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Comment by machinekob | Hacker News Reader

DEI was so good and righteous idea that it shifted most of the western world to the right more than dozens of islamist terrorist attacks in previous decades. And ofc. all US corporations would follow this cultural change or they’ll risk antitrust/tax/law investigations from Trump and all EU government that’ll be elected in next few years.

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Didn't the exact same companies introduced the exact same changes they now revert not out of firm belief but to demonstrate support? If someone adapts to the environment out of self-preservation then they were never supportive of any cause.

I wish people would stop humanizing big companies.

Yes they do this every time and it will happen every time culture shift nothing new.

problem with DEI and other politicL "incentives" is that they are very visible and easy to make normal people angry about.

I don't see how this "flexibility" is not a human trait also.

Inflation caused by the pandemic era policies upturned governments more that any acronym. The U.K. went the opposite of right, for instance. And Orban in Hungary might finally get the boot this year because of economic doldrums.

UK also is moving to the right reform + conservatives are pooling at around 45-60% atm. Labor is only in power cause reform and conservatives split votes Only place that was in reverse of this trends was Poland in 2022 which shit to the center-right from “populist right” and possibly Hungary but we don’t know yet as Orban was losing pools for like 10 years but never lost election.

If economy is good people won’t care about politics when economy is bad folks start getting political and we see it in whole west France, Germany and Canada are without government and most folks in this countries are shifting more and more right.

U.K. is moving to the right because of Starmer’s lack of competence and charisma.

> If economy is good people won’t care about politics when economy is bad folks start getting political

We agree. But you don’t seem to agree with your earlier post up-thread.

The UK stayed basically the same and I think that was due to the fact that the previous government was already the centre-right wing party–and although they tried to move further right–the fact that they had done such a terrible job in government basically meant their goose was cooked no matter how many punitive policies they tried to enact or wars on wokeness they prosecuted.

The right-wing party of the traditional two (the tories) was absolutely slaughtered in the election and they've now elected as the party leader (although not without some controversy–apparently tactical voting gone wrong) a fairly standard right-wing populist in Badenoch.

There is also the increasingly substantial spectre of the far-right, with race riots taking place over summer and Musk's pet favourite Reform party gaining ground.

It seems very possible to me right now that at the next general election the UK will swing seriously to the right. If this does happen it will the fault of Labour as far as I'm concerned. Of course that's still a long way away and we can always live in hope.

Trump's administration proved ineffective last time and there's little reason to think it will be different this time. If he tries to sabotage companies for not abandoning DEI initiatives he'll be bogged down in the courts, it will take more than four years to resolve any of that and by then it will be moot anyway.

Insofar as companies are changing now it's because they no longer feel political pressure to put on performative displays to satisfy the sort of activist government regulators that were typical in the Obama and Biden governments. Companies like Apple which are true DEI believers and not merely bending to political pressure will keep their programs dispute Trump and Trump won't be able to much of anything about that.

>DEI was so good and righteous idea that it shifted most of the western world to the right more than dozens of islamist terrorist attacks in previous decades.

If by "shifting right" you mean people in the US voted for Trump because of DEI, the numbers don't really add up. Biden beat Trump by 7 million votes in 2020. Trump beat Harris by half that number in 2024. More than that, the Republicans ran the same anti-woke campaign in 2022 and yet the Dems still gained senate and governor seats then. It's not like DEI was any better in 2022 for that narrative to make sense.

There was no major cultural shift. Trump won because of the economy not DEI. Hell, I would wager half the democrats who worked in STEM fields thought DEI was counterproductive from the beginning and they still didn't vote for Trump because of it (e.g., pg). It's been debated around here since the days of that google engineer getting fired for his anti non-merit hiring criteria memo and long before that.

In AOC's district, the same people voted for AOC and Trump. People said "fuck this, I gotta put bread on the table. something's gotta change."

Can you share all the sources linking DEI policies to the right-wing shift? Because to me it looks more like a scapegoat post-factum where right-wingers tied themselves to the idea of DEI to fan the flames rather than it being a causal point. It's just another selling point for the hatred-fueled base of right-wingers, not too different from "immigrants are taking your jobs" or "women in the workforce are the cause of unaffordable housing/less well paid jobs", etc.

It's just a mirage to manipulate dissatisfied people, classic populist move.

GP has no obligation to do a literature search for you. This is a discussion site, not a scientific journal, so it is okay to have opinions based on other sources, such as anecdotes from personal life, first principles, or common sense/intuition.

Speaking of which, I see the same anecdotes that DEI policies pushed people to the right.

It's absolutely okay if it's framed that way in their original comment, which it wasn't and deserves push back unless they can sustain their argument. If it started with "in my opinion", "in my view" instead of a baseless factual statement.

If not framed in that way then I will ask for sourcing the bullshit :)

> Speaking of which, I see the same anecdotes that DEI policies pushed people to the right.

Yeah, that's why it's called "reactionaries", I'm sad you live among those people though.

It's okay to ask of course. My statement was that the ask does not have to be reciprocated.

Personally, unless there's specific claims about data proving something, I usually assume claims on discussion sites to be somewhat informed personal opinions, even if they are worded more strongly than this. I find this to be true more often than not. But I may be more skeptical than your average person regarding the scientific rigor in social sciences, as well as the ability of people to cherry pick specific papers that suit their claim, and therefore place less weight on literature citations versus experiences that I see in my daily life.

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