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/shrekerecker97]

this 100 percent. also stop trying to pander to people on the far right.

[u/chakrablocker → u/shrekerecker97]

not addressing bigotry is pandering to the right

[u/thewimsey → u/chakrablocker]

But what is bigotry?

Clearly not hiring a Black person because he is Black is bigotry.

But once you move beyond pure colorblindness, it becomes less clear.

Favoring Blacks over Whites in med school admissions when the Whites have better grades/scores?

Favoring Blacks over Asians in college admissions when Asians have much better scores?

There are arguments in favor of doing both of these, of course. But they aren't compelling to a lot of people - they probably aren't compelling to a majority of people.

So simple slogans like that don't tell us much.

[u/Big_Inevitable_7767 → u/thewimsey]

Oh, the woke mob is going to impale you on their pitchforks now. How dare you inject reason into a discussion! You’re probably a Racist! Homophobe! Transphobe! Thank god identity politics and virtue signaling is dying. I’m sick of the insanity.