Has partisanship in Washington become so bad that even a tragedy can no longer bring Democrats and Republicans together? We will find out in the coming hours.
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When news broke Wednesday night that a mid-air collision had caused mass casualties in Washington, DC, lawmakers of all stripes issued messages of condolences.
Apart, perhaps, from references to prayer, you would have been hard pressed to tell Democrat from Republican and vice versa. That is what things used to be like: The country rallies in times of tragedy.
However, that is no longer the case. As we have seen just recently, even natural disasters are now used to exploit the suffering of Americans.
As more details about the crash emerge, it seems possible that there may be a rush to judgment from both sides before all of the facts are revealed.
Here is what we know, 12 hours after the crash:
On Wednesday night, an American Airlines commercial jet was approaching Ronald Reagan National Airport when it collided with a Black Hawk military helicopter on a training mission in low altitude.
The most likely scenario is that this was “just an accident,” which could mean the malfunctioning of a piece of equipment that should have prevented this disaster or even simple human error.
However, there are also many ways in which careless politicians could try to use the crash to score political points.
Here are the kinds of things to look out for: Republicans suggesting that the military’s “wokeness” is to blame for the subpar training of helicopter pilots, or Democrats pointing fingers at President Donald Trump for taking steps in his first week in office to reduce the federal workforce.
Without a thorough investigation, it is irresponsible to speculate about these issues as potential causes. There will be plenty of time for finger-pointing later if all of the details of this tragedy become known. The coming hours and days will show whether Washington can rise to the occasion and above partisanship or whether even a tragedy is no longer able to bring Americans together.
So far, we are off to a bad start.
One of the nation’s leading conspiracy theorists, within hours of the crash, hinted at something nefarious going on:
The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!
That person, of course, was Donald J. Trump, 47th president of the United States and commander-in-chief.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
