Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Diversity. Equity. Inclusion.

Those three words are making a lot of people angry these days. And that’s part of the plan. Thanks to the new president and his minions, the shorthand version, “DEI,” has become one of the key weapons in the latest campaign to distract Americans from real issues by getting them angry at each other because of race and gender.

Trump was clear about it during his campaign: “I think there is a definite anti-white feeling in this country,” he said. “I think the laws are very unfair right now.” That message went straight to the heart of his core followers, those inclined to also believe that lazy, white-hating brown people were eating cats and dogs — the beloved pets of real Americans.

Hate and ignorance are a powerful combination, and those afflicted with it are easily manipulated. “DEI” is now racist code for “smart white men are being replaced by incompetent Black, brown, female, and LGBTQ people.” DEI was blamed for the California wildfires, the mid-air collision over the Potomac River, the flooding in North Carolina, you name it.

I was moved to ponder all this yesterday, as I pulled up to my bank’s drive-through ATM and read these words: “Please select the language you wish to use. Por favor, seleccione el idioma que desea usar.” The ATM screen has offered that option for years, maybe even decades, but now I guess it’s become offensive to some folks. A dang woke ATM.

But take a moment to think about why that option is there. It’s not because it was mandated by the government. It’s there because a bank — not exactly a woke institution — decided to put it there. And they did it because it was good for business to offer customers the opportunity to use a language that might make it easier for them to do their banking. It was a business decision.

There have been many studies on DEI and its influence on corporate and institutional America. Some findings: Corporations identified as more diverse and inclusive are 35 percent more likely to outperform their competitors. Diverse companies are 70 percent more likely to capture new markets. Diverse teams are 87 percent better at making decisions. Diverse management teams lead to 19 percent higher revenue. Companies employing an equal number of men and women manage to produce up to 41 percent higher revenue. The GDP could increase 26 percent by equally diversifying the workforce. Gender-diverse companies are 15 percent more likely to notice higher financial returns. I could cite references for all of the above, but you know how to google. Bottom line: DEI is good for the bottom line.

Also consider: It was not until 1959 that the then-named Memphis State University allowed Black students to attend. It wasn’t until 1969 that the Ivy League schools began accepting women. (Harvard held off until 1975.) It wasn’t until the 1960s that many Black Americans were able to get into a voting booth in the South.

And it wasn’t until 1974, when the Equal Credit Opportunity Act came into effect, that women in the U.S. could get a credit card or a bank account. The ECOA made it illegal for financial institutions to discriminate based on sex, and later extended that right to anyone, regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, age, or receipt of public assistance. In 2011, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was created to ensure banks and lending companies complied with the ECOA and didn’t defraud their customers.

On Sunday, Russell Vought, the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget, directed the CFPB to stop any investigative work and not begin any new investigations. Consumer protection from business scams is now “woke,” apparently.

Legislative protections against discrimination toward minority groups have proven to be an essential tool for leveling the playing field in business, education, and other elements of American life. Getting rid of DEI is just another variation of the GOP’s grievance-based politics, another sop for those who think white people are getting screwed. And they are, just not in the way they think they are. Maybe it would help if they took a second to think about those three words — diversity, equity, inclusion — and decide which ones they’re opposed to, and why.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are partnering to create a new U.S. government agency, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Musk underwrote the Trump campaign with $200 million in donations (AP estimate) and his own brand of buying votes.

Supposedly, the acronym comes from Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, the Doge. Whatever. When Heather Cox Richardson says the name of the pending Musk/Ramaswamy agency, she pronounces it doggy. She’s authoritative enough for me.

So yes, Musk paid for his new appointment, which represent a colossal conflict of interest, as that agency reportedly, avowedly, will shut down many regulations that currently govern aspects of Musk’s enormous U.S. government contracts. Getting his new powers involved corruption — a person really isn’t supposed to pay to acquire powers in the U.S. federal government. Can there be a shred of doubt that corruption won’t feature in nullifying EPA regulations on SpaceX, Tesla, and other Musk holdings?

But that is just toxic foreplay. Musk and Ramaswamy tell Forbes they will cut some $2 trillion in U.S. federal spending (sparing all the contracts with Musk-owned corporations, no doubt). What do they intend to defund?

They will get rid of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which tells us, “We protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices and take action against companies that break the law.” Thanks, Elon, for planning to deep-six this one.

Goodbye, Department of Education. Populist demagogues like Trump have railed against such an unwanted department for decades, clearly tired of spending funds on schools that serve marginalized communities

DOGE will get really vicious with organizations like Planned Parenthood, which averages approximately $50 million a year in federal funding. Reproductive help for women is almost certainly taking that hit.

Musk will make headlines when he and Ramaswamy end the $535 million federal support for public radio and TV. They actually called that “unauthorized spending,” even though Congress authorized it. You may not get public TV — so long, Sesame Street — but you will get a full display of gaslighting.

The Veterans Administration healthcare funding is targeted by Musk — interesting, a white South African deciding the U.S. military veterans should stop getting healthcare.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund imposed “austerity” measures on some poor countries that were not managing to repay loans and the impacts were severe, with poverty increased and government services decreased, even eliminated. The targeted countries — such as Greece, Kenya, and many more — reacted with cries of extreme pain and many of those harmful punishing policies were curtailed.

Musk says his DOGE will inflict hardship. Many Americans will lose their jobs, both inside the government and outside. The government contracts with many companies and when DOGE decides those contracts are not going to be honored, the losses will be severe in some quarters. Add to that the rising consumer prices that are widely predicted from Trump’s tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China (and possibly everyone else), and the American lifestyle may be in for the biggest shock since 1929.

When Trump was desperately seeking votes from retirees and those who love them, he promised not to cut Social Security, and even added that he would stop the practice of the IRS taxing Social Security. We will see if Musk lets him keep that promise.

It is astonishing that, in a roaring Biden-Harris economy that is benefiting literally every class of Americans, Trump garnered more votes than Harris and will throw wrenches into many of the gears of that economy, if Musk succeeds.

Dr. Tom H. Hastings is coordinator of conflict resolution BA/BS degree programs and certificates at Portland State University. His views, however, are not those of any institution.