Rumours of the death of DEI have been greatly exaggerated
Donald Trump and Elon Musk may be dismantling DEI in the States, but in Britain and Europe it remains buried deep. We must root it out or risk being left poor, defenceless and exposed, says James Price
A few years ago, the term ‘vibe shift’ entered the online lexicon. Broadly, it describes a moment of significant cultural change where popular tastes undergo a sudden shift. The first use of this was in relation to the post-pandemic world, where the horrors of the state locking everybody up were so awful that the correction, when it came, was overwhelming.
An even bigger ‘vibe shift’ has now occurred in the USA, and where American vibes shift, global trends change with them. This shift has been caused by the total victory of Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, winning the President the popular vote and extensive control of the levers of government. This second time around, Team Trump seems determined to shift the vibe more permanently, at home and abroad.
One of the biggest impacts of this vibe shift in America has been on cultural issues. Just as America led the way in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), so too is it disappearing at breakneck speeds. The most successful campaign ad in the election said: “Kamala is for they/them. Donald Trump is for you”. Democratic strategists were flummoxed by the success, but it struck a chord with millions of voters.
Since the election, massive companies have been shedding their DEI teams like a heavy winter coat on a fresh spring day. These aren’t just places like Walmart that you would expect, but the tech giants that incubated the more radical progressive policies, like Google, Meta and Amazon. Even universities like MIT have dismantled their DEI teams. Similarly, the vibe shift has claimed the scalps of the net zero policies of finance giants like JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.
This might feel like a massive victory for all those who want our governments to focus on the cost of living, the threat of Communist China and technological solutions to environmental issues, rather than the latest culture war fads. But don’t crack open the plastic straws and whole milk just yet.
Termites buried deep
The vibe shift is not an immutable law of nature. Whilst I hope that these undesirable American trends recede with the same speed that they washed over us with, the termites have burrowed deep, and dined long and well. Just as DOGE is exposing criminal wastes of American money, so too in Britain has there been eye-watering spending on what could charitably be described as ‘woke tosh’. The Taxpayers’ Alliance has discovered the £45m spent by universities in the last few years on diversity staff, whose job it is to stir up ethnic and other resentments amongst teachers. And they also discovered public funding for trans-friendly robots, queer animals, and TikTok dances.
The grifters have so enjoyed the slush fund that they won’t give it up without a fight
In short the grifters have so enjoyed the slush fund that they won’t give it up without a fight. But Europe needs to root this stuff out – and fast. The new American leadership is as tired of European wokery as it is with its own. And at the same time that the EU messes around with bottle caps that don’t come off, AI safetyism despite having no AI, and our own take on DEI nonsense, it fails to see the existential threats it faces.
That is the view, at least, of one of the faces of the vibe shift, Vice President JD Vance. Like an imperial proconsul sent from the metropole to put a bit of stick about in a misbehaving Roman province, Vance used the Munich defence conference to launch broadsides against the continental elites.
Anyone who thought that the vibe shift was limited to the culture wars is wrong. It refers to real wars, too. Vance is dead right that whilst we Europeans have fiddled, Rome has burned. From the deterioration of our societies in the face of mass migration and growing terror attacks, to our inability to sufficiently deter Putin, we have grown weak. We thought America would pay for the defence of our continent, whilst we sneered at them. But the reckoning is coming. Europe needs to ditch the silliness of woke, get serious about its defence, its borders and its commitment to law and order. If we don’t, the vibe shift will leave us poor, defenceless and exposed. And we will only have ourselves to blame.
James Price is senior fellow at the Adam Smith Institute