Past Time to Undo Obama’s ‘Fundamental Transformation’

January 14, 2024

In 2008 the media lapped up the master of Shuck and Jive, Barack Obama and his high-falutin’ promise:

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Now, Mizzou, I just have two words for you tonight: five days. Five days. After decades of broken politics in Washington, and eight years of failed policies from George W. Bush, and 21 months of a campaign that’s taken us from the rocky coast of Maine to the sunshine of California, we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.

“In five days, you can turn the page on policies that put greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street before the hard work and sacrifice of folks on Main Street. In five days, you can choose policies that invest in our middle class, and create new jobs, and grow this economy, so that everyone has a chance to succeed, not just the CEO, but the secretary and janitor, not just the factory owner, but the men and women on the factory floor.

In fact, what he instituted, endorsed, and placed the federal government’s many resources behind was the Marxist division of America into oppressed and oppressor groups — using race and sex as substitutes for workers and producers. The destruction of national unity, the downplaying of merit and equal opportunity (in pursuit of equal outcomes) and the deliberate favoring of our enemies over our allies is now manifest.  Some two decades later, we have seen how these policies have led to wars in the Middle East, the destruction of our educational systems, danger to our lives from poor management, and a substantially weakened military capability. From the personnel and policies that resulted in the wars in the Middle East to the appointment of the antisemitic Claudine Gay, I see Obama’s heavy hand.

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Harvard

Penny Pritzker, senior fellow of Harvard Corporation (in effect, its Board of Trustees), was instrumental in both the election of Barack Obama and the selection of Claudine Gay as Harvard’s President.

“Without Penny Pritzker, it is unlikely that Barack Obama ever would have been elected to the United States Senate or the presidency. When she first backed him during his 2004 Senate run, she was No. 152 on the Forbes list of the wealthiest Americans. He was a long-shot candidate who needed her support and imprimatur. Mr. Obama and Ms. Pritzker grew close, sometimes spending weekends with their families at her summer home.”

She chaired his 2008 finance team and aided in his re-election campaign. Pritzker also chaired the team that selected Gay as Harvard president. When Gay’s presidency was on the shoals after her disastrous congressional appearance, Obama lobbied the Corporation to retain her, but ultimately failed when the evidence of Gay’s professional lifetime of plagiarism was exposed and even Pritzker could no longer save her.  Gay, like Obama, had achieved a prestigious role, not on merit, but on the very characteristics DEI weighed more heavily, and Harvard suffers and continues to suffer from the departure from the norm of earned merit as a criterion for advancement.

The Middle East

Antony Blinken, Biden’s Secretary of State, is an Obama holdover. Under Obama, he was deputy national security advisor and then deputy secretary of state. When he assumed his position under Biden, Trump had diplomatically isolated Iran, which was under international arms embargos. Biden adopted pro-Iran, pro-Qatar, and pro-Palestinian policies. These policies empowered our most dangerous Middle-Eastern enemies which finance Hamas, Hezb’allah, and the Houthis, all of which are fanatically anti-American and anti-Israeli. To take one example, immediately upon taking office, Biden reversed Trump’s designation of the Houthis as a terrorist organization. Blinken’s explanation for the reversal was that designating the Houthis as a terrorist organization would cause famine in Yemen. In recent months, the Houthis, in violation of international laws, have fired upon and pirated ships passing through the Red Sea. This week, after countless provocations the U.S., allied with the U.K., the Netherlands, and others, has been forced to attack Houthi assets to permit uninterrupted transit on the Red Sea. On Friday Biden said he considered the Houthis terrorists. Once again, the policies and personnel of Obama have created chaos and war in the Middle East.

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The U.S. Military

We can no longer meet our recruitment goals. A major factor is that white male recruiting is down. That this should surprise anyone is bizarre. Patrick H. Brady and Mike Waltz in the Wall Street Journal review the deleterious impact of DEI on our military. 

The U.S. military faces a self-inflicted threat to its preparedness to deter, fight and win wars. An essential, battle-tested element of military culture – colorblindness — is being undermined. Unless the trend is reversed, our national security will be at increased risk. The reversal could be done at no cost, requiring only a policy decision and the reorientation of relevant training. 

Selflessness, which has been vital to the warrior ethos for generations, requires subordination of self and subgroup identity and the ability to regard teammates’ racial and ethnic differences as inconsequential. In the Army and Marines, sayings such as “We’re all green” or “We all bleed red” were part of training that transformed millions of diverse civilians into war fighters… But that ethic is under attack. 

At the Air Force Academy, cadets have been taught that the term “colorblind” is offensive and that it’s preferable to be “color conscious.” Rather than teach future military leaders that “colorblindness” is a cultural imperative, the Pentagon unnecessarily focuses on, and even elevates, race and maintains an obsessive focus on racial demographics. Worse, it uses racial preferences in officer accession programs and sometimes in command, promotion and schooling selections…

Training that in earlier years was intended to ensure equal opportunity and dignity and respect for all has been displaced by diversity, equity and inclusion curricula with often vague language that emphasizes differences…

Viewpoint diversity can be beneficial even in an autocratic organization such as the military. What’s harmful is the Defense Department’s uncritical focus, through DEI, on racial differences that has weakened the colorblind warrior culture, eroded morale, undermined unit cohesion, and compromised combat effectiveness. 

The Production and Operation of Essential Equipment

If these examples of the dangerous impact of DEI on our functioning were not enough, consider how DEI led to a door falling off an airplane in flight. Elon Musk nailed it:

Elon Musk ripped Boeing over a filing that appeared to show the aeronautical giant two years ago began using diversity, equity and inclusion goals as incentives for executive compensation after previously focusing solely on safety and quality controls.

“Do you want to fly in an airplane where they prioritized DEI hiring over your safety? That is actually happening,” Musk said on X on Wednesday.

The billionaire, whose comments followed a nearly-catastrophic Alaska Airlines flight that suffered a fuselage panel blowout over the weekend, was reacting to a screenshot that showed a proxy statement from Boeing filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Beginning in 2022, the aircraft manufacturer changed its incentive plan from giving executives bonuses based on passenger safety, employee safety, and quality to rewarding them if they hit climate and DEI targets, according to the filing. [snip]  United Airlines has also found loose bolts and other “installation issues” on some of its Boeing 737 MAX 9 jets that were inspected following the Alaska Airlines flight.

Boeing has faced an influx of scrutiny after its 737 MAX 9 aircraft malfunctioned mid-flight.

 Delta and United airlines are now emphasizing DEI in pilot hiring. In United’s case, this policy may have resulted in an incident which nearly totaled its plane and other incidents blamed on pilot error.

Will we have to wait until a really tragic incident occurs before these airlines and Boeing wise up? 

Like Obama, DEI puts in nicer sounding words policies and personnel which endanger us all in every possible way.

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