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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   32849 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 5, 2024

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If Trump calls Harris a DEI candidate then his audience cheers but ordinary suburban swing voters think "Is he really going there?" S

Affirmative action is incredibly unpopular across America. yet it surprises me how urban liberal types are so out of touch that they think people are clunching pearls over using DEI in a negative way. There’s a ton of resentful people who will be galvanized by seeing Kamala’s election as undeserved privilege being handed over yet again to someone with the right genitals and skin tone instead of the right merit

DEI is still pretty popular as a basic idea - https://thehill.com/homenews/race-politics/4727744-americans-favor-dei-programs-poll/

Now you can argue people don't know what DEI really is or just not believe polling, but just throwing it out there isn't a boogeyman outside of right-wing circles.

people don't know what DEI really is or just not believe polling

California of all places voting against affirmative action comes to mind. People like things that sound nice, people do not like the reality behind the mask.

The Washington Post-Ipsos poll also asked about companies taking up “programs to hire more employees from groups that are underrepresented in their workforce, such as racial and ethnic minorities and people with disabilities and to promote equity in the workplace,” to which 69 percent said was “a good thing.”

Sounds like the wording of the poll was biased to get the answers WaPo wanted. Because, at least the last time I checked, this is essentially affirmative action which has always been unpopular even among African Americans

I'd argue that wording actually does matter. There might be some misrepresentation all over the spectrum, but people do think differently about e.g. a program that deliberately goes out and seeks underrepresented groups and helps them prepare better for applications, and e.g. a program that sets a soft or hard quota for hiring a certain amount of underrepresented people, or even sets aside individual positions for certain people explicitly. Sure, you can argue that they might be roughly morally equivalent. But the shades of meaning do matter to people. In my examples, both technically fit the goal of promoting equity, but one is much more palatable than the other.

So yeah, though it doesn't make for snappy debate, you do actually need to define DEI at some point, and people define it differently. But if we're talking about the "basic idea" then Outlaw is completely correct, the basic idea IS popular. People are almost hard-coded to value "fairness" and so if DEI shows up with that framing, people will go for it.

I think “DEI candidate” could have been an effective attack. Unfortunately Trump decided to go with “she’s not really black,” which sort of accepts the premise that being black is a notably positive attribute.

I see that moreas she’s a striver who tries to parlay identity for her own ambition and status but I see your poin t

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