Conservatives Wasted No Time Getting Wildly Racist About the Baltimore Bridge Collapse

The bridge’s collapse, which officials say occurred after a cargo ship lost power and crashed into a support column, has laid bare the extent to which conservatives will seize any opportunity to warp our collective reality to further their cultural crusade against immigrants and Black people.

As much as those on the right would like for the general electorate to submit to their narrative that the nation is under siege—if not by undocumented immigrants then liberal bureaucrats pushing an “anti-white” agenda—the reality on the ground does not bear that out.

Setting aside the lie that diversity and incompetence go hand in hand, the notion that, for instance, Scott—who was overwhelmingly elected to lead a majority-Black city after nearly a decade on the city council—is some kind of diversity hire is laughable on its face. But it provides cover for what conservatives really want to say, which is that a young Black mayor is unqualified, ill-equipped, and culpable for any tragedy.

While federal investigators believe the bridge collapse is not the result of terrorism or any intentional act, immigrants are involved in the catastrophe, though just not in a way that serves the narrative of Fox News. Six construction workers, who were working the overnight shift fixing potholes on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it collapsed, remain missing and are feared dead. All six are young Latino men originally from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, with families living in Baltimore’s close-knit immigrant neighborhoods of Highlandtown and Dundalk.

“They are all hard-working, humble men,” Jesus Campos, an employee of contractor Brawner Builders—whose workers are among the missing—told The Baltimore Banner through a translator. Campos added that all of them came to the city for a better life—not necessarily for themselves, but for the loved ones they left behind.

“I feel devastated with what happened. They are all my friends, they are coworkers. I feel very sad,” he said.

It is these men’s lives—and their possible deaths—along with the mere existence of a majority-Black city led by Black elected officials, that the conservative media ecosystem so gleefully exploits for their own political gain.