One of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttgieg’s main objectives is to push equity into every facet of his department’s actions and policies. He received those marching orders from President Joe Biden, who signed an executive order on day one in office mandating that the whole of the federal government be used to advance racial equity.
That’s why if it seems like Buttigieg is a bit slow to address safety issues that actually matter to the average American — such as the hazardous train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio — it’s because he is. In fact, the “Safety First” portion of the Department of Transportation’s website hasn’t been updated since May 2020 — which speaks volumes about how much the president’s administration actually care about preventing harm.
Instead, their focus is on making sure that the federal government uses its might and power to redistribute tax dollars toward “underserved communities” and make sure that agencies use hiring practices that focus not on merit, but on skin color and other immutable traits.
On Monday, Buttigieg made it a point to address the racial makeup of construction workers before even addressing the situation in East Palestine.
While at the National Association of Counties Conference, Buttigieg bemoaned, “We have heard way too many stories from generations past of infrastructure where you got a neighborhood, often a neighborhood of color, that finally sees the project come to them, but everyone in the hard hats on that project, doing the good paying jobs, don’t look like they came from anywhere near the neighborhood.”
What does it matter if the person wielding a jackhammer is black, brown, yellow, or white? It doesn’t. What should matter is that he has the competency to not hurt himself, his coworkers, or the public.
Well, to the Democrats it matters a great deal. In fact, equity is one of the Department of Transportation’s four main priorities according to the website: Climate and Sustainability, Equity, Safety, and Transformation.
As mentioned, the Department’s “Safety First” website still touts the goals of Secretary Elaine Chao, who was running the show for former President Donald Trump.
That sort of speaks for itself as to where Buttgieg’s priorities are.
Meanwhile, the equity tab proudly proclaims, “For the first time, DOT has centered Equity as a Department-wide strategic goal. This is a critical step to institutionalizing equity across the Department’s policies and programs, with the aim of reducing inequities across our transportation systems and the communities they affect.”
Equity is their central focus and they are quite proud of it. What does that entail for Americans?
As Professor Victor Davis Hanson explained to The Daily Wire last spring, what that means is that “in reductionist fashion, any inequality is due to racism or bias and the government must have the wisdom and morality to punish perceived victimizers and redistribute to supposed victims.”
“All else does not count — not merit, not tragedies, not health, not class, not work ethic, not family structures, not culture, not anything — except the elite in charge will always be exempt from the ramifications of their own equity ideology,” he explained.
So maybe that’s why Buttigieg waited 10 days before commenting on the train crash in East Palestine. It just didn’t affect him. As Hanson explained, he’s immune from the ramifications of his own policies. What moved Buttigieg to comment on it wasn’t a concern for the matter at hand, but that conservative media and even some Democrats were hounding him for a response.
More likely than not, he will probably quickly go back to focusing on justifying racial discrimination through the lens of equity. But perhaps his team will update the “Safety First” tab to at least give off the appearance that they are concerned with, well, putting safety first.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
