On Jan. 24, 2025, Pete Hegseth — a Fox Information host and Military Nationwide Guard veteran who had no earlier expertise in nationwide protection — was confirmed as President Donald Trump’s Cupboard choose for Secretary of Nationwide Protection. Hegseth changed Lloyd Austin, a Black 4-star basic who served because the twenty eighth nationwide protection secretary, the twelfth commander of U.S. Central Command and the thirty third vice chief of employees of the U.S. Military. The issues of presidency and army officers, together with high Pentagon officers, that Hegseth’s resume didn’t come anyplace close to the neighborhood of being satisfactory for the job he had been nominated for and confirmed to was broadly reported. It didn’t matter, although. What white conservatives name a “meritocracy” is simply default America, the place non-white males are closely scrutinized and simply dismissed whereas white male mediocrity is invisible, permitting white males to fail upwards routinely.
Paradoxically, upon his affirmation, Hegseth made it his high precedence to rid the army of all issues variety, fairness and inclusion — whereas serving as a chief instance of how stuffed with it white conservatives are once they declare to be anti-DEI (until it’s getting used as an acronym for Descendant of European Immigrants).
On March 24, precisely two months after Hegseth was confirmed, the Atlantic printed a bit written by the publication’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, who wrote that he was included in a gaggle textual content that exposed detailed struggle plans to bomb Yemen on March 15, 2025. The group chat, which was shared by way of the Sign messaging app, included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of Nationwide Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Nationwide Safety Advisor Michael Waltz, and Vice President JD Vance, none of whom appeared to note {that a} journalist right-wingers usually are not very keen on was additionally included. (That “meritocracy” is trying increasingly more like an Idiocracy by the day.) Not lengthy after the story was printed, the White Home confirmed that the struggle room group chat leak had occurred, however that didn’t cease Hegseth from going straight to the airwaves to assert that Goldberg is a “deceitful and extremely discredited so-called-journalist who’s made a career of peddling hoaxes time and time once more.” (In actuality, Goldberg has solely ever been “discredited” by conservatives who use strawman logic and affirmation bias to shout “pretend information” at each report they don’t like whereas deliberately misrepresenting what the claims they dispute are even about.)
Right here’s a easy indeniable fact: If Hegseth, Waltz, Rubio, Vance and Gabbard had been Democratic appointees who had been Black (or POC, or trans, or ladies, or disabled — however particularly Black), your complete MAGA world could be calling them “DEI hires.”
Even if you happen to had been to argue that I’m being speculative right here, there’s no denying that it’s hypothesis primarily based on an simply observable sample of racist MAGA conduct.
Truly, I’ve written about this earlier than:
Nobody has actually supplied tangible proof that the response to the wildfires in Southern California has actually been mismanaged, however that hasn’t stopped MAGAts in right-wing media and on social media from suggesting that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is an incompetent “DET rent” (white individuals’s new N-word). When a serious bridge in Baltimore collapsed final 12 months Republicans instantly tied the tragedy to DEI just because Maryland’s port commissioner is a Black lady and Baltimore’s mayor, Brandon Scott, is a Black man. No such assaults had been ever leveled on the leaders of Tennessee throughout its a number of wildfire disasters, Florida throughout its many hurricane disasters, or every other Republican-led states that overcame pure disasters as long as white male officers had been main these states. (Even when they had been white male Democrats, they wouldn’t be immediately related to DEI.)
Hell, when Barack Obama first ran for president, the main narrative of Republicans (who had been attempting their hardest to faux they weren’t racist) was that Obama was underqualified with solely 4 years within the U.S. Senate and eight years within the Illinois state Senate underneath his belt. Instantly after Obama’s two phrases, the identical Republicans and white conservatives gleefully elected a white male president who had not a day’s expertise in governing, lawmaking or judiciary work. But, throughout the newest presidential marketing campaign, Trump supporters repeatedly known as VP Kamala Harris a “DEI candidate” who’s woefully underqualified for the workplace of commander-in-chief regardless of her eight years as San Francisco’s twenty seventh district lawyer, eight years as California’s thirty second lawyer basic, 4 years as a U.S. senator and 4 years as vp of the USA.
By the top of January, “DEI FBI” was trending on social media in reference to FBI Assistant Particular Agent in Cost Alethea Duncan, a Black lady, who remarked that the New 12 months incident wherein a Muslim man deliberately rammed his truck right into a crowd of individuals on Bourbon Road in New Orleans, killing greater than a dozen individuals, was not initially thought-about a “terrorist occasion” by the FBI, which contradicted an announcement made prior by New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, who did confer with the occasion as terrorism whereas the investigation was nonetheless in its infancy. Duncan was following the identical protocol a white and male FBI assistant particular agent would have been tasked with following, however she’s a Black lady, so she’s a “DEI rent.”
These are just a few examples of how white conservatives have allowed white conservative propaganda to make “DEI rent” their newest socially acceptable racial slur.
However on the subject of Hegseth and his cohorts, the MAGA world is all about excuses and denial. In reality, this week, Trump and a slew of Republican officers, together with some who had been a part of the uncovered group chat, and loads of right-wing media speaking heads, joined Hegseth in outright denying that the data included within the chat was labeled, prompting Goldberg to clap again with receipts.
It was by no means about advantage. MAGA conservatives like to assert they “don’t see shade,” however, in truth, they don’t see incompetence irrespective of how apparent it’s as long as white males, and, significantly, white male conservatives, are in cost. When Black individuals are in positions of energy, incompetence is all they see, irrespective of how scarce the proof of it’s.
It’s simply racism, y’all. Plain and easy.
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