MAGA blames diversity for Baltimore disaster

The moment the MV Dali smashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, MAGAlomaniacs knew where to assign blame.

“DEI did this,” former Florida state representative and failed congressional candidate Anthony Sabatini tweeted Tuesday, as the Coast Guard searched for six maintenance workers lost when the span’s severed superstructure collapsed into the Patapsco River.

From 900 miles away, Sabatini could ascertain that a deadly combination of diversity, equity and inclusion had done to the container ship what an iceberg did to the Titanic.

The website of Laura Loomer, another Florida wingnut and wannabe member of Congress, was festooned with posts this week blaming the tragedy on the “high priority” Synergy Marine, the Singapore-based company that manages the Dali and 670 other cargo ships, assigns to “a diverse workforce” and “an environment where everyone feels they belong.”

So much for the prevailing theory that after a sudden loss of power, wind and river currents pushed the foundering cargo ship into a support pillar. Today’s far right knows that nothing quite predicts a marine disaster like a diverse workforce.

The horrors of DEI have become all the rage — and I do mean rage — in rightwing politics. MAGA politicians complain that DEI steals jobs from deserving white workers (despite a national unemployment rate of only 3.9%) and that DEI makes white students feel sad about their racial legacy. (Like how politically correct liberals tried to guilt-trip Sabatini for donning blackface back in his university days.)

Last May, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill prohibiting the expenditure of state or federal money to promote DEI at state colleges and universities. DeSantis said the bill would “prevent woke ideologies from continuing to co-opt” state schools.

In January, the Florida Board of Governors told universities and colleges that they could no longer support programs or campus activities that “advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion” or “promote or engage in political or social activism.” (One wonders how white students survived before Ron DeSantis cleansed state schools of racial and ethnic sensitivities.)

Like Sabatini, Utah Republican congressman and gubernatorial candidate Phil Lyman charged that DEI has sabotaged American infrastructure. “This is what happens when you have governors who prioritize diversity over the well-being and security of citizens,” Lyman posted on X after Tuesday’s disaster.

Ideologues pushing a racial explanation can’t quite articulate exactly how diversity toppled the Francis Scott Key Bridge. The Washington Post reported that the Dali’s not-so-diverse 21-man crew were all Indian nationals. The six maintenance workers who lost their lives Tuesday were all Central Americans.

But apparently, diverse simply means “not white.” MAGA logic argues that if Caucasians had manned the Dali, maintained the span and controlled Baltimore City Hall, the Key Bridge would still be intact.

A post on X that generated 25.7 million views and 6,000 reposts blamed the tragedy on “Mayor DEI.” As if Brandon Scott, the Black mayor elected in 2020 with 70% of the vote, had been foisted on Baltimore by the likes of George Soros, Anthony Fauci and Joe Biden.

Of course, other MAGA grievances were also blamed for the mangled metal trusses blocking the Patapsco River. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the loony Georgia congresswoman who blamed California’s 2018 spate of wildfires on lasers from space, suggested on X that the bridge had come under “an international attack.” (She added that the collision could have been avoided if the Biden administration had not frittered away money on Ukraine.)

Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo and thousands of X posters blamed the crash on Biden’s border policies.

Alex Jones, the scurrilous peddler of conspiracy theories from whom the families of Sandy Hook mass shooting victims extracted $1.5 billion in court for his lies about their dead children, warned that this calamity was no accident. “WW3 has already started,” Jones said.

Matt Schlapp of the American Conservative Union told Newsmax the wreck was another sign of a “drug-addled” workforce.

But the MAGA consensus blames the wreck on DEI, this political season’s all-purpose liberal scapegoat. If the Baltimore tragedy had occurred in 2023 or 2022 or 2021, MAGA constituents would have claimed the bridge had been torpedoed by drag queens or liberal prosecutors or Black Lives Matter protestors or Trump-hating judges or whatever the far-right’s latest imagined menace might have been at the time.

But we’ve learned in the age of MAGA that disgrace and mendacity no longer disqualify politicians. Anthony Sabatini still has stature in the GOP, despite calling Disney World “pedo world,” the U.S. capitol police “the gestapo” and the Iraq-born wife of his 2022 primary opponent “anti-Christian.” (Sabatini is running again, this time against three-term incumbent Daniel Webster.)

Same with Laura Loomer, who won 44% of Republican congressional primary vote in 2022 against Webster, despite her assertions that Parkland survivors had been paid actors in a faked massacre. (She hinted Monday on Twitter that she was considering running against incumbent Laurel Lee in a Tampa-area district.)

Marjorie Taylor Greene livestreamed her 2019 ambush of Parkland survivor David Hogg on Facebook, chasing him down the street, uttering unhinged accusations, which turns out to be admired behavior in MAGA politics. Her cruelty was rewarded by two terms in Congress and influence in party politics.

But never mind the lies and lunatic conspiracy theories espoused by MAGA leaders. If something goes awry, the party can always blame DEI.