DEI is a good idea that has led to a catastrophic backlash.
Imagine a world where us intellectual types hadn’t given the right this kind of talking point on a silver platter. Election might have gone differently.
I like to imagine a world where the institutions that were supposed to protect us had done their jobs, and enforced the gentleman’s agreement we had, that worked so well these past 50 years.
I largely agree but I doubt other issues would be such massive free wins for Republicans. The Republican base has become rabid over DEI and trans issues and it has been really obvious for a while now that it was going to be a massive problem for Democrats. Sadly these issues have become more divisive than even gun control.
"trans issues" are literally an issue they invented. They've been workshopping attack vectors for years. Bathrooms didn't really work, so they switched to athletes, which did.
They will continue inventing issues until they find one that sticks.
They spend hundreds of millions of dollars on ads trying to convince people these things were a problem. That is, by definition, not a free win.
You have to realize some of these issues didn't used to be as divisive. They made them divisive. Abortion being the most obvious. If you need an issue to rally around, you create one.
You point to the issue Republicans have with trans people existing, isn't that a counterpoint to your point?
They were able to make a massive issue out of the existence of less than a percent of the population, if the can do that how can you say they wouldn't have made issues of literally anything?
Imagine a world where us intellectual types hadn’t given the right this kind of talking point on a silver platter. Election might have gone differently.