I would like to know exactly what underlies the Trump/GOP obsession with DEI.

[Ocelot II]

I understand that they want to be sure mediocre white men get first dibs on jobs and that nobody gets in trouble at work just because they said "n****r" out loud, but it has to be something even deeper than that. There must be some intense, festering hate at the bottom of it. Have any of them ever even looked at DEI training materials? I really doubt it.

I had to take an online DEI course because I'm a volunteer with a program sponsored by our state university, and I found it completely uncontroversial, even a little boring, because the points were so obvious: Don't make assumptions about other people on account of their race/gender/religion/disability, etc., don't use slurs or nicknames; don't urge your religion on others; be respectful and kind; be aware of topics that might be controversial or hurtful. Avoid the sort of behavior that identifies you as a bigoted asshole and makes other people uncomfortable working with you, basically. The course was presented in a rather dry way, too much academic and corporate jargon that made it sort of a yawn, but I couldn't find anything in that would offend or upset anyone who wasn't a bigoted asshole. It certainly didn't suggest that white people were bad in any way.

So why is DEI such a horrible thing that it causes funding to be cut off, thousands of people fired, whole programs scrapped? This is some evil shit that goes beyond just the hurt feelings of weak, stupid white guys.