Doesn’t Trump’s cavalcade of anti-DEI circus freaks prove Western meritocracy has failed?

By
Martyn Bradbury
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28
713

The line Right wing apologists and MAGA acolytes use is that DEI robs us of meritocracy and incompetent people gain an advantage simply because of their identity as opposed to their ability.

Meritocracy is one of the illusions the Right use to justify stamping out anyone who might gain power and influence without being part of the right ‘club’.

The truth is that the vast number of mega wealthy earned it through inheritance, not hard work…

All billionaires under 30 have inherited their wealth, research finds

All of the world’s billionaires younger than 30 inherited their wealth, the first wave of “the great wealth transfer” in which more than 1,000 wealthy people are expected to pass on more than $5.2tn (£4.1tn) to their heirs over the next two decades.

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There are already more billionaires than ever before (2,781), and the number is expected to soar in the coming years as an elderly generation of super-rich people prepare to give their fortunes to their children.

Research by Forbes magazine found there were 15 billionaires aged 30 or under but that none had created their own wealth, instead benefitting from huge inheritances.

…Meritocracy as a value is something we should absolutely fight for, but not when the cost of that is anyone who isn’t part of the ‘club’.

Which is why Trump’s attack on DEI is so fucking disingenuous – he has anointed his Children not because they are talented, but because they are family!

The cavalcade of political circus freaks he has assigned to his Cabinet are not there because they are the best qualified, they are there because they are filthy rich and totally loyal to him!

You could accept the Rights critique of DEI and the fight for meritocracy if they weren’t all inbred with nepotistic arselickers.

The Right don’t gain power because of Meritocracy, they gain power and then hold it for their club while attacking everyone else as a DEI hire.

 

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28 COMMENTS

  2. There’s a fantastic now cancelled podcast called ‘Grubstakers’ that documents the life stories of billionaires. Every single one shares the common element of having been able to borrow a little sum of a few hundred thousand dollars or so from a family friend or more usually just from immediate family.

  3. And the witch hunt is on. Seems that in the pursuit of cancelling terms in policies related to gender diversity, women have been cancelled.  Who would have guessed this would happen ?

    ” Thanks to Donald Trump’s sweeping executive orders attacking “gender ideology” and DEI programs, the word “women” – along with a number of other terms – is quite literally being erased. ”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/15/trump-banning-words-women

  4. There is a great opportunity here for a trend setter who gets the super-wealthy to feel powerful and kindly towards others and makes them want to go about throwing cakes rather than crumbs to the peeps. Your whole attitude Martyn shows a lack of imagination and hence
    a little ahead of those with none or a real imagination deficit, who have to take drugs to get anything new past their neurons; they constitute a huge world-changing opportunity for someone.

    Perhaps follow Edward Bernays approach.
    …Press agent: After his foray into the world of theater, Bernays worked as a creative press agent for various performers and performances. Already, he was using a variety of techniques that would become hallmarks of his later practice. He promoted the Daddy Long Legs stage play by tying it in with the cause of charity for orphans. To create interest in Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, he educated Americans about the subtleties of ballet—and publicized a picture of Flore Revalles, wearing a tight-fitting dress, at the Bronx Zoo, posed with a large snake. He built up opera singer Enrico Caruso as an idol whose voice was so sensitive that comically extreme measures were taken to protect it..
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays#Family_and_education

    I think of Bono and his concerts for charity etc. But bigger than that. After all what fun is there in just sitting gloating over money. They are cheating themselves by not letting their inner entrepreneur, whizz-kid, innovator, pathfinder, free from stultified conventions. They could try reading marathons. All those great ideas being thought through with joined-up words into complex sentences and plots, but untouched by human hands of so many non-readers, by the money-blinded class. This comes to mind:

    Lines from ‘A fish called Wanda’ express my sentiments –
    Otto: Don’t call me stupid.
    Wanda: Oh, right, to call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people. I’ve worn dresses with higher IQs. I’ve known sheep that could outwit you, but you think you’re an intellectual don’t you, ape?
    Otto: Apes don’t read philosophy.
    Wanda: Yes, they do Otto, they just don’t understand it.
    Now let me correct you on a couple of things here. Aristotle was not Belgian.
    The central message of Buddhism is not ‘every man for himself,’ and the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.
    A Fish Called Wanda written by John Cleese & Charles Crichton
    https://www.whysanity.net/monos/wanda.html

  5. Our minds are often opaque to us. While looking up Bernays I came on this about men.’s attitudes, and embracing women also? And of course there should be one for women whom I find hard to understand en masse.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda:_The_Formation_of_Men%27s_Attitudes
    Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (1965/1973) (French: Propagandes; original French edition: 1962) is a book on the subject of propaganda by French philosopher, theologian, legal scholar, and sociologist Jacques Ellul…

    After being discharged as a professor from French universities by the Vichy regime Ellul became a leader in the French resistance during World War II.[1] After the Liberation of France, he became a professor at the University of Bordeaux and wrote 58 books and numerous articles over his lifetime, the dominant theme of which has been the threat to human freedom created by modern technology. ..

    …Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes is divided into five substantive chapters discussing Ellul’s analysis.
    Introduction
    Regardless of the State, propaganda should be viewed as situated at the center of the growing powers of governmental and administrative techniques.
    “Differences in political regimes matter little; differences in social levels are more important; and most important is national self-awareness. Propaganda is a good deal less the political weapon of a regime (it is that also) than the effect of a technological society that embraces the entire man and tends to be a completely integrated society. Propaganda stops man from feeling that things in society are oppressive and persuades him to submit with good grace.”[7]

    “The Four Great Collective Sociological Presuppositions in the Modern World:
    That an individual’s aim in life is happiness.
    That man is naturally good.
    That history develops in endless progress.
    That everything is matter.

    The Collective Myths:
    of Work
    of Happiness
    of the Nation
    of Youth
    of the Hero”[11]

    Further: Leonard Doob, an American specialist, defined propaganda in 1948 as “the attempt to affect the personalities and to control the behavior of individuals towards desired ends”.[5] Unending definitions show the uncertainty among specialists and the inability of definitions to encompass all that is propaganda. Just because the term propaganda cannot be defined with any degree of precision does not mean that attempts to define it should be abandoned. Ellul’s definition in 1973 was as follows:
    “Very frequently propaganda is described as a manipulation for the purpose of changing idea or opinions of making individuals ‘believe’ some idea or fact, and finally of making them adhere to some doctrine—all matters of the mind. It tries to convince, to bring about a decision, to create a firm adherence to some truth. This is a completely wrong line of thinking: to view propaganda as still being what it was in 1850 is to cling to an obsolete concept of man and of the means to influence him; it is to condemn oneself to understand nothing about propaganda.
    The aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas, but to provoke action. It is no longer to change adherence to a doctrine, but to make the individual cling irrationally to a process of action. It is no longer to transform an opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief.”[6]

  8. more classic projection from the perpetual liars in chief who went on to install Hegseth, Dr. Phil, Kennedy, Bondi, Bove and possibly Patel, a list of DEI appointments if ever I’ve seen one. The alcoholic, the celebrity doctor, the roadkill dumper, the blond, the bimbo and the Indian. And of course there’s Musk and Trump – the austistic penius (sic) and the fake tan golfer.

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