/r/stupidpol and DEI ideology

/r/stupidpol describes itself as a “Marxist” subreddit that criticizes the idea that identity politics have become too commonplace in left wing politics and has replaced the discussion of class. However, as others have pointed out, it’s now simply a right-wing sub, that ends up embracing the DEI double speak that is the current ideological discourse of the GOP.  By "double speak" I mean that it uses the critique of identity politics, only to endorse an iteration of those politics, as fertile grounds for the deployment of racist and misogynistic fantasies that will eventually form the basis for real-life policy decisions.  

As this sub’s comment history shows (including it’s reaction to the recent GOP propaganda around the wildfires in CA), this sub appears to be completely sold by the GOP’s manipulation of DEI ideology, which constantly reduces any tragedy (the recent wild fires in CA, the collapsing of bridges (as long as they are designed by a black person) and the crashing of planes (as long as a women is flying them) into a political agenda that transforms the basic humanity of marginalized people into something that people can oppose on principle as long as it allows them to frame their bigotry as something that is not rooted in hate but in a “valid” political stance to which they have every right.  And whereas these positions (ant-LGBTQ; anti-women, esp. in the workforce) were traditionally rooted in Christian Nationalism, the current DEI politics of the GOP provides the libertarian right with a secular justification for their bigotry.  

The last presidential campaign (in which Harris was called a "DEI" hire") made it obvious that “DEI” has become a cultural buzzword that many black Americans have called a racial slur—an alternative for the “N” word--ever since conservatives sought to blame the deadly 2024 collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore as a consequence of DEI initiatives. Those conservatives cast Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, who is Black, as a diversity hire, despite being elected to office with more than 70 percent of the vote in a city with a predominantly Black population. He was dubbed Baltimore's "DEI mayor" in one post on X, an account with almost 300,000 followers that has now amassed more than 25 million views, and among the officials who sought to attribute this tragedy to DEI initiatives included GOP Utah State Representative Phil Lyman, who wrote on X “This is what happens when you have Governors who prioritize diversity over the wellbeing and security of citizens;” In another post, he wrote: "DEI = DIE.” An almost identical rhetoric is currently being recycled by Musk and other GOP propagandists as they make opportunistic use of the fires in CA.

The central architect of the cultural discourse around DEI is none other than Steven Miller, who is set to become Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, and who has proposed transforming policies that promote inclusivity and multiculturalism (including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [EEOC]) into an entity focused on addressing what he calls ‘anti-white discrimination.’ With Miller (et al) in charge, the Trump presidency is poised to roll back workplace protections for Black Americans to a degree not seen since the end of Reconstruction on the basis of a specter of “white persecution” and the effacement of the existence of systemic racism and its indisputable legacy.

According to a McKinsey & Company study, Black Americans are currently one to three centuries away from achieving employment and economic parity with their white counterparts without targeted interventions. Is the goal to extend that gap by a millennium? Far from privileging people of color, DEI initiatives and policies like affirmative action have barely pried open a crack in the doors of opportunity. As with any narrative of ‘political correctness gone mad’, GOP, DEI propaganda provides us with a surreal, topsy-turvy inversion that relocates a marginalized group, like trans people, in a position of great power and influence, and thereby helps disguise the vulnerability of the group and the social oppression and discrimination it is subject to. In the US, for instance, trans women are more than four times more likely to be murdered than cisgender women.  Black trans women are seven times more likely to be murdered than the average member of the general population.

MAGA's abuse (of what might otherwise be a legitimate conversation around the questions) of DEI initiatives thus taps into a very particular world view, in which a specific group of people (with a history of hegemonic marginalization), represented as deeply privileged and “entitled,” are somehow able to appeal to a liberal elite in order to impose their political standards on society in an increasingly totalitarian fashion, while those who call attention to the injustice of these politically correct demands are themselves censored, repressed, alienated, punished.

Republican led school reform in red states is not immune to the anti-multicultural stance of Miller’s DEI rhetoric, which likewise implies that cultural inclusivity, including discussions about systemic racism in the classroom, should be interpreted as a form of ideological indoctrination, that is to say, of  "anti-white discrimination." And, as a way to justify it’s plan to enact what many see as unconstitutional changes to the public education system (including biblical indoctrination in public schools), Trump’s unorthodox, policy  statement on education deploys the same DEI, "anti-woke" narratives to demonize teachers as a homogeneous group of “radical Marxists maniacs;” and “sinister” “zealots who have infiltrated the federal Department of Education” and who, disinterested in education, are preoccupied with a uniform agenda to secretly turn their students into lesbians and transexuals; with indoctrinating elementary students with “Marxist and gender theory ideology” and “Critical Race Theory” (which is not taught in k-12 schools). 

While we have no proof that the goal of k-12 teacher's "multicultural agenda" aims to systematically indoctrinate students with transsexuality and Marxism, GOP officials (many in the Trump administration) have clearly stated how they plan to use schools as an instrument for the indoctrination of biblical christianity and Christian Nationalist principles, which is unconstitutional. Movements to implement this motion have been formally adopted by many red states (Tennessee, Texas, and Louisiana among others).  In Texas, the state school board voted to approve a new K-5 curriculum that introduces students to a literalist understanding of Christianity that confuses history with religion. And it should come as no surprise that their policy statements on education mirror the Heritage Foundation’s self-described intent to “embed religious doctrine into almost every part of U.S. law;” and government.

“Every accusation is a confession,” has become a popular meme to describe the GOP’s attacks on their enemies. Reductive as it is, the phrase makes sense of the role that ideological fantasy plays in the construction of real-life policy decisions, or to put it more simply, the way that ideological “projections” serve to frame and stabilize sense-making practices. No party can lay claim to the notion of a “pure” or “post-ideological” world-view, and yet the MAGA party—whose identity is grounded on the mythical return to a utopian, unidentifiable, past—have made historically brazen use of fantasy as the very basis of it’s political rationale, something exemplified in its accusation that its political enemy is using DEI in education (as in other fields) to delete and replace white people and heterosexuality—particularly heterosexual men, and to weaponize history as a form  ‘anti-white discrimination’.  This fantasy then becomes an effective, “sense-making” rationale to justify radical reform, like the current wave of biblical and Christian Nationalist indoctrination in public schools, which is contrary to our historical and constitutional understanding of the principles of religious freedom. 

As commenters in this community have written in the past, the community of this sub is centered around obsession with identity politics in an aesthetic/performative way. Anyone who actually cares about the abuse of "identity politics" isn't upset that people are talking about them, they're upset that those struggles are being cheapened, co-opted, and watered down by liberalism. Stupidpol's anger isn't about these facts, nor it it about the fact that LGBTQ and women’s struggles are being co-opted by capitalists, it's about the very existence—and validation of—those struggles and demands.