Over-Complying with Trump as Resistance
Are opponents of Trump's DEI pronouncements actually opposing them with overzealous compliance?
Ken Klippenstein posted a DAI memo regarding new Trump DEI policies:
Deliberately Unpopular Poison Pill?
This bill contains such extreme provisions that is raises the question of whether the unpopular provisions are a deliberate poison pill
Cancel Martin Luther King Day
Cancel Holocaust Remembrance Day
Cancelling DEIA: Provisions for the “Accessibility” for the disabled — including disabled veterans.
the VA, oversees one of the victims of Trump’s executive order: the over one million American veterans who have service-related disabilities. As several leakers pointed out to me, Trump’s order doesn’t just target DEI, but “accessibility” as well — accommodations countless American veterans rely on.
“We are taking steps to close all agency diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) offices and end all DEIA-related contracts,” Hunter told VA staff in his memo. Beyond the simple cruelty, the directive cuts against one of the VA’s core missions: providing care to wounded veterans.
Sabotaging Trump’s DEI pronuncements:
1) The Military Leadership has supported DEI historically. "Red State" wrote that opposition to Trump was expected.
2) Trump knows how to read a room and would likely know that cancelling MLK and Holocaust remembrance day is not likely to be popular.
3) Expanding DEI to DEIA (Accessibility) affects whole new constituencies in ways that most of Trump’s MAGA supporters do not intend.
4) Trump has been attacking DEI opportunistically as a convenient scapegoat.
5) If the military supported Trump's opposition to DEI and had any political sensability, they likely would have excluded MLK and Holocaust Remembrance from their announcement. (It looks like some did). Meanwhile, others have lumped “accessibility” in with DEI.
6) It appears as though some parts of the military took the most extreme and unpopular position possible.
7) This is just speculation, but it looks to me like these parts of the military may be trying to sabotage Trump’s attacks on DEI by overzealously following his lead.
CALL THE BLUFF:
The strategy is: calling Trumps’s bluff by taking his bluster and bravado literally until his position becomes untenable.
If Trump were to brag he is so tough he could wrestle a bear, find a bear and make him eat dirt.
UNPRODUCTIVVE OVERREACH:
I recently learned that DEI has been expanded to DEIA (Accessibility) in ways that affect disabled veterans. This expansion of DEI seems like an overreach by opponents that muddies the waters.
I think Trump will have support for punishing those who over-reach in pretending Trump meant to include DEIA.
THE DILEMMA: To Follow Literally?
The Pentagon has skilled and strategic leaders. Their Memo presents an interesting dilemma
Is Trump now going to criticize leaders for following too well?
Is Trump going to punish followers, sending the message that you can get in trouble for taking his pronouncements literally?
