Trump blames DEI for plane crash

Another off-the-rails, completely unhinged press conference from the president, in which he relentlessly cast blame away from himself

Please note that as Trump is blaming DEI and former presidents for the crash, Fox News’s chyron reads: “Trump: Will Restore Faith in American Air Travel”

As those of you following along may have noted, Trump has—at the time of writing this (so safe to say he’s just getting started)—blamed the fatal, tragic DCA plane crash between a regional jet and a military helicopter on, in no particular order, and with precisely zero evidence, the following: Barack Obama, Joe Biden, the Democratic Party, Pete Buttigieg, the 2020 election, and diversity.

In regards to the last heartless claim, let’s all remember that this guy’s administration posted this more than a WEEK ago:

PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP ENDS DEI MADNESS AND RESTORES EXCELLENCE AND SAFETY WITHIN THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION

So he ended DEI and finally restored excellence and safety. If that’s the case, why are we seeing the first commercial airline crash in nearly two decades? Was he lying when he said that he restored safety, or is he lying now when he blames it on DEI? Either way, he’s a liar. It’s just a question of when.

Trump was questioned on that point—here’s what he had to say:

Sorry, quick math lesson to insert here. It was not three days ago. Take a closer look at the date from his bold statement, issued two days after being sworn in:

I don’t know how Trump does his numbers, but for most of us, that means he took credit for restoring safety eight days ago.

Regardless, it’s also significant that as soon as he took office and set off on his chaos mission of assuming the presidency on his terms and his terms alone, Trump fired the head of the Transportation Security Administration and all of the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee. Sound familiar? Trump fires people in key roles, then when a crisis hits and he’s purged the government of all of its institutional knowledge and expertise, he finds someone or something unrelated to blame. Remember during COVID, when he fired the NSC’s pandemic preparedness unit? Same pattern, different day. He is quite literally incapable of taking responsibility for anything he has done, unless it’s successful.

That was a point that Pete Buttigieg echoed. He tweeted:

Despicable. As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch.

---

Obviously, there is not one shred of evidence that DEI had anything to do with this devastating crash. And yet, when pressed on that, here was his tragi-comically absurd response:

“Because I have common sense.” Common sense? Common sense that it was DEI-related because…why? Because if anything goes wrong, it’s “common sense” that a black person or a brown person is likely responsible? Note that he offers no evidence, no proof, no backing, no data, and no information. He just feels so brazenly empowered that he’s comfortable putting his racism on smug display, from behind the seal of the president. Blame minorities. Because his default is not to explain, but to blame the other—any other, really.

Is he concerned with the optics of making such a statement? Does any of this matter to him?

I’m going to call that a hard No. It doesn’t matter to him. More than sixty people died. They don’t matter to him. The anguish being felt by their families doesn’t matter to him. All that matters is that he can deflect responsibility and blame others. And if he can diminish a female journalist while he’s at it, that’s a win-win for him.

Most people who have a shred of integrity or human compassion might take a different tack on being a leader faced by such a tragedy. Not this guy. He’s there to take the credit and cast the blame. Trump took office on the pretense that he was going to be the ur strong man, and yet all we’re seeing is weakness, victimhood, complaining, and diffusion of responsibility the moment a crisis occurs.

He’s not the only one responding like a coward. If this had happened on Joe Biden or any Democrat’s watch, rightwing media and the GOP would have wasted no time blaming it on the left. There would have been nonstop coverage about how this hasn’t happened in years, how it’s a sign of flagrant incompetence, how someone needs to be fired, how agency heads should resign, how the president should be impeached, how there needs to be hearings, and how they should probably confiscate a laptop.

Yet since it’s Trump in office, guess how many Republicans are taking that posture? Not a single one. In fact, rightwing media is doing the opposite—knowing that their job description is to parrot the president, they too are blaming DEI! That’s their new catch-all boogeyman responsible for anything that goes wrong under the watch of professional victim Donald Trump. Here was Maria Bartiromo’s interview before Trump even held his press conference:

The marching orders don’t even need to be issued. Rightwing media knows what they’re meant to do: carry Trump through yet another crisis and shield him from all accountability, no matter what. If you need to leave your conscience at the door, that’s just part of the job.

When Democrats are in charge, they deserve all the blame. All of it. When Republicans are in charge—even if they’re responsible for all three branches of government—Democrats still deserve all the blame.

Take all the credit, accept none of the blame. Which is another way that Donald Trump defines “common sense.”