The kind of viewpoint that sees print in a "reputable" venue in an age when history is no longer taken seriously

The mindset that expects the history makers in previous periods of human existence to undertake their various achievements motivated by present-day notions of demographic equity leads to this kind of infantile "observation":

The New York Times — that Democratic Party house organ that fancies itself "liberal" or "progressive" or some such — is actually one of the more reactionary institutions in our country. Sometimes you have to wonder if it might actually be an American version of Izvestia.

Speaking of which, in honor of the fifty-year anniversary of the USA putting a man on the moon, the once-upon-a-time newspaper of record produced this ridiculous nonsense under the rubric "How the Soviets Won the Space Race for Equality."

The Cold War was fought as much on an ideological front as a military one, and the Soviet Union often emphasized the sexism and racism of its capitalist opponents — particularly the segregated United States. And the space race was a prime opportunity to signal the U.S.S.R.’s commitment to equality. After putting the first man in space in 1961, the Soviets went on to send the first woman, the first Asian man, and the first black man into orbit — all years before the Americans would follow suit.

Obviously, the willful ignorance of history being displayed here also takes the form of grasping at straws to make the Soviet regime look enlightened when it was the model for all modern totalitarian hellholes. Even so, right now the point is the op-ed author's willful ignorance regarding what kind of people in countries that were not tyrannical like that (such as the US) were interested in working on the space program in the 1960s.

It's the same mentality that encourages leftists to think they're making a point when they put slave owning at the top of noteworthy facts about various Founders of our nation. No look into the compromises that were necessary as the Constitution was being crafted, no look into statements by various Founders making it plain they found the institution of slavery abhorrent. No mention of how the Northwest Ordinance was the next document after the Constitution that they went to work on. No mention of how slavery is a universal institution throughout our species' history, and that the West, particularly the United States, was at the forefront of pointing out its moral rottenness.

That the demographic angle would be the first thing this writer would think of on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing speaks volumes about what she would have to say about pretty much anything.