A bridge too far

The right's weird response to the Key Bridge collapse goes beyond racism

© 2015 Patorjk, used under a Creative Commons license

There are good posts out now by Jeff Tiedrich, Stephen Robinson, Noah Berlatsky and others that list and to some extent analyze the crazy ideas conservatives have spouted about the cargo ship collision with and collapse of the Key Bridge here in Baltimore.

Many of these, no shock, are rooted in racism. Tiedich, for example, mentions Maria Bartiromo’s citation of America’s allegedly “wide-open border” — a stupidity made extra offensive by the fact that some of the casualties were Central American immigrants working on the bridge (as for the crew of the cargo ship, Matt Schlapp called them “drug-addled”).

And there were the many conservatives like Florida GOP/Claremont creep Anthony Sabatini, who blamed the crash on “DEI,” and Utah Republican Phil Lyman, who blamed “diversity.” (And there was the bluecheck douche who called Brandon Scott our “DEI Mayor” for no other reason than, as Robinson said, “’DEI’ has just become another way of saying the ‘n-word.”’)

You can see and probably have seen plenty of this idiocy yourself —not to speak of the outlandish conspiracy theorizing and claims that it couldn’t be an accident because jet fuel can’t melt steel beams – whoops, sorry, wrong lunacy.

To a large extent it was predictable. I mean, you’re not surprised this has been their reaction, right?

The abovementioned observers are pretty good on analysis — Berlatsky particularly has some good ideas about why a big disaster like this would rile such rabid rightwing responses, even beyond the obvious ham-handed attempt to politicize it and the racism that’s always ready to burst from their lips since the reign of Tubby made it acceptable:

MAGA, in particular, is a movement built on stoking divisions and cultivating paranoid fear of Black people, immigrants, LGBT people, Muslims, Jews, and other marginalized people. Spreading conspiracy theories following disasters is a way to prevent the formation of solidarity, community, and trust. It’s a way for the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the world to signal to their followers to embrace their worst selves.

One of many amazing reversals among conservatives over the past few decades — up there with their Russophobia becoming Putinphilia — is that their former eagerness to strike up the band, whip out the flag pins and demand solidarity at moments of national stress and grief like 9/11 has turned into a general coldness, even dismissiveness toward tragedy.

When was the last time you heard a Republican leader make a convincing gesture toward comity and unity in the face of mass death and/or destruction? They simply don’t do it.

The relatively higher blackness level of Baltimore has some role here, as does the fact that many mass casualty events are mass shootings (which makes their Second Amendment worship look even creepier than usual), not to mention that their leader Trump is absolutely unable to show sympathy toward anyone besides himself (especially people he would consider “losers,” such as soldiers who die serving their country), so showing sympathy toward anyone else might seem disloyal.

But I really think is comes down to this: As I’ve said many times, American conservatism doesn’t have anything resembling principles or policies anymore. On social matters, for example, they tend to pick whatever seems the most male-white-supremacist option, and they don’t think hard about where that will take them, which is how they got Dobbs and the Alabama Supreme Court’s IVF decision, and all the political disaster that comes with them (and, we saw in Marilyn Lands’ victory this week, keeps on coming) .

What they do have, in abundance, is hate and anger, expressed with rhetoric of the most violent and incendiary kind. One thing that sticks with me about Ron DeSantis’ recent challenge to Trump is how he glommed onto the elements of Trumpism — intolerance, viciousness, bellowing butchness — and how it didn’t go over simply because DeSantis is such an obvious tryhard rather than an authentic, all-natural, doesn’t-need-lessons son of a bitch.

The conservative pitch isn’t good governance, God knows. It’s rage and revenge. Thus, when a tragedy affecting great masses of people occurs — and count on it, the months-long closing of the shipping lanes alone is going to fuck up the lives of thousands of people whose livelihoods are tied up with it — their response isn’t, indeed couldn’t be, “how can we help?” Instead it’s who’s behind it? What’s the catch? What’s in it for them? What’s in it for me?

That’s the Pottersville they want for all of us, and if you don’t want it you’re a simp and a sucker and, if you’re black or one of those black-people-lovers, you’re responsible for the Boeing door falling off and the collapse of the bridge and everything else bad that happens whether it can be proven or even makes sense or not. And while there’s no point in trying to actually make anything work better for everybody — c’mon, that’d interfere with our endless auto-da-fe — we can at least focus on who we want to blame for our problems and punish them, which will be good for a few laughs.

I guess a shorter way to say it could be that they just don’t give a shit about anybody besides themselves. Except I don’t think they care about themselves and their own loved ones either — at least not the way normal people do. They’re a death cult, and for people like that empathy is not just counterproductive, it’s impossible.