The Daily Signal - VDH: The DEI Scam is Falling Apart, and Trump Broke It.  

Episode Date: August 8, 2025

Why are even black and Hispanic Americans rejecting it? What does Trump get right that DEI advocates can’t answer? And how did elites like Elizabeth Warren and Zohran Mamdani game the system? Victor Davis Hanson answers these questions and explains how DEI’s unravelling will pan out on today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.”   “ It predicates hiring, retention, promotion, tenure on the color of your skin and not the content of your character, or your gender or your sexual orientation. And so, it's a winning issue for Donald Trump, when you look at the polls. It's not just that 60% of so-called white people, who often feel they're victimized by DEI are opposed, but Hispanics and blacks also poll that they are against it. And people—that's baffled people. But it's kind of obvious when you think about it. It's commonsensical.   “DEI was based on poverty and past documented racism. … Mr. Mamdani says he's a minority and he is black, and he needs special preference. He also said he was gonna go after “white or affluent neighborhoods.” He's Indian American. His family originally came from India. Indian Americans, according to our census, are the wealthiest, most privileged ethnic group in America.So, what I'm getting at is your skin color no longer can be correlated, exactly, with your class.”   👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1    👉If you can’t get enough of Victor Davis Hanson from The Daily Signal, subscribe to his official YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@victordavishanson7273    👉He’s also the host of “The Victor Davis Hanson Show,” available wherever you prefer to watch or listen. Links to the show and exclusive content are available on his website: https://victorhanson.com    (0:00) The Decline of DEI (3:05) Criticisms of DEI (3:16) Evolution of Affirmative Action (4:52) Challenges in a Multiracial Society (5:27) Abuse and Misrepresentation in DEI (7:31) Class vs. Race in DEI (9:28) The Future of DEI Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk. Business. DEI is dying. Three years ago, it was in the ascendance. When Donald Trump came into power, he tried to abolish it by a series of executive orders. It's a racially biased program. It predicates hiring, retention, promotion,

tenure on your gender or your sexual orientation, and the color of your skin and not the content of your character. It's kind of obvious when you think about it. It's commonsensical. People who are very skilled who happen to be non-white. Don't want to be stigmatized when they have achieved a job through meritocratic criteria, their own ability or intellect or hard work. But here's why it's going to implode and why Donald Trump is going to win this argument.

There's at least three criticisms of diversity, equity, inclusion that they cannot answer. Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hansson for the Daily Signal. DEI, the acronym for diversity, equity, and inclusion is dying. We had this conversation three years ago. It was in the ascendance. But when Donald Trump came into power by a series of executive orders, he tried to abolish it, and he could abolish it, because entities that receive it and receive federal funds can be leveraged to drop it

in order to retain their federal funding. And why did Donald Trump not like it? Because he said the emperor has no clothes. It's a racially biased program. It predicates hiring, retention, promotion, tenure on the color of your skin and not the content of your character or your gender or your sexual orientation. And so it's a winning issue for Donald Trump. When you look at the polls, it's not just that 60% of so-called white people who often feel

they're victimized by D.E. are opposed, but Hispanics and blacks also poll that they are against it. And people, that's baffled people, but it's kind of obvious when you think about it. It's commonsensical. One, they don't want to be stigmatized when they have achieved a job through AmeriCratia, their own ability or intellect or hard work. They don't want to be called a DEI hire, and that would be a natural assumption given that there's a system that rewards people.

basis of their color rather than their skills. So people who are very skilled who happen to be non-white don't want to be so stigmatized. The other is a class situation. People in the black community, the Hispanic community, they say, wait a minute. The people who are wealthy, the people who are the children of orthodontists, the Obamas, the Eric Colders, the Joy Reed, these people don't need any help. And yet they're given affirmative action in the name of us, the middle and lower classes that have no such avenues.

So it's under assault within the communities who traditionally benefited from it. But here's why it's going to implode and why Donald Trump is going to win this argument. There's at least three criticisms of diversity, equity, inclusion that they cannot answer. Remember, we started out in 1965 as an answer to the Jim Crow South

and the legacy of slavery and what was called systematic racism, with affirmative action. At that time, the country was basically 89% white and 11% African-American. And people said that African-Americans per capita are much poorer than whites, statistically. Not that there weren't more poor whites

than there were African-Americans, there were, but statistically per capita. And so, therefore, it's time to affirm them and give them a boost on the basis of their skin color, to give them entry, to make sure that the civil rights laws not only gave you an equality of opportunity, but let's be honest, a quality of result, quota system, so to speak. So that was the idea behind it. And the reason that it's not working now is threefold.

First of all, we're, from 1965, if you think about it, We're 35 years in the 20th century and 25 and the 21st. We're 60 years behind that. We've had three generations who grew up without Jim Crow and no knowledge of systemic racism. Essentially, maybe they call it, I don't know, insidious, systematic. But the point is, flagrant racial prejudice. Three generations haven't seen it. But they have seen bias predicated on race through DEI.

The second thing, we're a multiracial society. So we're no longer 90%, 10%. We have almost more Hispanics than we do blacks. We have Asians. We have people from the Arab world. But more importantly, we're interracial. Many of these groups, one out of three, marries someone not of their group.

So when we see somebody, we don't know who they are, and their background is nebulous. And yet, if you're going to a question, qualify for special preference, you can see what happens. It invites abuse of the system. No more flagrantly was that shown than the New York Post headline. I think this week when it said Elizabeth Warren meets Mamdami two liars who lied about who they were. Elizabeth Warren, remember, to get a coveted billet at Harvard Law School said she was Native American when called on it called on it by Donald Trump, she had less than 0.01%.

And Mamdami, who was a wealthy Indian American from Uganda, born in Uganda, claimed in his college application that he was an African American with the obvious intention to suggest he was a black American, which he wasn't. I think the subtext of that cover story said, liars meet. The point is whether you're Ward Churchill or Elizabeth Warren, or Mamdami or all these people, you game the system and you try to suggest that you are a DEI person when you're not. But how do you know you're not?

Because the people who set up these things are so afraid of absolute standards. One-16th makes you black. One-16th makes you a Native America. Oh, we're just like the old Confederacy One Drop Will. That's what those racists in the South did before and after the war. They considered somebody non-white with one drop, and here we're doing the same thing. Should we get DNA badges? So you can see it's impossible to determine who is whom.

You can't. And the people who police DEI will not be honest, the admissions officer at Harvard, the admissions officer at Stanford, the HR department at Google, they will not tell you when and when not a person is a DEI, because to do so would make them very eugenesis, wouldn't they? They would have to talk about race and explicit and off-putting terms. Finally, there's one last reason. DEI was based on poverty and past documented racism. When Barack Obama came into power in 2009, he redefined Affirmative Action and said it's not black-white binaries. It's 30% a huge number of Americans who are not white. They have claims against the majority.

They are part of a Marxist binary of victimized and oppressed, and therefore they need special consideration against the victimizers and the oppressors. The problem with this was class did not enter. So Mr. Mondami says he's a minority and he is black and he needs special preference. He also said he was going to go after white or affluent neighborhoods. He's Indian American. His family originally came from India. Indian Americans, according to our census, are the wealthiest, most privileged ethnic group in America. So what I'm getting out is your skin color no longer can be correlated exactly with your class.

So you end up with a wealthy group, as I mentioned, a Joy Reed, an Eric Holder, a Barack Obama, getting special preferences for their children when maybe there's a lot of poor, much poorer people in East Palestine that have no such recourse. And finally, Affirmity of Action was based on historical discrimination and a complaint against the majority. What does Mr. Mondami have when he comes into the United States? What does Miss Ilyan Omar have? What does AOC parents have? What did the squad members have? Does it mean that when you walk one inch into the United States, United States from southern Mexico and Micho Khan suddenly you can say I've been treated terribly by American I need affirmative action if you're from a wealthy Indian family in South Africa and you come

in the United States when you get to the airport you say I'm a victim they did it to me I want affirmative action because I don't look as white as everybody else so to sum up D.I is imploding because you can't tell who qualifies in a multiracial society nor would you want to know Two, you can't cite historical oppression that would justify repertory action. And three, there's no connection necessarily anymore between class, money, affluence, and skin color. Add it all up, and Donald Trump is going to win this war to abolish something that has turned nightmarish. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis Hansen for the Daily Signal. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal.

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