The Democratic National Committee’s Resolutions Committee on Tuesday unanimously approved a resolution affirming what it called the “American Values” of diversity, equity, and inclusion at the party’s annual summer meeting. The Democratic Party has struggled to regain its footing after a stunning loss in the 2024 election, but party leaders have so far ignored advice to avoid the cultural leftism that pushed many 2024 voters towards President Donald Trump.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion “are American values. This is what America was built on,” declared delegate Bill Owen, a Democrat from Tennessee. “And to my Republican friends and fellow citizens … who profess to be active Christians, I remind them that DEI is the very foundation of the Christian church. I get a little emotional on this, but: ‘Jesus loves little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white.’”
Let Owen’s hot take stand as a warning against founding a worldview on a children’s song or treating the lyrics as an irrefutable mic drop. On issues that matter, it’s far safer to consult the original source itself—which, given the multitude of accurate English Bible translations available at reasonable prices, is not terribly difficult to do.
According to the Bible, the kingdom of heaven will have diversity, in the form of “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Revelation 7:9). But the equity (or justice) of this kingdom actually results in exclusion of the unregenerate. “And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. … And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:12, 15). Of course, the diversity of God’s kingdom is not an end in itself; it exists to showcase God’s wisdom and glory (Ephesians 3:10).
All of this is quite irrelevant to any discussion of political DEI, since God’s people constitute a spiritual entity, not a political one. A key attribute of the kingdom of God is that it is “not of this world” (John 18:36) and operates according to different principles.
(Finally, the fundamental problem most Americans have with DEI in a political context is not the ideals themselves, but the left-wing practices that masquerade under the banner of DEI, but which actually subvert the ideals.)
Nevertheless, it was this controversial expression of political DEI that the DNC Resolutions Committee saw fit to approve unanimously.
This unanimous approval is significant in comparison to other issues on which Democrats could not agree. Far more ink has been spilled over the Democratic drama on Israel, where the Resolutions Committee considered two dueling resolutions and advanced neither. The more radical resolution called for an arms embargo against Israel amid their war in Gaza, while the other endorsed a two-state solution and an immediate ceasefire. “Neither of these resolutions ended up passing,” observed Family Research Council Action Director Matt Carpenter on “Washington Watch.” “They ended up saying, basically, ‘Let’s talk about this some more.’”
While an arms embargo on Israel may have gone beyond the pale for the old-school Democrats, the DEI resolution showed that “they continue to find points of unity that … the American people reject,” summarized Family Research Council Senior Fellow Jody Hice.
“The 2024 election was absolutely a referendum on that agenda,” Carpenter concurred. “The Biden administration took every opportunity they could to push that DEI agenda in every nook and cranny they could of the federal government into American society. And it was rejected at the ballot box.”
In the final weeks of the 2024 presidential campaign, Republicans spent millions of dollars on an ad roasting Trump’s opponent, “Kamala is for they/them, Donald Trump is for you.”
“It’s frankly astonishing that the party would double down on that,” continued Carpenter. “Once you’ve been rebuked at the ballot box, it’s time to go back to the drawing board.”
Remarkably, unanimous approval for the DEI resolution came even after a “center-Left” group (or at least a group that passes for moderate in the current Democratic Party) issued a memo last Friday to “All Who Wish to Stop Donald Trump and MAGA” that begged Democrats, for the sake of their own political fortunes, to stop using language that alienates normal people.
What followed was a list of 45 terms, including the most offensive, alienating, or off-putting recently coined (or repurposed) by the Left:
- “Privilege …
- “Othering
- “Triggering
- “Microaggression …
- “Safe space
- “Body shaming …
- “Subverting norms
- “Systems of oppression …
- “The unhoused
- “Food insecurity
- “Housing insecurity
- “Person who immigrated …
- “Birthing person/inseminated person
- “Pregnant people
- “Chest feeding
- “Cisgender
- “Deadnaming
- “Heteronormative
- “Patriarchy
- “LGBTQIA+ …
- “Latinx
- “BIPOC
- “Allyship
- “Intersectionality …
- “Incarcerated people
- “Involuntary confinement”
“For a party that spends billions of dollars trying to find the perfect language to connect to voters, Democrats and their allies use an awful lot of words and phrases no ordinary person would ever dream of saying,” the report pleaded. “The intent of this language is to include, broaden, empathize, accept, and embrace. The effect of this language is to sound like the extreme, divisive, elitist, and obfuscatory, enforcers of wokeness.”
Not every term on the list deserves to be there (e.g., “dialoguing … postmodernism … heuristic”). Some terms even someone with a professional duty to understand and interpret the latest progressive propaganda, like yours truly, has likely never heard (e.g. “progressive stack … minoritized communities … carceration”).
But, as a whole, let us give credit where credit is due: the creators of this list at least had the self-awareness and listening skills to interpret how these terms sound to ordinary people. They classified the terms into six categories, based on how normal people interpret them. “These words say ‘I’m more empathetic than you, and you are callous to hurting other’s feelings,’” they described one category. “These say ‘your views on traditional genders and gender roles are at best quaint.,” said another.
“It’s good advice, but a bit like closing the stable door after the horse has already galloped off to the glue factory,” scoffed National Review’s Jeffrey Blehar. “Kamala Harris used nearly every single one of these terms during a misbegotten political career that climaxed in a failed presidential campaign that bonded her party to this particular variety of noxious progressivism.”
As far as actual policies go, it’s hard to distinguish a “Third Way”-style politician from a standard progressive, especially on policies like abortion. Their rejection of left-wing verbal clutter simply reveals a desire not to sound quite as radical, based solely on political expediency. They object not to the Democratic Party’s leftward drift, but to rocking the boat in a way that startles longtime partisans into jumping ship.
The fundamental problem with this approach is that it is difficult to lull passengers back to sleep once they have been startled awake by the raging storm around them. The left-wing policies gaining purchase in the Democratic Party only make sense to those who have imbibed the left-wing worldview that created them.
“The Democrats can drop this sort of language from their messaging as much as they wish, but until they drop the spirit of this rhetoric from their political objectives, they will remain just as culturally alienated from the mainstream as they are now,” Blehar concluded. “Or, to quote an online friend: Normal people don’t need to be told to act normal.”
“The Democratic Party is certainly in a tough spot,” agreed Carpenter. “Recent polling showed they’re at just 24% approval rating among registered voters, with a 56% disapproval rating.” Additionally, he noted, the Democratic Party has ousted leaders only months after electing them, stockpiled $14 million in cash to Republicans’ $84 million, and lost 2.1 million voters, while Republicans have gained 2.4 million.
Democrats know their party is in trouble, but they seem divided over the best course to chart. DNC Chairman Ken Martin articulated one alternative on Tuesday, when he complained that he was “sick and tired of this Democratic Party bringing a pencil to a knife fight. We cannot be the only party that plays by the rules anymore.”
This complaint suffers from the conceit that Democrats play by the rules, a questionable proposition after their last administration arrested peaceful pro-life protestors; planted informants in churches; defied the Supreme Court; colluded with medical organizations, school boards, and social media platforms; and waged the most extensive lawfare campaign ever conducted against a former president. (In fact, perhaps such recent, toxic misbehavior accounts for part of the Democratic Party’s current misfortunes.)
While Democrats struggle to find consensus on the path forward, they know where they stand now: solidly behind the toxic identity politics encapsulated in the label “DEI.” As far as these values are considered, Democrat leadership has convinced itself to ignore the warning signs and power full steam ahead.
Originally published by The Washington Stand.
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