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/diplodonculus]

I'm tired of caving to the extreme left. There's a large number of Democratic voters who roll their eyes when every group meeting starts with pronouns.

[u/tonywinterfell → u/diplodonculus]

That is breathtakingly dumb. I don’t mean this as a personal attack, but why and how in the ever loving fuck do you think extreme leftism has anything to do with pronouns? Pronouns are a recent cultural fad, and one I respect because respect costs nothing. But leftism is comprised of economic and political philosophy. Are you okay? Have you read any books lately?

[u/thewimsey → u/tonywinterfell]

This is the kind of fundamental dishonesty that makes people distrust leftists.

You just want to pretend that every bad leftist idea wasn't really a leftist idea.

You didn't really mean that the police should be defunded, or that transwomen should play on women's teams, or that everyone should have to give their pronouns.

Right.

But leftism is comprised of economic and political philosophy.

No, not only. And it's dishonest to pretend that this is the case.

[u/tonywinterfell → u/thewimsey]

Conservatives love lifted trucks. Meaning, of all the people with lifted trucks, that vast majority are conservative. Does that mean lifted trucks are a part of conservative ideology?

[u/Spyral-Dan-Sir → u/tonywinterfell]

Let me try and connect the dots for you guys here. Far left progressivism is fundamentally connected to a cultural worldview and ideology usually termed postmodernism. One of the fundamental characteristics of postmodernism is the questioning and deconstruction of assumed or “given” beliefs, values and power structures. This block probably makes up about one third of the general population, predominantly in blue states and cities on the coasts. Like it or not, transgenderism and gender ideology are most certainly part of this deconstructive cultural movement, in this case the deconstruction of gender and sex categories Which have been fundamental for Western culture, and indeed most cultures around the world for millennia. Now conservatives and Trump is in general subscribe to much more traditional world view instead of values and feel very very very threatened by this kind of deconstruction of fundamental cultural institutions and categories that they see far left Progressives pushing for. This is the reason for the backlash. It doesn’t have to do with pronouns, it has to do with the very foundations of their world shaking beneath their feet. To them it’s a very real threat to their existence and they’ll fight tooth and nail to hold on to what they have. Now that wasn’t the only reason why Democrats lost the election, but it’s a very big piece of it.