from the beating-their-drums-with-the-bones-of-the-dead dept

Never let a tragedy go unexploited. That’s the political rule and it applies to both sides of the partisan divide. Of course, the divide has been Oval Office top heavy for a majority of this century, so we’re hearing more from one side than another in most cases.

That being said, there’s no limit to the stupid things powerful people will say when they’re using dead bodies as hobby horses for whatever narrative they want to push. Mass killings have been blamed on music, “violent media,” video games, the internet in general, the internet more specifically, and the general collapses of family unit preferred by theocrats.

Now, we’re getting this, as (barely) reported by Ashleigh Fields for The Hill.

House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) cited diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives that he says have blurred the focus of law enforcement agents hired to keep the country safe while discussing what caused the Wednesday New Orleans attack.

“Some of these agencies have gotten so wrapped up in the DEI movement. You know, call it wokeness, call it whatever you want,” Scalise said during a Thursday interview with WWL Radio.

“But where their main focus is on diversity and inclusion as opposed to security. And they’re two very different things. And we’ve got to get back to that core mission.”

That much of the reporting is fine. It’s just the facts and it adequately sums up what Rep. Scalise said during his WWL interview.

The next paragraph, however, is exactly the sort of thing we don’t need any more of: the view from nowhere that grants credibility to literally any stupid thing that comes out of politicians’ mouths.

His concerns were raised amid an outpour of scrutiny from anti-DEI advocates including Robby Starbuck, who critiqued local leaders and the New Orleans Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for hosting DEI recruiting events. 

“His concerns” were not “raised.” His “moronic assertion” went “unchallenged” is a much better way to report this. Or his “delusions” were “vocalized.” Anything but treating this like it’s a regular concern raised by a regular person, especially when placed in the context of other theatrical hyperventilators who have decided DEI must be harming everyone because they personally don’t want to consider the mild imposition of having to include others, treat them as equals, or confront the fact that their own personal worldview isn’t the only world view.

It’s not much better at the source of Scalise’s stupidity. Here’s how it’s summed up by WWL:

When asked what Homeland Security missed or what they could’ve done differently in the case of the New Orleans terrorist, a case where an American citizen became radicalized, Scalise explained, “Some of these agencies have gotten so wrapped up in the DEI movement that they’re main focus is diversity and inclusion rather than security. We have to get back to that core mission.”

[…]

Scalise expanded on his belief that large federal agencies have lost sight of their mission, “It seems the further away we get from September 11th, the closer we are to September 10th. It’s the attitude of ‘It can’t happen again.’ It just did…I think they let their guard down and are focused on things other than keeping our homeland safe… When they lose focus lives are lost.”

Trust me, no law enforcement agency is leaning so heavily into DEI initiatives that they’re losing “mission focus.” If it’s like the initiatives I’ve seen enacted at any number of private companies, it’s something that is put on posters and hung on bulletin boards and occasionally mentioned at quarterly-meetings. It’s just another thing most employers and employees are pencil-whipping, along with all the usual compliance paperwork they’re required to fill out periodically.

While some companies actually care about DEI (Costco is on top of it, for instance), there’s absolutely no reason to believe law enforcement entities that still can’t reliably respect rights that have been around for a couple hundred years are so entranced by DEI initiatives they can no longer reliably fight crime, much less engage in the super-fun round-the-clock surveillance that rarely prevents terrorist attacks, but is always treated as just part of the price we pay for the freedom to be shot at, run over, or placed into the hands of a political party that thinks literally terrorizing their fellow legislators is an acceptable way to handle a presidential election loss.

Filed Under: dhs, fbi, new orleans, steve scalise, stupidity, terrorism