2024: The Year that DEI Died
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—a triumvirate of collective national folly that wafted through boardrooms and HR departments like the stench of a rotting carcass left out in the July heat. Everyone caught a whiff of it. Everyone knew it was there. But for the longest time, no one wanted to admit that it reeked.
It was the corporate world’s version of a decaying fish left to rot in the corner, too offensive to ignore, but surrounded by people too feckless to deal with it.
DEI, they told us, was supposed to be the answer to all society's woes, our national sins of “racism,” “sexism,” and “anti-LGBTQ-ism”—an aggressive but much-needed and long overdue initiative to level playing fields, uplift marginalized voices, and ensure that everyone, from the boardroom to the factory floor, felt included. But in reality, it was a bureaucratic Trojan Horse, rolling in on a polished sheen of moralistic platitudes while concealing within it the most destructive doctrines of cultural Marxism.
For years, those of us willing to call it out were branded as reactionaries, bigots, or worse. Conservative commentators, right-wing Christian watchblogs like us, and other “unapproved” voices were sounding the alarm long before it became fashionable. We were the ones warning that DEI—branded in Evangelical circles as “racial reconciliation” or “kingdom diversity”—was more than just another HR gimmick.
It was an ideological cudgel. A guilt machine.
All of this, we knew from the beginning, was nothing more than a vehicle designed to siphon power from the ones deemed “guilty” and hand it over to the “aggrieved,” regardless of merit or actual injustice.
“Check your white privilege,” SBC pastors like Matt Chandler demanded.
“Repent for the sins of your ancestors,” professional Evangelical circuit speakers like Max Lucado told us.
And then, with a sly grin, everyone from Russell Moore to Tim Keller to JD Greear pointed to socialism as the cure for all this inherited guilt and suddenly lead us to a national utopia. It was nothing less than idolatry—all of it. Whether it be the secular workplace or Southeastern Seminary, they were all bowing the knee to Ba’al through inclusivity workshops and mandatory diversity quotas.
But in 2024, something remarkable happened. The whispers that started among the small guys grew into a roar. At first, it was just grassroots pushback—concerned parents fighting Critical Race Theory in schools, conservative pastors rejecting the infiltration of woke ideology into their congregations, and bloggers like us refusing to shut up about it.
Slowly but surely, the momentum built. And when the dam broke, it wasn’t just the usual suspects taking notice. Even the evangelical leaders who had once chided Christians to “stand up for LGBTQ rights” or framed illegal immigration as God’s divine instrument to “reverse secularization” suddenly seemingly found their spines. Now, they’re out there telling us DEI—which was previously a “gospel issue” that must be embraced—is now an evil that must be confronted with the gospel.
But let’s not get carried away—these are the same men who swing whichever way the dialectical pendulum is swinging.
They’ll go wherever the cultural winds blow hardest.
And the pendulum has, indeed, swung. Over the course of 2024, company after company began abandoning their DEI ambitions, realizing that their customer base—the ones who actually bought their products and supported their livelihoods—had absolutely no use for it.
Tractor Supply, a company serving mostly Southern “rednecky” types, finally figured out that their customers cared more about tractors that worked than about paying a premium to support diversity hires.