“In order to strengthen the Federal workforce by promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility”, President Joe Biden committed unconditionally to make “identity politics” the heart of his administration by an Executive Order on June 25, 2021. With his signature, President Biden abandoned meritocracy as a basis for government hiring in exchange for favoring minority group membership to operate the Federal government.
Sex, sexual orientation, gender, skin color, and recent immigrant status were the DEI categories to be given preference. Those with Jewish backgrounds were no longer an included minority, but they could be tolerated if they were nonpracticing of their faith. Men with the stench of a white-supremist background were automatically suspect, if not summarily excluded.
The following is how excluding meritocracy from the criteria for Biden’s Cabinet selections has worked out in critical areas during the almost four years of his administration.
The October Surprise for the 2024 Presidential Election may well have been two gigantic Acts of God weather phenomena occurring almost simultaneously. Within ten days two hurricanes came ashore in the Southeast states.
Hurricane relief efforts are a responsibility of the Federal Emergency Management Agency which since 2021 was headed by Administrator Deanne Bennett Criswell. She was the first woman to lead FEMA after serving as a firefighter for 21 years and in several management positions. During the first days of Helene, the first of the two storms, Crisswell seemingly disappeared. Hurricane Helene hit the hills around Asheville, North Carolina, and over a week later residents were still trying to find a FEMA truck with bottled water or a generator to charge their mobile phones.
Prior even before the second hurricane Milton had touched Florida’s west coast, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was briefing citizens there on the preparations that had been made for the imminent Category 5 storm that was approaching their shores. He advised them on what they should do to avoid danger. The following morning after the Milton hit, Governor DeSantis was again competently in charge of directing the clean-up efforts.
What more vivid example could be presented to the American public than a competent, elected official doing his job amid a massive emergency than Ron DeSantos? His performance eclipses the weak parade of Federal DEI officials that clutter the Biden political landscape during emergencies.
Two officials Biden chose for their DEI credentials especially stand out for their incompetence in managing our borders. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Vice President Kamala Harris as the ‘Border Czar” both assured the public that the “border was secure” while they allowed over ten million undocumented, unknown illegal immigrants to enter our communities.
Mayorkas, a former Cuban refugee and the first Latin American-born person to lead a department, was the second cabinet minister in U.S. history to be impeached with a 214-213 House vote, but he was protected by a narrow Senate vote of 51-49 from being removed from office. Mayorkas and Harris caused significant internal damage to our country whose depth is still to be determined.
Lloyd Austin, the first black Secretary of Defense, placed his mark on America’s lack of a coherent foreign policy. First, he presided over the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. The “as long as it takes” non-winning policy against Russia invasion of Ukraine drags on with no end in sight.
The “Cease Fire” ultimatums to Israel in their defense against Iranian proxies suppress Israel’s need to protect itself. American hostages in Israel were taken by Hamas, some have been murdered, and some still are being held. Yet our government never demanded that Iran, the war’s kingmaker, obtain their release – or face the consequences.
Concurrently, Austin has internally allowed our military preparedness to deteriorate. Under Austin, our armed forces have consistently failed to meet their recruiting replacement requirements. Plus, he presided over lowering our active military personnel’s physical and mental requirements.
Kimberley A. Cheatle, the second woman Director of the Secret Service, resigned from her position after the Secret Service’s malpractice in handling the assassination attempt on Donald Trump at Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13th. The true details of this gigantic Secret Service FUBAR are still being withheld from both the public and Congress. About all we know of the presidential candidate’s wounding at the hands of an adolescent shooter is that it occurred because several incompetent levels of Secret Service management were assigned to Trump. A further factor was that top Service management refused to provide Trump with an adequate number of competent agents. Cheatle’s priorities for the Secret Service were to increase DEI presence and sensibilities in its culture, not to provide an effective protective force. She resigned under bipartisan pressure ten days after the Trump shooting.
Two months later, on September 17th, a narrowly averted assassination attempt on Trump’s life revealed the depths of incompetence to which the Secret Service had descended under Cheatle and prior Directors. Before Cheatle, Julia Ann Pierson, the first woman Director who was appointed by President Obama in 2013, also resigned after a series of Secret Service security lapses.
As Biden’s Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg was the first openly gay Cabinet secretary in U.S. history. His opportunities to damage the nation were less disastrous than those previously mentioned above. However, the same can be said of Buttigieg as was said of Joe Biden when President Obama commented to his vice president, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f*ck things up!” Every transportation issue that has come up since Buttigieg took office has been bungled, ignored, or left unsolved – like modernizing the nation’s antiquated and dangerous Air Traffic Control System. He ignored the East Palestine train crash and was ineffective in solving numerous airline cancellation and delay issues.
Jennifer Mulhern Granholm is the first woman Secretary of Energy and the first that was born outside of the U.S. She was appointed by Biden in 1921. As a Harvard Law graduate, Michigan Attorney General, and Governor of Michigan, Granholm has no credentials in energy issues. Other than as an advocate of Biden’s goal of getting to net zero carbon dioxide, her background in energy issues is no more useful than her youthful winning of a San Carlos beauty pageant, her abandoned Hollywood acting career, her appearance on The Dating Game, or as a tour guide at Universal Studios.
Once when asked what her plans were to increase U.S. oil production, Granholm replied, “That is hilarious. Would that I had the magic wand on this.” She did, however, promote four expensive large-scale regional direct air capture hubs each consisting of a network of carbon dioxide removal projects whose effectiveness for obtaining a cost-effective method of reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide is negligible.
Immediately after Biden was nominated, the only cabinet position he revealed was that his pick for vice president would be a “black woman”. Kamala Harris filled all his DEI boxes! She is the first woman, the first African American, and the first Asian American to be vice president. She is also the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history. Now that she has replaced Biden as the Democrat’s presidential nominee, American voters will be given the opportunity on November 5th to pass judgment on Biden’s gamble on America’s future by replacing meritocracy with identity politics.
John Whitmore Jenkins
October 10, 2024
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