President Trump and his MAGAs are even more obsessed with DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) than “wokeness.” Their obsession represents a fanatical opposition to civil rights for the “other” (lately their hatred of the transgender community appears to have surpassed their fear of black and brown people). They’ve turned DEI into the latest in their long line of boogeymen, using it to assert that minorities are inferior and incompetent while simultaneously claiming whites are being unfairly persecuted in society and the job market.
Last week Trump even blamed DEI for the terrible plane crash at Reagan National Airport, with no evidence to support his claim other than his “common sense.” By that logic you can blame DEI for just about anything, and you can be sure that in the coming months Trump and his supporters will do just that. With no basis in fact, he blamed the crash on Democrats’ DEI policies, which is to say the inferiority and incompetence of women and minorities. This is just a new version of the time-honored tradition of blaming everything on Blacks and Jews, the oldest scapegoats in a worn-out, used up playbook.
The audacity to blame DEI (the “other”) for the country’s worst aviation accident in over two decades represents another new low for Donald Trump. Once again we’re reminded that, for Trump and MAGA, “cruelty is the point.” Their anger and almost pathological need for scapegoats knows no bounds. This humble spirit used to question whether Trump actually believed the lies he spewed or if he was just throwing red meat to his base. But the man has become so hideous, so old and ugly and mean, that his terrible lies are beginning to seem like honest beliefs. (Talk about the old adage, “everyone gets the face they deserve”!) The sad fact is, anyone who still believes that climate change is a “hoax” is liable to believe anything.
Trump and MAGA World Blame Everything on the “Other,” the Object of Their Hatred and Fear. And for them, DEI is Code for the “Other.”
MAGA world, along with the tech-bro oligarchy that now serves as a benefactor, hates DEI because it represents the antithesis of WMS: white, male and straight, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Who in heck do these people think they’re kidding?! When they talk about getting DEI out of government and corporations, what they really want is to put non-white, non-male, non-straight people back in their second-class, subservient place—and keep them there. As we know, linking Marxism and communism to civil rights can be traced back to the early days of Reconstruction, when the South’s old (Confederate) guard manipulated poor whites by claiming that any improvement in Black people’s lives was perpetrated at their expense. Over 150 years later, Trump and his MAGAs haven’t even bothered to put lipstick on that sorry old pig.
The Little Lie that Ain’t so Little
Is this humble spirit the only one who’s sick and tired of Republicans justifying Trump’s actions—most especially his pardoning the January 6 insurrectionists—with the claim that the American people gave him a “mandate”? Someone who didn’t get as much as 50% of the vote and only beat his Democratic opponent by 1.5% hardly has a mandate. In reality, it was one of the closest elections in American history, but as usual, Trump and his supporters have no qualms about distorting the truth. And even if Trump had received a “mandate,” polls show the majority of Americans are opposed to freeing those who committed violence against law enforcement officers at the Capitol—just as they oppose taking retribution against his perceived enemies at the FBI and DOJ.