs across the federal government and organizations supported by its work, impacting thousands across agencies and disciplines.
And the White House sets the tone for the rest of the country.
When the next disaster rolls around, it'll only be a matter of time before the right hops online and goes viral with claims that DEI is to blame. And the most powerful people in the world, regardless of the facts, will be quick to believe them.