Like Critical Race Theory before it—but with a supercharged intensity, since each new campaign of right-wing hate has been more aggressive than the last—Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has come to stand in for efforts and programs that have nothing at all to do with these words’ putative definitions or implications. The DOGEistes, in combing through personnel data on the hunt for “women,” “historically,” and “status,” have made it very clear that they’re not particularly concerned with workplace training programs or low-stakes capitalist proceduralism. Instead the claims made by Musk and Project 2025 are far more expansive: for them DEI refers to any effort that acknowledges the reality that people other than cis white men operate in society.