Trump and the DEI Counter-Revolution

How effective will Trump s legal assault be? The dominant interpretations of DEI and radical progressive ideology set forth in books today focus on the causal role of bad ideas and other cultural factors: cultural Marxism (Christopher Rufo), postmodernism (James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose), or social-justice activism manifested as some strange new Puritanism (Andrew Doyle) or other quasi-religious impulse (John McWhorter). If these interpreters are correct then, regardless of how decisive they are, the actions of the Trump administration are superficial and doomed to fail unless accompanied by some broader intellectual and cultural movement to change Americans hearts and minds. That latter campaign does not seem to be forthcoming and, to be honest, most of today s anti-DEI activists seem neither equipped nor inclined to do that kind of work.

But there is another school of DEI interpretation advanced by authors like Richard Epstein, R. Shep Melnick, and Christopher Caldwell that emphasises the causal power of politics and law. According to this view, DEI is the consequence of the civil-rights revolution broadly construed and of the contours of anti-discrimination law in its particulars. If this account of things is correct, we have every reason to think that the Trump administration s actions are going to change the landscape of democratic life for the long haul.

via quillette.com

Thomas F. Powers.

I’m with Richard on this.