Politics
Why Trump was able to pull off such a swift war on diversity
Donald Trump’s move to rapidly eradicate diversity efforts from the federal government marks the culmination of a widespread conservative backlash to the antiracism movement of 2020.
Five years ago, as “END RACISM” was emblazoned on professional football fields and Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima caricatures disappeared from grocery shelves, a growing number of voters bristled at what they saw as a performative attack that went far beyond that police brutality symbolized by the killing of George Floyd. As hiring managers across the country embraced diversity, equity and inclusion programs, Republicans waged a culture war over the “woke agenda” and rode it to victory, from local school board contests to sweeping Trump back into the White House.
The politics of race has changed in just a few years. And now Trump’s capitalizing on it.
“What a storytelling win for Trump,” said DeRay McKesson, a progressive activist who rose to prominence during the Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson, Missouri. “That is a failure of storytelling on the left and a huge win on the right.”
On his first day in office as part of a conservative wishlist outlined in Project 2025to assert more control over the federal workforce, Trump declared DEI programs discriminatory and ordered them to be uprooted from government agencies and programs.
Five years ago, it was Democrats who were leading the pro-diversity push, even taking part in photo ops donning kente cloths and kneeling inside the U.S. Capitol to show solidarity with Black Lives Matter protests. Now it finds itself without a cogent plan on how to best stop the president’s DEI blowback at this moment — or how to win back those very voters they needed to stop him.
Trump campaigned on his first-term economy that had record low unemployment for Black and Latino Americans — drawing historically high levels of support among these voters last fall. Now, the first few months of his presidency could be marked by putting Black and brown federal employees out of work.
Hundreds of workers across federal agencies have already been placed on paid administrative leave following the order, including workers at the Department of Education who took part in a voluntary “Diversity Change Agent Program” that was established during Trump’s first term. The president fired high-ranking Democratsat bipartisan agencies responsible for enforcing anti-discrimination laws, raising questions about the policing of discrimination in the private sector.
This week a conservative nonprofit launched a website posting names and photos of employees on its “DEI watch list.” The American Accountability Foundation said it started the website to highlight the prevalence of such roles in government jobs, but critics say it is a means of inviting online harassment to private citizens.
Both the White House and the Office of Management and Budget declined to disclose how many people will be affected by Trump’s executive order to expel DEI from the federal government.
“President Trump campaigned on ending the scourge of DEI from our federal government and returning America to a merit-based society where people are hired based on their skills, not for the color of their skin,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. “This is another win for Americans of all races, religions, and creeds. Promises made, promises kept. It should come as no surprise.”
Diversity programs have been around for decades, but Trump has made them a frequent target of criticism. He blamed “woke generals” last year for the chaotic and deadly U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, repeatedly referred to Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent and the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, as a “DEI-hire,” and even implied without evidence that diversity policies played a role in the worst airline crash in two decades and on air traffic controllers who didn’t have the “highest level of intelligence.”
“I just think there’s this sort of white male grievance they’re catering to,” said Debra D’Agostino, a Washington-based employment attorney who has been fielding calls from workers affected by the DEI-related purges from government posts.
The administration’s order threatens to obliterate decades of efforts to reduce bias in hiring for federal government roles aimed at having a workforce that better represents the nation it serves.
These goals — once widely accepted without major controversy — weren’t just about achieving a diverse workforce. Supporters of these types of initiatives say they were about tapping underrepresented talent pools for critical roles and to help administer programs, ranging from helping prospective minority homeowners secure government-backed loans to securing roles in cybersecurity to contributing to STEM fields at the National Academy of Sciences.
But as the post-2020 pendulum swung the other way, conservative activists won early electoral victories. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin credited his upset victory in blue-leaning Virginia to grievances over how elite high schools altered their admissions process in efforts to make it more equitable. Long before it was clear Trump would mount a political comeback, conservative Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis banned the teaching of diversity subjects in public schools. And grassroots groups like Moms For Liberty and Citizens Defending Freedom popped up across the country to win school board elections to alter curricula.
They also won key legal victories — in some cases aided by a Supreme Court that has a six-seat Republican majority, three appointed by Trump himself.
“I think with Trump, the Supreme Court striking down race-conscious admissions at Harvard and University of North Carolina is a huge part of this. It has been taken as license to kill DEI,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, president and direct-counsel emeritus of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
And the court’s historic decision granting presidents immunity for “official acts” — potentially making impeachment the only real limit on presidential power — has further emboldened Trump, Ifill said: “Trump right now is not possible without those two decisions.”
Further dismantling of DEI initiatives are likely to come. Edward Blum, the conservative legal activist who successfully led the affirmative action case against Harvard, wrote in an email that diversity practices had long been “illegal, as well as polarizing,” and that his case has “energized many public interest legal organizations to challenge these practices.”
Democrats are trying to fight back, but the party is still reeling from stinging electoral losses last fall and finds itself locked out of power in Washington.
But critics say Democrats have been flat-footed and slow to respond to an assault on values of a party that has long viewed its multiracial coalition as a strength. This as the party is bleeding support from Black and Latino voters to Trump’s version of the Republican party.
The ripple effects are almost certain to last long beyond the Trump presidency — undoing stability for hundreds of workers who worry about their livelihoods.
“The federal government used to be the safe place to get a job,” said a Black federal worker, granted anonymity to speak freely. “But not anymore.”
Byron Donalds says he is not a ‘yes man’ to Trump
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The progressive political action committee Justice Democrats has appointed Rev. Hodari Williams as its new executive director. The change sets the organization up to hone a civil rights message ahead of the 2028 election cycle, Williams told Blue Light News.
His appointment, shared first with Blue Light News, comes at a time when self-proclaimed progressives (and socialists) are flooding the scene. The PAC has had its most successful election cycle ever, helping seven candidates — including Donavan McKinney in Michigan, Melat Kiros in Colorado and Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York — defeat incumbents in the primaries. While those candidates are heavily favored to win on Election Day, the fates of three other Justice Democrats candidates, including Tennessee’s state Rep. Justin Pearson, remain less certain going into November.
At one point, the group tried to get Williams to run for office. Though he declined, Williams said now is the right time to force change.
“America and its present-day politicians, from my experience, have a high blood pressure of promises and anemia of political courage,” Williams said in an interview, using a common Kenyan political expression. “Right now, JD is producing candidates who have the political courage to deal with the crises that are existing in marginalized and disenfranchised communities, and I want to be a part of that.”
Williams, 46, was born and raised in Lakewood, New Jersey. His parents were activists and community organizers who raised him on the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement. After graduating from Francis Marion University in Florence, South Carolina, with his bachelor’s degree, he joined the NAACP as a field organizer for voter rights and empowerment while pursuing his Master’s of Divinity at the Interdenominational Theological Center. In his time with the NAACP, Williams traveled across the Black Belt, where he said he witnessed poverty and inequity up close.
“Civil rights traditionally has been something that people have tried to separate from progressivism … but these movements are inseparable,” said Williams. “What I witnessed in the South as a worker in voter rights and voter empowerment and education, and as a regional representative for the NAACP, was that the conditions that created inequity still existed and needed to be confronted and challenged.”
His work took him to Kenya, where he served as a program coordinator with the Presbyterian Church USA. In Nairobi, he supported the Green Belt Movement’s work against deforestation and its mission to highlight environmental justice as a tool for economic empowerment and self-determination.
Now, as some Black and brown voters express concerns of being tokenized by traditional Democratic candidates, Williams plans to bring his experience working in racial justice circles to his new role.
“I have worked in communities that have borne the brunt of failed promises from the current Democratic leadership,” Williams said. “I have opened the doors of my congregations to politicians and have experienced the absence of those politicians after the elections.”
He continued: “Black communities have become destinations for environmental hazards and data centers. Unemployment has risen. Black federal employees have been targeted. The list goes on. I’ve pastored these people. I’ve prayed with them. I’ve listened to them as they’ve shed tears. Now I’ve decided I want to move from triage work to really transformational work.”
Some of that work will require challenging other Black leaders.
“Unfortunately, many of our Black politicians have become victims of corporate capture, and their voices have been taken by entities like AIPAC,” said Williams, referring to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “They have not really been able to stand for the issues that are affecting the communities that that many of us are fighting for, and JD candidates are free from that, and they’re free to take bold and significant action to move forward legislation.”
But with the 2026 election cycle nearly over, the PAC is already brainstorming how to establish a strong progressive coalition for the 2028 presidential election. That will mean convincing the mainstream Democratic party that Justice Democrats have built a lasting coalition of the party’s base, said Williams.
“We hope that the Democratic Party would see that we’re developing a blueprint to show them how the base is being energized around the issues that are kitchen table issues that people want us to deal with,” said Williams.
“It’s not enough for us just to have a call to defeat a fascist president. We don’t want a fascist president. We want him out, but we also want a vision of what America could look like when affordability, healthcare, civil rights, housing, and livable wages — all of those things are at the top of the political agenda,” he added.
Williams succeeds current executive director and co-founder Alexandra Rojas, who will become president of Justice Democrats’ board and will support Williams as a senior adviser.
Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson took a swipe at the savings habits of millennials as she fielded a question Wednesday about Social Security during a Senate campaign debate.
Hinson, the Republican candidate facing off against Democrat state Rep. Josh Turek, was asked about ensuring the solvency of Social Security when she raised the broader prospect of savings by millennials, the demographic consisting of people born from 1981-1996.
She said the country needed to have a “serious conversation” about “how young people are saving money,” as part of the discussion about the future of Social Security.
“We also need to be talking about millennials saving money,” she later added. “Millennials are the worst group of savers in the country right now and have the least amount of savings. So those are ways where I think we can help have a bigger conversation around saving in general, planning for retirement, and making sure we’re all able to experience a robust retirement.”
Hinson faces a tough race in Iowa against Turek amid a difficult political environment for Republicans. Voters are overwhelmingly pessimistic about the state of the economy and their own personal finances, and they support Social Security while being concerned about the program’s future.
Hinson said she would not support cutting benefits and suggested creating a bipartisan commission to present suggestions to Congress to save the program. When pushed on her statement that “all options should be on the table,” she turned her attention to young people.
“I think my dad and I had this discussion when I was in sixth grade, looking at a ledger book and trying to figure out, hey, how are we going to make sure you’re set up for your life?” she said. “So we need to be having a conversation simultaneously to all solutions on the table, to make sure that it can stay solvent, while we’re also talking about, how do we get more young people to save?”
Hinson’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.
Turek, when asked about Social Security, said he supports removing the payroll tax cap.
“The best way we can keep this solvent is by taking off the cap,” Turek said. “Let’s make sure that billionaires and large corporations are paying their fair share. That will move the needle in a very serious way to keep Social Security solvent.”
Hinson disagreed. “The only thing I’m hearing from him is that the only solution to everything is to raise taxes,” she said.
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