Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, the first men to land on the moon, plant the U.S. flag on the lunar surface, July 20, 1969. Photo was made by a 16mm movie camera inside the lunar module, shooting at one frame per second. (Nasa via AP)

This is so on brand that it’s scary.

Many Americans and the U.S. government are currently celebrating the incredible achievement of reaching the moon 50 years ago. It’s a testament to this country’s greatness, ingenuity, and uniqueness that we were able to accomplish such a feat with the technology of the time.

Now, to most people that’d be completely non-controversial.

The New York Times aren’t most people though.

America may have put the first man on the moon, but the Soviet Union sent the first woman, the first Asian man, and the first black man into orbit — all years before the U.S. would follow suit https://t.co/DrTZYxvbD7

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 18, 2019

Holy crap! The literal kicker: "Cosmonaut diversity was key for the Soviet message to the rest of the globe: Under socialism, a person of even the humblest origins could make it all the way up." https://t.co/9wGza2FbU2

— jerylbier (@JerylBier) July 18, 2019

In the bowels of scorching hot takes, this may be the hottest I’ve seen in some time. This is a level of wokeness that surpasses comprehension, where being anti-American is so paramount that the “paper of record” is now praising a murderous gulag state for supposedly beating us in the “space race for equality.”

This take would be bad enough on some random day in some random year. But the Times waits until Americans are celebrating being the first (and only) nation to get to the moon is to unleash this journalistic equivalent of dog poop on the world.

I’m trying to imagine what kind of person sits around in the midst of a unifying national event and instead frantically runs through ways to crap on their own country while uplifting a communist dictatorship. The glowing description of socialism in the article is simply laughable. Yes, a woman from the Soviet Union became an astronaut, but it was much more likely you’d end up slaving away in a factory or rotting in a gulag. Shouldn’t that be mentioned when extolling the virtues of the Soviets and their awful system? Never mind that the Soviet space program placed no value on human life, meaning that many of their “firsts” they finally accomplished came at the expense of many fried human beings beforehand.

Furthermore, this critique isn’t even true. The United States may not have sent the first woman into space, but we’ve had far more female astronauts over the course of our space program reaching far more milestones.

https://twitter.com/hollymathnerd/status/1151877191703171072?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fd-33129970953531103209.ampproject.net%2F1907152257550%2Fframe.html

In other words, the Times was so desperate to trash America on what was supposed to be an apolitical event, they ignored every bit of context that disproved their ridiculous contention.

The line of attack is dumb anyway. America was not trying to win the meaningless race for diversity in space. We were trying to get the moon. That was the mission and we succeeded. The New York Times does a great disservice to the men and women who worked on the Apollo program by running this dumpster fire of a Soviet propaganda piece on a day set aside to honor their achievements.

I’d say the Times should be ashamed of themselves but given their history of fluffing communism, they clearly lack the ability to feel shame.

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