For the Trump administration, “anti-DEI” means “Jim Crow”

The underlying logic behind firing Charles Brown and other senior members of the military leadership is far from subtle:

Of the Chiefs of Staff, vice chiefs of staff, and judge advocates general of the three branches, Trump fired all the women and Black people.

[image or embed]— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog.lol) February 21, 2025 at 6:57 PM

Just look at these paragraphs from the AP story. Hegseth called Brown unqualified solely because he's Black. Then they fired him… and replaced him with a white guy so indisputably unqualified that he requires a Presidential waiver. This is what "merit" means to them. apnews.com/article/trum…

[image or embed]— Max Kennerly (@maxkennerly.bsky.social) February 21, 2025 at 5:53 PM

The “anti-DEI” crusade of the Trump administration is just a very strong presumption that women and Black people are unfit for any professional positions they occupy. Thinking this can somehow be manipulated to serve progressive ends is as crazy as thinking RFK Jr. becoming head of HHS can [gift link]:

The upshot of the many meanings of D.E.I. is that when President Trump announced, at the start of his term, that he wanted to uproot D.E.I. from the federal government, there was some sympathy — and even agreement — from those who are otherwise opposed to the administration and its overall program. If nothing else, effectively ending the battle over D.E.I. might clear the space for a different kind of politics, less focused on diversity and inclusion than more material concerns.

But then we have to remember that D.E.I. also means something to people on the political right, from the reactionaries who lead the White House to the propagandists who carry their message to the masses. For them, D.E.I. is less “white fragility” and silly posters about “white supremacy culture” than it is the mere presence of a woman or nonwhite person or disabled or transgender person in any high-skilled, high-status position. And their alternative isn’t some heretofore unknown standard of merit; it is the reintroduction of something like segregation.

Again, pretending like Trump just wants to stop slide decks about how showing up to work on time is white supremacist is just pure useful idiocy.