Trump’s Dept. Of Education Sets Up Online Anti-DEI Bitchfest Portal
The Party of Mooks has ascended to the top tier yet again. We’re all going to pay the price for this, even the mooks that think electing mooks will elevate them from their own mook-hood.
Republicans have spent most of the past decade complaining about things like diversity, inclusion, and equitable treatment of American residents and citizens. Now, with Trump’s second term somehow a reality, anything remotely resembling treating fellow human beings with respect is being thrown into the rolling dumpster fire that is the current Republican platform: a toxic blend of bigotry and stupidity supported by people that would gladly see their own futures destroyed so long as it might result in 0.01% more suffering for the people they hate.
To say the inmates are running the asylum would be an insult to criminally psychotic people. We’re at the mercy of — as Mike Masnick so succinctly put it shortly after Trump’s inauguration — “a bunch of censorial, racist shitheads.” These are the people who think anything DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) must go. These are the people who have pushed companies into rolling back training and policies that were, in reality, just another click-to-acknowledge part of the on-boarding process.
Anything DEI-related in the federal government is being purged by the Trump Administration. Almost every existing policy has been terminated, which will likely be followed by the termination of anyone who previously pushed these policies during their government employment.
The latest stupidity is this: the Department of Education is now asking internet randos to snitch on schools where educators and administrators might be doing anything at all to slow the roll of Trump’s hateful sidekicks. Here’s Tim Dickinson, reporting for Rolling Stone:
Donald Trump’s Department of Education has launched a new portal for Americans to rat out the diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at their local public schools.
The portal, called EndDEI.ed.gov, debuted with a press release that featured no government authorities, but rather a quote from a co-founder of the reactionary group Moms for Liberty, which is infamous for its anti-LGBTQ+ activism and links to right-wing militant groups like the Proud Boys.
Tiffany Justice, of Moms for Liberty, touted the launch of the portal, highlighting it as an opportunity for parents to push back against “critical [race] theory, rogue sex education, and divisive ideologies.” She added: “Now is the time that you share the receipts of the betrayal that has happened in our public schools.”
So, there’s a whole lot of insanity going on here. The first is assuming that a publicly-accessible portal is going to be filled with anything useful, rather than just bigoted rants from people who once saw a pride bumper sticker on a car they thought might belong to a teacher to every inbox-filling meme anyone on the internet has used to clog online portals since the heady days of dial-up.
Second, the press release says little more than “this portal is open” before providing this quote from a far-right activist group best known for backing book bans annnnnnndddd… quoting Adoph Hitler in a Moms for Liberty newsletter.
“For years, parents have been begging schools to focus on teaching their kids practical skills like reading, writing, and math, instead of pushing critical theory, rogue sex education and divisive ideologies—but their concerns have been brushed off, mocked, or shut down entirely,” said Tiffany Justice, Co-Founder of Moms for Liberty. “Parents, now is the time that you share the receipts of the betrayal that has happened in our public schools. This webpage demonstrates that President Trump’s Department of Education is putting power back in the hands of parents.”
This is on its own level of ridiculousness, somehow surpassing the things stated by the government department web page hosting this statement. There has been no concentrated silencing of parents who disagree with the things their kids are being taught. To the contrary, their voices have been amplified by Republican politicians, the Trump White House (on two non-consecutive occasions), and extremely vocal special interest groups like Moms for Liberty. And that’s not even counting the numerous far-right online personalities who have millions of subscribers, listeners, followers, and viewers.
And calling a slapdash “fill in the blanks” web page something capable of “putting power back in the hands of parents” is asinine. It just gives the Trump Administration another avenue for confirmation bias. The Administration can discard all the comments it doesn’t like and cherry pick the frothiest as “evidence” a far-left conspiracy to indoctrinate our nation’s youth by teaching them about (gasp!) diversity and inclusion. This is dumb as fuck and it only exists to cater to the fantasies of the dumbest of fucks. And that, my friends, is pretty much everyone in the Trump Administration at this point.