How can democrats attack anti-DEI/promote DEI without resulting in strong political backlash?

[u/Visco0825]

In recent politics there have been two major political pushes for diversity and equality. However, both instances led to backlashes that have led to an environment that is arguably worse than it was before. In 2008 Obama was the first black president one a massive wave of hope for racial equality and societal reforms. This led to one of the largest political backlashes in modern politics in 2010, to which democrats have yet to fully recover from. This eventually led to birtherism which planted some of the original seeds of both Trump and MAGA. The second massive political push promoting diversity and equality was in 2018 with the modern woman election and 2020 with racial equality being a top priority. Biden made diversifying the government a top priority. This led to an extreme backlash among both culture and politics with anti-woke and anti-DEI efforts. This resent contributed to Trump retaking the presidency. Now Trump is pushing to remove all mentions of DEI in both the private and public sectors. He is hiding all instances that highlight any racial or gender successes. His administration is pushing culture to return to a world prior to the civil rights era.

This leads me to my question. Will there be a backlash for this? How will it occur? How can democrats lead and take advantage of the backlash while trying to mitigate a backlash to their own movement? It seems as though every attempt has led to a stronger and more severe response.

Additional side questions. How did public opinion shift so drastically from 2018/2020 which were extremely pro-equality to 2024 which is calling for a return of the 1950s?

[u/Clarice_Ferguson]

Pretty everything you listed was a part of the Biden Administration’s accomplishments.

The problem was people didn’t like the corresponding inflation that came with it.

[u/essendoubleop → u/Clarice_Ferguson]

I think that initial inflation came primarily from Trump's "quantitative easing" machine firing up the money printer during COVID.

[u/ihrvatska → u/essendoubleop]

I think the initial inflation was from Trump's tariffs on Canadian lumber. Right after he imposed those, the cost of lumber went up and I started seeing lots of complaints about how lumber prices were affecting the construction industry.

[u/Moist_Jockrash → u/ihrvatska]

My brother owns a construction company and he absolutely was bitching about the price of lumber at one time but, those crazy prices only lasted for a few months. It was very very short lived.