The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

This is a fascinating read, but the thing that bugs me about this whole affair is that when this came to light many years ago it was treated as a cheating and recruitment scandal. But only recently has it been reframed as a DEI issue.

Taking old, resolved scandals - slapping a coat of culture war paint on it - and then selling it as a new scandal is already a popular MO for state-sponsored propoganda, so we should be extra wary of stories like this being massaged.

The cheating element is only _part_ of it, and the dominant regime at the time downplayed / ignored the DEI elements because that was supported by their ideology...like a sacred cow. Litigating "disparate impact" cases across any category became a successful attack vector against capitalist structures, and supported by Democratic leadership.

This isn't "slapping a new coat of paint for propaganda," but rather exposing the rest of the iceberg that was otherwise concealed. Both pieces are relevant.

If I had to blame anything on the Democrats it is this:

Valuing competence is one thing. Valuing diversity is another thing. You can have neither, either one, or both. The democrats make a conspicuous show of not valuing competence in addition to making some noises about diversity.

Nobody said Barack Obama was an affirmative action case, no, he was one of the greatest politicians of the first quarter-century. On the other hand I feel that many left-leaning politicians make conspicuous displays of incompetence, I'd particularly call out Karen Bass, who would fall for whatever Scientology was selling and then make excuses for it. I think they want donors to know that whatever they are they aren't capable, smart and ambitious like Ralph Nader but rather they don't connect the dots between serving donors and what effect it has on their constituents.

When Bass was running for mayor of L.A. in a contested election for which she had to serve the whole community she went through a stunning transformation and really seemed to "get it", all the duckspeak aimed at reconciling a lefty constituency and rightist donors went away.

Nowhere is this disregard for competence more conspicuous in the elections where a senile or disabled white man is running against a lunatic. Fetterman beat Oz (they said, it's nothing, he just has aphasia, except his job is to speak for Pennsylvania) but they held on to Biden until the last minute against Trump and his replacement lost.

Democrats need to make it clear that you can have both, but shows of competence increase the conflict between being a party that is a favorite of donors and being a party that has mass appeal. Being just a little sheepish and stupid is the easy way to reconcile those but we see how that went in 2024.

But you also have MTG who literally believes “they” control the weather so I’m not sure exactly why you single democrats out here or even the it to any kind of ideology specific consequence.

I don't completely understand it but Republicans manage cognitive dissonance better.

Around 1994 I was interested in Trotskyism and Anarchism and wasn't sure if we needed to get the 4th international back in the US or start a 5th international.

I believed in this really stupid kind of vanguardism where if you put up the biggest and most radical flag you would get everyone to rally behind it. I reformed because I got tough love from black nationalists who told me in no uncertain words they wanted to decide things for themselves and not get bossed around by some white guy.

A modern form of this involves the adding of random stripes to the rainbow flag which means that when you really do put that flag up you won't have anybody under it, at least not when the going gets tough, when it rains, etc.

For one thing left-wing movements have this divergent character where they feel they have to follow all these people who are subaltern for different reasons. Right-wing movements have this convergent character that moves towards something which makes it much easier form them to manage inconsistencies.