Letter, 6/26: Tribalism visible at rocket launch - Lincoln Journal Star
A SpaceX Falcon 9, with NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken in the Crew Dragon capsule, lifts off from Pad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Saturday, May 30, 2020. The two astronauts are on the SpaceX test flight to the International Space Station. For the first time in nearly a decade, astronauts blasted towards orbit aboard an American rocket from American soil, a first for a private company. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Like many Americans, on May 31, I watched with great excitement as Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken became the first astronauts to be launched into space from U.S. soil since 2011.
After the launch, I noticed something. Under a shot of the launch pad was a box with three phone numbers. 202-748-8900 for Democrats, 202-748-8901 for Republicans and 202-748-8902 for Others. These were the hotline numbers that Americans could call to give their congratulations on air.
The Launch America Livestream commentators instructed viewers to call those numbers according to their political party identification. I could not believe it. Why would the congratulation hotline be divided between political affiliations?
Since it was almost certainly not a mistake, I could only think of two reasons:
* Obtaining data on the political demographics that called in.
* Prioritizing who got to speak on air by political party. I cannot know the real reason as no information is available, but on its face, it is concerning.
This detail about the phone numbers captures perhaps more than anything else the relentless march of political polarization in the U.S.
The phone numbers began being used in May 2015 for viewer comments on a variety of C-SPAN programming. Back then, the different numbers were for different time zones, not political party affiliation.
The last time the phone numbers were used was in February. C-SPAN viewers commented on the Iowa caucuses according to their political affiliation. This was appropriate because it was an inherently political event. The first manned space launch from the U.S. in nearly a decade is not.
Even apolitical events such as the recent space launch are being infiltrated by the political tribalism that has eroded the civility and sensibility of political discourse in this country. We should not let “partyism” divide us to such a needless and disturbing extent as was seen May 31.
Cameron Azimi, Lincoln
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