Equality... What A Concept!

Trump's whirlwind of executive orders has, predictably, thrilled many supporters and left many detractors aghast. I write "predictably" because millions of members of both groups decided how they would react before even hearing about this or that EO. Such is the binary and tribal nature of our modern political sandbox. And, once they've declared, the desire for consistency is such that people will contort and deep-dive to defend their declared positions.

There's no point in trying to engage such persons in rational discussion about a particular Trump action, and there are many, many such persons in our circles and on social media.

The rest of us? Those not infected with either Trump Derangement or Trump Enchantment? I don't know how numerous we are, but there are more than a few of us, based on my political travels.

We serve both our own causes and the broader sense of propriety when we judge things each on their own merits.

Today, I look at one particular EO, "Ending Illegal Discrimination And Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity."

This one's a lulu. It blows up the government's decades of discrimination, racism, and bigotry, and restores the original intent of the Equal Rights Act the original goal of the Civil Rights Movement, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream of a “content of their character” based society.

I applaud it. In fact, I heartily endorse it.

I've read countless cautions and warnings about Trump being in his second, "lame-duck" term, about how he won't have the concern about the next election tempering his policy aggressiveness. I haven't read as much about how the lack of such concerns (though I reject the premise - I don't think Trump moderates behavior out of fear of damaging his future prospects) might embolden him to take better actions.

This is one of those latter instances. Conservative commentators have noted that even Reagan was timid about eliminating racial preferences and quotas. Trump embraced the "go big or go home" mindset in this one, taking an Alexandrian sword to the DEI Gordian Knot.

Back in 2007, Chief Justice John Roberts opined, in Ricci v. DeStefano, a case about 'reverse discrimination,' that:

The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.

and in doing so affirmed the language of the Civil Rights Act itself. It's a shame that we needed another eighteen years to more fully realize non-discrimination as a government policy and as a protection for individuals' equal rights.

Again, good on Trump for being bold enough to upend decades of discriminatory behavior masquerading as "equity" or "justice" or some other term that means "I don't like a particular result of treating people equally so I want to force my preference on the world."

Naturally, the race hucksters who have foisted DEI, Critical Race Theory, and the rest of the "woke" ideology are going to gnash their teeth and tell us that we are terrible people for supporting actual equality. No surprise - they've built lives, careers, and wealth by sowing division and bigotry. We can safely mock or ignore them, and we can safely reject those who parrot their hateful language. Ditto for the people who object to the gravy train being derailed. Whether it be preferential treatment or actual tax dollar largess, discrimination of the DEI sort perpetuates a victim mentality and continues decades of social corrosion.

The only way out of inequality is to embrace equality. As Robin Williams quipped about reality...

What a concept!