Neither party runs presidential primaries when their guy is incumbent. It’s almost superstitious, that having someone ‘primary’ your incumbent is going to make them lose (because of losses under those circumstances by Ford, Carter, and Bush Sr.
Of course the cause/effect is backwards, they were primaried because their administration was at risk, they weren’t at risk because of the primary, but as superstitions go…
I think this is an area that is perilous.
So certain DEI initiatives are flawed in unfair ways. So there’s room for valid criticism.
However, more critically it’s a gigantic dog whistle. The magnitude of the flaws does not call for massive emails demanding everyone snitch at any whiff of DEI and sweeping offices to remove anything deemed DEI aligned and cancelling any hint of celebrating cultural diversity.
So on the one hand I can relate to a discussion of flaws, but in the broader context it seems more to serve the agenda of those blowing the dog whistle.
So three scenarios come up when I think of my experiences on selecting candidates.
One time, we had a woman apply. Which was almost unheard of, it was the first time I could ever remember a woman applicant. The thing was, she was also by far the best candidate. In a round of applicants that otherwise I’m sure we wouldn’t have bothered hiring, she nailed it. Retroactively, they declared the white guy that was interviewed the previous day the one to hire, who was kind of the best of the worst. Something vague about him having more years in the industry, but I overheard a concern that they didn’t trust one of our employees to behave himself in front of a very attractive hire, and that it was best for everyone to head off the sexual harassment by keeping him away from her. In which case a DEI policy would have actually been nice to counter the really bad behavior going on.
Another time, different company, we were about to do the interviews and then suddenly they were all canceled. Why? Management picked the person to fill the spot, and decided to skip all technical assessment. Because this time another woman actually applied and that was it, they needed a woman to make numbers. The person was about as well as you can expect for accepting the first person to come along. This was a position intended for an experienced industry veteran, but instead we got someone with zero experience and their education wasn’t even consistent with the work needed.
A third time, it was a hiring position where only black people were even allowed to apply. I don’t have complaints about the results here, because we got one of the best employees we’ve ever had out of it. But I can’t pretend that the specific hiring practice was fair. However the place is still, after all this, like 90% white men, so it’s not like white guys aren’t getting their chances.
So funny story, my department had an employee survey and one of the questions that triggered a need for “team discussion” was:
“Do all people, regardless of race and gender, have good opportunities in our workplace?”
Evidently one person in the department said “no, they do not”. So I’m sitting there wondering “oh crap, we are a bunch of white men except one woman and one black guy, which of those two have felt screwed over due to race or gender”. But no, an older white guy proudly spoke up saying there’s no room for white men at the workplace, that white men are disadvantaged. In a place that’s like 90% white men…
It was interesting that there was this program my kid qualified for that was DEI oriented. Which I found strange because we are relatively well off and could easily pay for what this program covered.
To their credit, you might have been qualified too, since this program also accepted people under a household income threshold, and as a result had quite a few white boys in it too.
But they are still running primaries? If talking about the presidential specifically, they did a typical primary in 2020 and sure in 2024 it was not done, but we’ve got people blaming “real primaries” against incumbents for losses in 76, 80, and 92 and neither party does it as a result.