Why Has Trump & MAGA Turned ‘Diversity Equity & Inclusion’ into an Obscenity?

I was raised to appreciate the concepts on which the United States Constitution is based, which was so poetically written in the Preamble:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure (sic) domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Some constitutional framers and then elected representatives with pressure by and coalitions with “We the People,” over the past nearly 250 years have worked diligently to come ever closer to forming that “more perfect Union” by connecting the original document to a series of important amendments, in addition to civil and human rights legislation, executive orders, and judicial decisions.

Federal, state, and local governmental and private institutions have often led the way in securing an increasingly welcoming working environment by instituting several policies and procedures. Over our recent past, many of these policies taken together have come under the umbrella title of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (or DEI) initiatives.

Let’s consider a definition of DEI:

“DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives are strategic actions taken by organizations to create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace. These initiatives aim to address biases, promote fair treatment, and ensure that everyone feels valued and has equal opportunities. DEI initiatives encompass a wide range of activities, including training, hiring practices, policy changes, and employee resource groups.”

Subdivided into its constituent parts, “Diversity” can mean bringing together people with a variety of different voices, backgrounds, and political, theological, and philosophical outlooks, who come from differing social identities.

The inverse of “diversity” are concepts such as “uniformity,” “homogeneity,” “sameness,” “segregation,” “conformity,” “injustice,” “bias,” “discrimination,” and others.

“Equity” represents the recognition that individuals do not start in life from the same place, for example, socially, physically, and economically, while acknowledging that at times, adjustments or accommodations need to be made to compensate for the imbalances.

Contrary to “equity” is “favoritism,” “bias,” “prejudgment,” “prejudice,” “one-sidedness,” “predisposition,” “predilection,” “subjectivity,” “proclivity,” “penchant,” “partisanship,” and more.

And “Inclusion” means the practices or policies for ensuring equal access to opportunities and resources for individuals and groups who may traditionally have been barred or marginalized.

Opposing concepts include “deletion,” “exclusion,” “omission,” “elimination,” “erasure,” “skipping over,” “elision,” and on and on.

So, what is more “pro-American” and “patriotic” than programs and people who are attempting to bring about the promise of our founding documents? Concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusion illuminate key texts such as the United States Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights.

With most social change efforts, however, opposing forces have launched a fierce deception with a sustained backlash to turn back progressive social change, which we are seeing now against DEI initiatives.

In this regard, Donald Trump has been leading the charge.

While in the Oval Office during his first term, for example, President Donald Trump in September 2020 signed an executive order banning DEI programs in government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and other institutions that held or applied for federal contracts. The stated purpose of the order was to “combat offensive and anti-American race and sex stereotyping.” A federal judge blocked that order.

While Trump, Elon Musk, and others on the political right oppose DEI initiatives, they stand in full and unqualified support for politics, programs, initiatives, and institutions that promote what I have termed “OPK” (“Oligarchs, Plutocrats, and Kleptocrats”) hiring and retention initiatives.

Simply check out Trump’s cabinet, advisors, and ambassador choices for his second term with the unprecedented number of billionaires. For the first four months, the Executive branch of government was headed by a virtual joint Trump/Musk presidency.

If one has any doubts about Trump’s OPK initiatives, simply direct your internet search engine to a summary of the Trump and congressional Republicans’ so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” which proposes, at the very least, tens of millions of dollars in reductions to Medicaid, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which will go instead to ensuring permanent substantial tax cuts to the already super rich.

The Medicare Rights Center estimates that 13.7 million people will lose their health insurance if the bill becomes law in its current form. This is in direct opposition to Trump’s campaign promises of enacting no cuts to government entitlement programs and lowering the cost of living for all US residents.

Trump has transformed the terms within the concept of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) into accusations and epithets for “unqualified,” “low experience,” “low education,” “low expectations,” “anti-white,” and “anti-male” regarding workplace quality and performance.

Trump and other MAGA sycophants have blamed everything negative on DEI initiatives (with no verifiable documentation), from airplanes falling out of the sky and airplane doors falling off mid-flight, to assertions that DEI policies jeopardize military readiness placing our troops at increased risk for injury and death.

But don’t be fooled. The continuing and perennial need for DEI programs in schools and industry lay bare the lie that the United States stands as a meritocratic nation built on the dream and practice that hard work, talent, and ambition alone provide the ticket to success, regardless of one’s former background and social identities.

This concept of meritocracy fails to consider the long legacy of differentials of power and privilege based on the social identities of race, socioeconomic class, gender and gender identity, sexual identity, ability, age, national origin, and others.

Today, the United States stands as the most culturally and religiously diverse country in the world. This diversity poses great challenges and great opportunities. The way we meet these challenges will determine whether we remain in the abyss of our history or whether we can truly achieve our promise of becoming a shining beacon to the world.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives, when deployed effectively, can give us all the opportunity to shine to the outer limits of our potential.