How right-wing influencers turned airplanes and airports into culture war battlegrounds
In recent weeks, right-wing pundits have zeroed in on airline DEI programs and the presence of migrants in airports.
The conservative media ecosystem is piggybacking on Americans’ fascination with air travel to stir up opposition to corporate diversity programs, an effort that may raise the salience of culture war issues at the start of the 2024 election year even as their claims are largely based on false or misleading information.
In recent weeks, right-wing influencers, politicians and media outlets have repeatedly attacked efforts by airlines to find more job applicants who are women or nonwhite, programs that are known within big corporations as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Some of their attacks are getting millions of views on social media and being picked up by Republican politicians.
But the outsized criticism of the programs in the airline industry and the speculation about their effects doesn’t reflect reality, according to airline employees who spoke to NBC News
On Fox Business, a former Federal Aviation Administration employee claimed without citing specific incidents that diversity commitments from airlines could lead to safety issues, even though airlines say they haven’t changed their standards and that DEI efforts are about finding qualified-but-overlooked job candidates.
When a wheel fell off a jet on an Atlanta runway last weekend, Donald Trump Jr. suggested without evidence that diversity efforts were to blame.
There's an idiot on a certain conservative Lemmy community who was saying that it was obviously the DEI program that caused the door to rip off of that 737 mid-flight, because it happened after the DEI program was implemented.
You know, instead of the bean-counters skimping on safety measures; it was clearly women and ethnic minorities at fault.
White Nationalists want to be led by the nose to their next target, because their political identity is entirely grievance-based.
Don't you think it's weird how COVID happened at some point in human history after we invented the wheel ?
Ice cream sales go up in summer. Murder rate goes up in summer. Ice cream causes murder.
You're onto something
Ban ice cream now! Won't somebody think of the children?!
I've checked out the conservative communites on Lemmy, and my god have I seen some astoundingly stupid takes. I'm not surprised. Throwaway, Momo and Wintermute in particular give me some major laughs, especially when Momo becomes immediately hostile towards any disagreement.
Yeah, Momo's constant impotent rage is a high point; I think my favorite though is how whenever Wintermute posts a source it always undercuts their argument if you read past the headline.
God it's so funny when they disappear up their own asses.
If only they'd stay there.
Haha, wishful thinking! Thankfully I rarely see them outside of their safe space, which is pretty ironic if you ask me.
It’s a tale as old as time… class warfare.
The GQP can provide cover for their corporate overlords. Why give the left the chance to blame blatant disregard for safety in favor of corporate profits when you can head off that conversation and blame black people.
If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.
-Lyndon B. Johnson
And now here you are spreading his message even further without a second thought.
Ah yes, I forgot that ignoring a problem makes it go away.
That refutation of their idiotic complaint was definitely done without a second thought.
This doesn't even make any sense, these are problems with the manufacturers not the airlines themselves.
It's not supposed to make sense, it's supposed to drum up outrage from an unthinking populace.
Much of the GOP relies on manufactured outrage for their votes.
Well, their argument would extend to the hiring practices of the manufacturers and their contractors. At the end of the day though, I'm more inclined to blame corporate cost-cutting.
Little known fact: No white man has ever crashed an airplane. It's true! Every time a plane has crashed with a white pilot it turns out he was instantly turned into a black trans woman. The One World Government edits all the flight recorders in real time to keep people from knowing.
(/s for the clinically unhip)
Oooh they should go after internet service providers next. I bet those ISPs are censoring them sometimes. Somehow.
Who knows what will happen if we give women access to the internet?!
We stop going to church, start practicing witchcraft, and become lesbians. It is known.
It was all the unsolicited dick pics that did it wasn't it? If randos kept sending me their junk mail I could see wanting to curse them to a terrible fate and never touching one again as the natural response.
You know guys who send those never appreciate HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA IS THAT ALL? as a response. I don't know why.
Lol, devastating! I like the cut of your jib!
wheel falls off airplane
Conservatives: those damn black people!
In the background, there's an executive order to stop wasting so much time checking the bolts on airplane wheels signed by Donald Trump.
Conservatives: We need to put their children in cages!
Yes, women and black people inherently make airplanes less safe. We should probably not allow them on airplanes at all.