Blaming people of color for plane crashes — and everything else — is all part of the strategy

Robert Reich
31 January
'Mass casualty incident': Video emerges of mid-air explosion that shut down DC airport

Trump blamed last night’s tragic crash on former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama for seeking to include Blacks and Latinos in the federal workforce.

“They actually came out with a directive — ‘too white’,” Trump charged today in remarks about last night’s air crash that killed 67 people. But “we want the people that are competent.”

Asked why he believed DEI (policies promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion) had anything to do with the crash, Trump said: “Because I have common sense. OK. And, unfortunately, a lot of people don’t.”

Trump’s new secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, was on hand to add his own bigoted view. “The era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department,” he said, “and we need the best and brightest — whether it’s in our air traffic control or whether it’s in our generals or whether it’s throughout government.”

Not to be outdone in the bigot department, Vice President JD Vance piped up: “When you don’t have the best standards in who you’re hiring, it means on the one hand you’re not getting the best people in government. But on the other hand, it puts stress on the people who are already there.”

What is America to make of this? That the underlying cause of last night’s tragedy was that not enough white people were in charge? That “competent” people — the “best and the brightest” — “the best people” — are not Black or Latino?

Is it now open season on such racist bulls---?

No. We will not allow neo-fascists to scapegoat people of color.

We know what they’re doing, and why.

They want to divide us. They want white people to blame Black and Latino people for every tragedy, every problem, every harm. And they want Black and Latino people to react not only with hurt but with justifiable anger.

It’s part of Trump’s strategy of divide and conquer: Get us so riled up against one another that we don’t look upward and see where all the wealth and power have gone.

I don’t know the cause of last night’s tragedy, but I do know that the air-traffic control system has been hampered for years by inadequate funding, like so much else the public depends on.

I also know that a big reason for inadequate funding is that the average working family can’t afford to pay more in taxes because their pay has been stagnant for 40 years, while the wealthy — who have a record percentage of the nation’s total wealth — have lobbied for and gotten huge tax cuts (the latest being from Trump himself in his first term of office).

I’m not blaming the rich. I’m blaming a system that continues to underfund what the vast majority of Americans need.

Speaking of the rich, Elon Musk — the richest person on the planet — forced Michael Whitaker to step down as administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration immediately after Trump’s inauguration. That was because the FAA fined SpaceX for failing to get approval for launch changes. Whitaker’s absence left a power vacuum at the agency. Just sayin’.

Again, I don’t know what caused last night’s crash. But shame on Trump and Vance and Hegseth for blaming it on people of color.

NOW READ: DC insider has a special message for federal workers

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

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