Trump’s misguided war on DEI

Everywhere you look these days, it’s open war on dei part of it is, I’m sure, about convenience. White rage abhors a vacuum, and now that the Supreme Court has struck down affirmative action college admissions, well, all that resentment needed a new target. It had to go somewhere. However, we got here. Suddenly, we are constantly being told that three simple concepts, diversity, equity and inclusion are what’s to blame for everything that ails America, from alleged lowering of standards in the US military to the devastating Los Angeles wildfires to the recent collision of an army helicopter and a commercial airplane over the Potomac River that tragically results in the deaths of 67 people. President Trump has suggested, without evidence or facts to back it up and guide only by what he calls his quote common sense, that those poor souls who are being fished out of the Potomac died because of dei Trump appears to be placing much of the blame on the air traffic controllers. He claims that the current crop is sub par because President, Joe Biden, for four years, threw quality standards out the window and put the emphasis on hiring women, people of color, members of the LGBT community and people with disabilities. To hear the anti dei crusaders tell it, everything was going gangbusters. Back in the day, everyone had a shot at economic opportunity. All the various ethnic groups in America were getting along swimmingly, and there was peace and harmony in all the land as gumdrops fell from the sky.

That is, until about five to 10 years ago when corporations, government agencies and higher education began to foster diversity, equity and inclusion and according to Trump, while standards went right out the window, the same argument came up during the confirmation hearings for Pete hexaf, a totally ordinary white male who wound up with the extraordinarily important position of Defense Secretary hex Seth is a vocal skeptic of having women participate in every facet of the US military, and he justifies this boneheadedness by defending standards and attacking Dei. Meanwhile, on social media, the critics of dei ask you, well, would you rather have your surgeon, your pilot, your firefighter be of a certain gender or race, or do you simply want the most qualified person for the job? Oddly, these people are never able to imagine a situation where the most qualified person is a woman or a person of color. It’s as if, in their world, the white males are always the most qualified to do any job. You can’t fight a warrant to understand the terms. So let’s be clear regarding what this war on dei is really all about. Here’s a hint. It’s not about preserving high standards or holding the line against the erosion of those standards. It’s not about making sure the best and most qualified people always get the job. Rather, the war on dei is about eliminating competition and preserving the old order. It’s about keeping out new blood and maintaining the status quo. It’s about resisting change and widening opportunity for groups that have long been excluded from the table. It’s about keeping white men in power and off the unemployment line, and most of all, it’s about setting up a false narrative that allows white men to claim all the credit when things go right and everyone else to catch all the blame when anything goes wrong. And it could work too. Sure, the war on dei is dishonest and unfair, but also might be effective if you can convince enough Americans that anyone who isn’t a white male is automatically inferior and unqualified, and there’s nothing anyone can do to change that fact. Yep, something is broken here. Something dangerous is happening here, but it’s not dei and.