President Trump may abolish “DEI” in name, but unless he does, it will continue to exist…

President Trump has made it clear that he aims to defeat the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) agenda. Democrats aim to defeat him and keep them alive. And while the president is very likely to win the current battle, in the realm of federal politics, how will the war play out? Is this simply a matter of force quitting the program?

Or is it really fundamentally a matter of killing the spirit, the idea?

In 2008, I wrote a piece titled “Cultural Affirmative Action,” which was republished in a university reference book. It started:

In some ways, I prefer the plain old affirmative action. Although it was government-sanctioned discrimination, it was, at least in some ways, more honest than our cultural affirmative action. That's what happens. It is when people in the market and media privilege others, sometimes unconsciously, based on identifying the latter with the “victim group”.

I went on to say, “Probably the majority of Americans practice cultural affirmative action to some degree.”

This is important because while the “DEI” label is new, the products it identifies are more than half a century old. Oh, sure, it's been tweaked. Implicit marketing claims could be “New and improved!” But it's just a rebranded and beefed-up version of affirmative action. Undoubtedly, that predicate is still embedded in our culture.

In other words, it may be relatively easy to remove DEI programs from the government, at least while President Trump is in power. But purging the culture of DEI ethos requires a shift of hearts and minds.

current battle

As long as the current battle continues, cultural translocators are not abandoning their legalized programs of discrimination without a fight. And legalized discrimination has become a problem. Illustrating this point is the infamous statement made by Kristin Larson, deputy chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department.

“You want to see someone just like you who will respond to your home and emergencies, whether it's a medical call or a fire call,” she said in a video that went viral. Now, imagine this being said to you by a southern sheriff, comedian and commentator Bill Maher recently responded: It would be roundly condemned as “racist.”

But Larson's comments were typical DEI. Note that “fairness” is not synonymous with “equality” (which is itself problematic). Rather, as Kamala Harris once explained in a campaign ad, it's about giving certain people a head start in the race so that “we all end up in the same place.” (This is not only impossible, but also not what Harris actually wanted. She wanted to be above everyone else, to be the most powerful person in the world.) ) DEI is communism, where racial/ethnic/sexual group identity wars replace class wars.

But again, this did not deter DEI defenders. As USA Today reported on Monday:

State lawmakers are speaking out in defense of DEI in the face of President Donald Trump's executive order banning diversity, equity and inclusion measures in the federal government.

More than 30 state Democratic officials across the country signed a letter to Trump pledging to protect DEI. Statehouses have become hubs for anti-DEI attacks.

“Anti-DEI rhetoric and policy goals are dangerous, destructive, and discriminatory. After all, they are erecting barriers to our American Dream,” the open letter obtained by USA TODAY reads. It is written.

Die, die, day

However, this appeal is unlikely to save DEI. USA Today also reported:

The anti-DEI campaign is expected to gain further momentum as it becomes central to the president's economic and cultural agenda.

“Florida, Texas and other states have already abolished DEI, and private companies like Meta are following suit,” said Christopher Rufo, a DEI critic and senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute think tank. told USA TODAY. “The time is now.”

However, I should have written that the Democratic Party's efforts are not just about saving DEI in name. But if we don't want what has become “affirmative action/quota” and “DEI” to persist in another guise, we must recognize that it is a symptom as well as a cause. No.

underlying disease

Let's do a thinking exercise. Imagine that we believed that all groups are the same in terms of worldly tendencies and abilities, or in other words, equal. As a result of this, they must perform equally well in all endeavors. What if it's not?

Well, our thesis is that the disparity cannot be due to inherent differences (whether genetically or culturally determined). Therefore, the explanation must lie in external factors such as discrimination and “white supremacy baked into the culture.” Therefore, to improve this, it follows that external factors such as discrimination and “white norms” need to be addressed. In other words, social engineering like DEI.

When the assumption of equality of group abilities is accompanied by the requirement of equality of group outcomes, we will seek “redress.'' And in our case it is.

Where is the equality?

But in reality, “equality” is out of this world. Let's think about nature. Some species can overwhelm others or be better adapted. Therefore, rats are pests and dodos are extinct. (And in fact, rats drove the dodo to extinction.) Some species are tougher, smarter, faster, and stronger than others. There are alphas and betas, silverback gorillas lead the herd, and dominant lions lead the pride. Also, different breeds of dogs have different characteristics, and some dogs are smarter than others.

But ironically, while the left claims that humans are just another animal, they somehow imply that humans are the only exception to nature's norm of inequality. But history and data say otherwise.

In fact, there has never been a time or place when different groups were equally or proportionately represented in any endeavor. For example, as the late Professor Walter E. Williams wrote in 2019, despite only 2 percent of the world's population:

Jews have won 40% of the Nobel Prizes in economics, 30% of the medicine prizes, 25% of the physics prizes, 20% of the chemistry prizes, 15% of the literature prizes, and 10% of the Nobel Peace Prizes.

Furthermore, the NFL is 100 percent male and the NBA is over 70 percent black. Virtually all nurses are women and most engineers are men. And 92 percent of workplace fatalities involve men. Is this disparity “unfair”?

Such group differences are also evident around the world (for example, the dominance of Chinese in Malaysia). Williams also wrote that only a “fool” would blame these disparities on unfair discrimination. They are better explained by differences in abilities and inclinations.

shake your fist towards the sky

It is clear that accepting unreality, such as claiming equality of human nature characterized by innate inequality, is problematic. Famous architect Buckminster Fuller said, “You can never change things by fighting the existing reality.” “To change something, we build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” But in the case of the doctrine of equality, we do not need a new model, but a timeless model – a revival of virtue. is.

In other words, violating the mythical concept of “equality” does not preclude unfair discrimination. You reject it because it violates the virtues of justice, charity, kindness, and prudence.

Only a return to moral reality can lead us away from unreality like the doctrine of equality and what we now call “DEI” where we have to play whack-a-mole with its devilish children. can save us. Simply treating the cause will permanently eliminate the symptoms.