Taylor’s Takes: I’ve had enough of “firsts”

Can we please stop with “firsts”?

All of them. First woman. First black man. First openly gay man. First immigrant. First transgender, myopic, bi-polar they/them.

It’s quite enough already.

I’m sure at one point these firsts actually carried some weight. Firsts meant something when there were actual sex-based, racial, queer, or some other manner of barriers preventing an individual from achieving their goal.

But in today’s America, all of those barriers have been removed.

Women can vote and run for office. The same for blacks and all other minorities.

Openly gay/queer people are free to be whomever or whatever it is they choose to be in any profession that doesn’t require you to pass a mental health exam. A person of any self-professed gender is permitted to marry someone of the same self-professed gender. Or any other gender for that matter (there’s only two, by the way).

I first became annoyed with the “first” propaganda while watching NFL games some years ago. It seemed every statistic that the announcers relayed was twisted and contrived into some history-making moment.

“You know, this is the first NFL player over 225 pounds and born in the state of Hawaii during the autumnal equinox to reach over 100 rushing yards in a single game.”

I couldn’t tell you if those statistics are still being fed to the commentators. I haven’t voluntarily watched a game other than the Super Bowl for quite some time.

But there are more consequential firsts than athletic competitions.

In every presidential election in the 21^st century there has been at least one female running for the nation’s top office. A record six women ran for president in 2020 (Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tulsi Gabbard, and Marianne Williamson). Most of them didn’t make it to Super Tuesday. Kamala Harris couldn’t even hang on until the Iowa caucuses.

But Joe Biden selected Kamala Harris as his running mate. She was a triple threat: a female, a minority, and she was inarguably dafter than the senile former Vice President.

Kamala Harris became the first female Vice President.

So what?

What kind of track record did she produce as the first female Vice President? She, with Biden, left behind a wake of destruction. Open borders. Crippling inflation. A weaker-than-ever military. Not to mention the troughs of word salads political science students will forever be studying as part of “what not to do” lectures.

Are women sincerely proud that Kamala Harris was the first female Vice President? Does her track record warrant any recognition other than for what an unmitigated disaster she was?

We certainly dodged a bullet when she handily lost the 2024 election to Donald Trump.

But still, one of the major themes among her supporters during her brief candidacy for POTUS was that she would, once again, make history.

At what cost are we as a nation prepared to make history?

Apparently, trillions of dollars and American lives lost to illegal aliens at home and terrorists overseas was a reasonable price to pay, according to the 75 million people who cast a ballot for Harris.

Was her being a “first” the primary reason for most of those votes? Hardly. But I can be sure that was the sole reason for a great many of her supporters.

This week, we witnessed another “historical first.” The first all-female “crew” was launched, ever so briefly, into space.

I’ve read all of the jokes online about how Jeff Bezos was willing to spend billions of dollars just to get eleven minutes of peace and quiet whilst his fiancé was locked in an airtight capsule miles above him. All funny stuff.

What wasn’t funny was the seriousness of the moment that the women aboard the Blue Origin flight believed existed.

I thought nothing of it when I saw the headlines of the event. “Neat,” I thought, placing no importance on the flight other than it being another successful space flight by a private operator.

Then I saw the post-flight interviews with Katy Perry and Gayle King, two of the more prominent members of the “crew.”

I won’t subject you to the self-righteous crap that spewed from their mouths. Suffice it to say they viewed themselves as trailblazers, conquering and mastering a vocation dominated by men.

The collective laughter resounding from all corners of the nation after their touchdown made me proud to be an American.

These women wore form-fitting uniforms, not pressurized space suits. They had little more than seatbelts constraining them. They had no control of the rocket or any maneuvering of the capsule whatsoever. Those duties were remotely controlled by a ground crew. And after their eleven-minute sojourn, they had the audacity to kiss the ground and call themselves astronauts.

All for the sake of being a “first.”

Their collective behavior diminished what it means to be an astronaut. They endured minimal physical training, beginning preparations only days, and not the typical months, before traditional space flights. They did not have to study physics or pour over manuals.

They merely accepted an invitation.

Minimal effort was put in, and yet they claim history was made.

What message does this send to the young girls of America? Achieve enough social clout so that one day a billionaire may foot the bill for your technical footnote in the annals of history?

The whole event was empty and uninspired. It lacked any relevance and became nothing more than a publicity stunt.

And yet it will stand as a historical first.

It’s such a pity that we place so much importance on achieving “firsts” that we’re willing to nominate whomever happens to be nearby to receive the honor.

We don’t have firsts of merit anymore.

We have the DEI equivalent.