Karma

My apologies to those readers of my blog for missing Monday’s commentary – the website was experiencing some issues but I think the folks at WordPress finally figured it out – so a little late this week but we should be back on track come Monday.

In 2009, shortly after Barack Obama took office, democrat political strategist, James Carville authored a book titled 40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation.  In the book, Carville argued that current demographic shifts and political trends favor the Democrat Party, suggesting a prolonged period of democrat ascendancy in American politics.

Obama won a second term in 2012, but within a year many Americans began questioning our first black president because when Obama first told us that fundamental change had come to America, most people envisioned the elimination of the waste, abuse and fraud that had been rampant in the United States government for decades.  The voters wanted accountability but what they got was a doubling down of everything that was wrong with government.  And instead of transparency and fiscal responsibility we got critical race theory, DEI, open borders, the fentanyl crisis, and an expansion of the size and scope of the federal government with the power to spy on us, censor us, and dictate our healthcare.

Not surprisingly the democrats lost the 2016 election, but it wasn’t because of their messenger, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, even though she was far from the ideal candidate.  Rather they lost because of their message, which was a continuation of Obama’s pledge to “fundamentally transform America.”

Fast-forward to 2020 when thanks to the COVID epidemic and a malicious and mendacious media 81.3 million Americans ostensibly voted for Joe Biden.  Ever the acolyte, Scranton Joe doubled down on DEI and woke ideology.  We can speculate about who was actually running the country during the Biden years, but a person would have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to realize that Joe Biden was a figurehead.  So, the democrats continued taking their cue from America’s first black president and went even harder left on social issues such as abortion on demand, welcoming illegal aliens, transexual chauvinism, and the expensive and failing new green deal exposing the false promise of Carville’s book.

~ What Goes Around Comes Around ~

Recently I’ve been reading about the status of Barack Obama’s long-awaited library and museum that’s under construction on Chicago’s South Side.  A project that began as one might expect, with ambitious plans for diversity, equity and inclusion.  However, the project has been plagued by huge cost overruns, delays and a $40 million, racially charged lawsuit filed by – wait for it – a minority contractor!

From the outset, the endeavor touted DEI as a key to enshrining the Obama’s legacy at the 19 -acre site, where costs have ballooned from its initial $350 million estimate to $830 million and counting.  Obama had set out ambitious goals for construction diversity quotas, with its contracts to be allocated to “diverse suppliers,” 35% of which were required to be minority-based enterprises.

Barack Obama is a former President of the United States, and one could reasonably assume that he possessed both the connections and the skill to orchestrate the building of his library.  But as I’ve written more times than I can count, the best way to measure effectiveness of anything is not by looking at plans and promises, but rather by examining results.  And the lawsuit, the chaos and the cost overruns that are occurring on Chicago’s South Side is just one more illustration of the DEI fallacy.

Americans are beginning to realize how diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are counter-productive and simply don’t work.  Most DEI efforts operate without clear success metrics, while others focus on optics rather than meaningful change, leading to superficial efforts.  At the same time, critics argue that an excessive focus on diversity metrics can overshadow merit-based hiring and promotions, and if diversity is prioritized without considering competence, it will negatively impact team performance and credibility.

Donald Trump saw clearly that DEI is in reality reverse discrimination, particularly when hiring or promotions prioritize diversity over qualifications, which is just one reason Trump’s executive order banned DEI in official government.  I also believe America, except for the terminally woke, is slowly beginning to see how DEI actually creates an “us vs. them” mentality and reinforces the worst of identity politics, which brings me back to Obama’s presidential library and museum.

I will not speculate why the Obama Presidential Center is currently five years behind its original schedule and has seen its budget nearly triple from initial estimates.  At the same time and

vis-à-vis what DOGE has revealed about how our government spends our tax dollars, this cluster you-know-what shouldn’t surprise anyone, especially when we consider the first predicate of the Center was DEI.  True, this isn’t a government boondoggle, it’s a private one; but a boondoggle is a boondoggle and does anyone believe this project would be five years behind schedule and a half billion dollars over budget if Donald Trump were building it?

Quote of the Day: “Contemporary DEI is not an extension of the Civil Rights Movement.  It is undergirded by a quasi-Marxist ideology called Critical Social Justice.” – The CATO Institute