Just like the Media Research Center, WorldNetDaily promoted the unsubstantiated right-wing claim that the plane-helicopter crash outside Washington, D.C., can be blamed on DEI initiatives. Bob Unruh wrote in a Jan. 30 article:
President Donald Trump on Thursday raised the specter of Joe Biden’s diversity agenda possibly influencing the factors that contributed to the air crash late Wednesday between a military helicopter and a commercial flight from Wichita, Kansas, to Washington that killed more than five dozen people.
The president said he was “heartbroken” by the loss, but then turned his comments to the diversity, equity and inclusion ideologies of the past administration, a scheme that relied on racism and discrimination to pick and choose hires.
The FAA was a full partner in the ideology.
And while a direction connection to the air crash hasn’t been established, the agenda does base hiring decisions on racial and gender-based quotas, rather than solely on expertise and the ability to do any specific job.
[…]He explained he suspected DEI policies were at play because he has “common sense.”
If a “direction connection” can’t be established, perhaps WND should shut up about it until it is, in fact, established.
James Zumwalt parroted Trump’s unsubstantiated claims in his Feb. 5 column:
At a post-crash press conference, President Donald Trump implied that his predecessor’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policy could have been a factor but did not articulate exactly how. The investigation will undoubtedly focus on the training and experience of all involved and their superiors as well. If the senior helicopter pilot was inexperienced, the DCA flight corridor should never have been used for an annual evaluation.
Despite a nighttime sky, visibility was clear. ATC audio reveals less than 30 seconds before the crash, the helicopter was specifically asked if it could see the jet. The helicopter crew responded, “… aircraft in sight, request ‘visual separation.'”
WND then tried to impose this anti-DEI narrative on another plane crash a couple weeks later. Joe Kovacs wrote in a Feb. 18 article:
Delta Air Lines is coming under severe criticism for doubling down on its push for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI, just days before Monday’s spectacular crash involving a Minneapolis-to-Toronto flight that flipped one of its planes upside down during landing.
On Feb. 6, Peter Carter, chief external affairs officer at Delta, said: “We are steadfast in our commitments because we think that they are actually critical to our business.”
“Sustainability is about being more efficient in our operations and really DE&I is about talent and that’s been our focus.”
“The key differentiator at Delta is our people,” Carter added, according to Fox5Atlanta.
Kovacs then cited an alleged comedian and various anonymous people ranting about DEI policies at Delta — but no evidence that DEI directly led to the crash.
Kovacs doubled down on his nasty narrative the next day:
Amid rumors that an all-female flight crew was at the helm of the Delta Air Lines flight that crashed and flipped upside down in Toronto this week, the company’s chief executive officer is refusing to identify the pilots.
“I can’t provide any details,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said Wednesday morning on CBS. “It’s an ongoing investigation.”
When asked specifically about the pilots, Bastian said: “It was an experienced crew.”
[…]Meanwhile, video has emerged of the pilots of Endeavor Air, which operated the Minneapolis-to-Toronto flight.
One clip is set to the 2004 Disney movie “The Incredibles” and includes the lyrics: “Girls, come on? Leave the saving of the world to the men? I don’t think so. I don’t think so.”
A female pilot os shown lip-synching the words as she wags her finger in a negative manner.
LibsofTikTok says it appears Endeavor “is fixated on promoting all-female ‘unmanned’ flights.” The reference to “unmanned” implies male-free.
Neither Kovacs nor Libs of TikTok offered evidence that women are uniquely incapable of flying a plane and should be forbidden from doing so.
Andy Schlafly ranted about DEI in his Feb. 20 column:
After Delta Airlines reaffirmed its full commitment to the DEI ideology, one of its planes crash-landed, flipped upside down and burst into flames at Toronto Airport. Everyone miraculously survived this latest plane crash, which happened once the plane was oddly cleared to land amid a crosswind having gusts up to 40 mph on its approach to the airport.
DEI means that “diversity, equity, and inclusion” are the priority in hiring and promotion, and protection against firing inept workers. President Trump has issued two Executive Orders against DEI, and many large corporations have recently rescinded or rolled back their DEI programs, including Amazon, Disney, Google, GE, GM and Pepsi, while major banks are taking DEI off their websites.
Donald Trump’s trademark phrase was “You’re fired!” long before he ran for president. Now, as president for the second time, he’s been refreshingly firing everyone who stands in the way of transforming the federal government from DEI to a merit-based system.
Schlafly offered no evidence that anyone involved in the crash was unqualified and no logical reason to assume that any of those employees were “diversity hires.”