ICYMI: The Culture War Has Taken to The Skies
Airlines are grabbing as many headlines as Taylor Swift and Elon Musk these days. But the conversations aren’t around Boeing’s mechanical issues.
Instead of calling out the airline or plane maker, Donald Trump Jr. suggested diversity efforts were to blame when a wheel fell off a jet on a runway in Atlanta. Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida and tech billionaire Elon Musk tweeted out messages echoing Trump Jr’s allegations and, just like Trump Jr, provided no evidence to back up their claims. Musk’s were so offensive and baseless – and garnered so much support on X that civil rights groups made statements condemning his tweets.
Diversity and inclusion efforts aren’t the only issues the right is focusing on, either. Fox News called out Taylor Swift for using her private jet on a 40-minute flight after dismissing similar criticism as “flak” two weeks prior.
While The Points Guy predicts a record number of travelers are taking to the skies this year, there’s another reason many politicians and political talking heads are focusing on air travel. Spoiler alert: it’s not airplane safety.
How Safe Are Planes, Anyway?
Tucker Carlson and others have been “warning” Fox News viewers about diversity efforts and the supposed impact this has on airline safety since 2021. At the time, they suggested these changes would have lethal consequences for airline passengers. The conversation picked up heat again at the beginning of January when a panel blew off an Alaska Airlines flight.
The flight itself landed safely, with the crew – one of whom was a woman – receiving praise for how calmly they handled the emergency. But even when something “major” on a plane happens like this, planes are still safe.
In 2022, for instance, of the 32.2 million flights that took off, only five had fatal accidents, according to Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transportation Association (IATA). Of those fatal air crashes, none involved U.S. airlines. There hasn’t been a fatal airplane accident in the U.S. since 2009.
No Data to Support Diversity Claims
“Even someone with basic knowledge of airline operations and safety would know that there’s no data to support this,” Brett Snyder, founder of Cranky Flier, explains in a phone interview with NBC News. “It’s an affront to the people who are being brought into this industry and making them feel like they don’t belong.”
According to Snyder, the media spotlight the January 5 incident brought to the airline industry has. “Airlines are always in the news, and people love talking about airlines,” he explains. “Anyone who is trying to seize on an anti-diversity message would probably do the same thing as anyone else and say, ‘Where are the eyeballs?’”
This is How “Diverse” Airlines Actually Are
Even for election-year, hype-the-base rhetoric, the claims connecting DEI initiatives to safety issues are ridiculous. Anything wrong with a plane gets blamed on diversity. Podcast host Joey Mannarino, for instance, claimed in a post on X that “the diversity hire brigade” was to blame for tarmac delays at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
But how diverse are airlines, anyway? Not very.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 92% of airline pilots and engineers are white and male. While there have been small gains over the years – the number of Black pilots and flight engineers grew from 2.7% in 2018 to 3.6% in 2023 – Asian representation and the number of women have decreased.
Mannarino stood by his concern in a direct message to NBC News, saying he believes that spending money on diversity initiatives detracts from other considerations and improvements. “Imagine all the free Wi-Fi for all customers that could be given if they weren’t busy funding stuff like this,” he said.
Has the Border Crisis Come to Airports?
But minorities in airports are as big of a problem – if not bigger – for far-right influencers, politicians, and talking heads. The issue has been gaining traction in online discourse over the past few months, kicking off back in December when Ashley St. Clair shared a video to X of passengers boarding a plane heading from Phoenix to New York.
According to St. Clair, the bags people were carrying were from “migrant centers,” and that’s how she knew why they were flying to New York City. Her video, now with over 27.3 million views on X, kicked off a rising trend of “exposing” how the United States is handling an overflow of migrants.
X and TikTok account, “Libs of TikTok,” has posted at least three videos this month of people said to be migrants, including toddlers, sleeping in airports, and the account expressed outrage at their presence.
“Which airport or school will be next?” one post said. “This destruction of America is intentional, and it’s treasonous.”
Even Majorie Taylor Greene is in on airport discourse. During a congressional hearing in January, she reported she “just traveled in airports across the country just the past few days” and saw “[m]igrants, illegal aliens, all over in the airports.”
Immigration, Air Travel Major Voter Issues For 2024
Footage from Boston Logan’s International terminal – a current “de facto homeless shelter,” per WBUR – only fuels the fire. After all, issues on borders, border security, and immigration go with elections like peanut butter and jelly.
Immigration to the United States has steadily increased since the 1950s. According to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Encounters report, more than 2.4 million people crossed the southwest border in 2023 – a record year after decades of record-breaking years. From Venezuela’s collapse to the growing number of wars across Asia and Europe, there is no sign there will be a slowing of asylum seekers, either.
The situation is so out of hand that President Joe Biden asked Congress to grant him power to close the borders last week, per The New York Times. His request comes after a 2022 Roosevelt Room address calling out “extreme Republicans” for holding the country back from modernizing immigration laws.
“[Republicans] can keep using immigration to try and score political points,” President Biden said at the time, “or they can help solve the problem.”
As the 2024 election draws closer, candidates and talking heads from both sides will undoubtedly be doing both: trying to score points and, hopefully, trying to solve the problem.
