There’s a fierce debate going on in corporate America about the future of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) because it’s literally destroying companies that are moving in that direction.
However, with Kamala Harris rising to the top of the Democratic field, while Joe Biden loses his status as the party’s presidential nominee after a dismal debate performance, Americans may soon be exposed to a much-discussed DEI on display from the next US president.
That’s right, America’s most irrepressibly stupid politician may become leader of the free world because the Democratic Party can’t break the stranglehold on DEI.
While Harris is already being hailed as the president-elect, her boss, Sleepy Joe, is increasingly confronted with the reality that she has no chance of beating Trump, despite his defiant televised vow to keep the campaign going on Friday night to George Stephanopoulos.
There are growing calls for him to step down, paving the way for a vice presidential candidate to rise to the top of the shortlist.
Even if he manages to achieve the near impossible – staying and winning – there’s no doubt he won’t last four years.
Harris will become the first DEI chair in the United States by default.
It will be a very unfair and strange coronation for the American people.
Remember, she is part of an administration that has brought us inflation, global chaos, and open borders that have literally invited terrorists to come in and kill people.
She has spent nearly four years as Biden’s No. 2 and has failed in every task she was given, including on the border.
On top of that, she’s clearly unlikable, always using word lists when trying to sound smart, cackling when laughing, and extremely ambitious.
She once suggested during a 2020 primary debate that her current boss is a racist because he opposes federally mandated school busing.
But Biden’s busing stink wasn’t bad enough to stop her from jumping at the chance to take the vice presidency when the DEI call came calling.
Following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020, there was intense pressure on Biden to choose a woman of color as his running mate.
(And he painted himself into a corner by saying his running mate would be a woman.)
Harris ticked all the boxes: Her father was a PhD scholar from Jamaica, and her late mother was a biologist of Indian descent.
Vice President Harris was Attorney General and U.S. Senator of California.
Weak record
But dig deeper and you’ll find a lack of achievements, odd personal quirks (the aforementioned laughs), and a strong desire for power.
First Lady Jill Biden reportedly disliked her, but as one Democrat told me before Joe Biden appointed her as vice president, “She’s black and that’s all.”
Of course, DEI is a concept initially embraced by academia, the left-wing political class, and the business world that assumes that the world should be viewed from the perspective of those who have been historically oppressed (i.e. people of color and people of various gender categories) at the expense of the oppressors (i.e. white people, particularly white men).
Every job, every image-making, every television show, etc. must be viewed through this distorted view of reality.
This is a theme I explore in my upcoming book, Go Woke, Go Broke, which describes how DEI was ingrained in corporate culture even before Americans began to revolt.
The examples are endless.
These include Disney’s DEI mandate that has allowed so-called “queerness” to appear in cartoons, transgender women appearing in beer commercials, and, until relatively recently, the hiring freeze on white men at many companies.
It’s fair to say that the high point of DEI has been the three years since Floyd’s death.
Now American companies are desperately backing away, because while Americans respect the desire for diversity, they hate DEI’s utterly absurd demand that the descendants of wealthy South Americans be given jobs over the daughters of white coal miners.
This is clearly illegal, and the Supreme Court’s ruling banning affirmative action in college admissions has set a precedent that many companies would like to avoid.
And they are doing so, or at least starting to do so.
Consider the giant retailer Target.
In 2023, CEO Brian Cornell said, “From DE’s and my perspective, what we’ve done has helped add value, drive sales and increase engagement with both our team and our guests.”
That’s why his store is hosting big Pride Month merch displays, with mannequins wearing so-called tuck-friendly swimsuits and books about transgender kids for sale next to rainbow onesies.
Then came the backlash from customers who didn’t like being indoctrinated when they shopped.
In 2024, Cornell University scaled down its Target Pride display to the point where no one would notice.
So much for DEI adding value.
Some Democrats I spoke to caution that DEI isn’t the only advantage Harris has over Biden.
She is the vice president, after all, so if she becomes a new candidate, she’ll be able to leverage the money she’s already raised, rather than starting from scratch.
Okay, but I don’t think money is going to be an issue.
One of the leading candidates, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, is a billionaire.
The Wall Street and Silicon Valley Democratic money machine is formidable.
But if Sleepy Joe wins and is forced to resign during his second term, or if Biden withdraws within days and Harris becomes the nominee, the country could find itself stuck with Harris as president.
Because DEI is a test of the Democratic Party, no matter how much evidence accumulates that it’s a failed ideology.
Charles Gasparino is the author of the upcoming book “Go Woke, Go Broke: The Inside Story of the Radicalization of Corporate America.”
