The Embarrassments of Ideology

Rigid ideologies like DEI, climate dogma, and anti-Trump obsession keep collapsing under their own contradictions, leaving their loudest champions looking increasingly absurd.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is a euphemism for a rigid racialist theology.

It deductively postulates that a large percentage of the population is oppressed by racism and sexism, mostly by white males.

DEI makes no allowance for the class or wealth of the alleged victims or their supposed victimizers.

So once that rigid party line is set, it cannot account for tens of millions of affluent and privileged non-white Americans or like numbers of poor and non-privileged whites.

Absurdities and ridicule must then follow.

One example is the spectacle of former First Lady Michelle Obama on her current book tour.

Mrs. Obama cannot finish an interview without whining about the racism she allegedly encountered as the once most influential and powerful woman in the United States.

According to Michelle, she was not given the exemptions that other white first ladies received.

She did not get enough free stuff for the First Family.

She had to hire three stylists daily to straighten her hair to meet “white” expectations—as if also Asians and Hispanics do not have straight hair, or many whites do not have hard-to-comb curly hair.

Indeed, she now claims blacks cannot even swim because of white-induced pressures to maintain dry and straight hair.

Because her DEI creed ignores class and wealth, Michelle has no idea how absurd she sounds.

She and husband Barack Obama own three estates in addition to their former Chicago home, together valued somewhere around $40 million.

Their net worth is estimated at between $70 and $100 million. They fly private, surrounded by a throng of Secret Service guardians.

The more Michelle clings to the fossilized dogma of unchanging racial victimization, the more she becomes ridiculous or offensive.

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Ken Burns’ “The American Revolution” as Cultural Marxist Revisionism

As Donald E. Vandergriff, a lifelong defender of American exceptionalism and unapologetic supporter of President Donald J. Trump and the MAGA movement, I’ve watched with growing alarm as the radical left infiltrates every corner of our shared history. The so-called “new” Ken Burns documentary, The American Revolution—a bloated 12-hour PBS snoozefest that premiered on November 16, 2025—just proves how far the elites will go to rewrite our founding story.

This isn’t history; it’s propaganda, a slick hit job designed to undermine the heroic narrative of our forefathers and replace it with the victimhood gospel of Cultural Marxism. Trump warned us about this: fake news and leftist indoctrination masquerading as education. And here it is, straight from the swamp of public broadcasting, defunded under Trump’s wise leadership yet still spewing its bile.

Burns, that self-appointed oracle of the past, has built a career on slow pans over sepia-toned images and folksy narration that lulls you into complacency before slipping in the knife. Remember his Vietnam War series? It humanized the commies while downplaying American resolve.

Or his Civil War update, where he couldn’t resist injecting modern woke commentary? This Revolution doc is more of the same—only now, timed for the 250th anniversary, it’s a deliberate assault on the very ideals that made America great.

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Pennsylvania Governor Signs Law Banning “Hair Discrimination”

Democrats continue to double down and pander to the woke demographic whenever they see an opportunity.  These gestures are usually designed to virtue signal and rarely have any significance in terms of political change, however, leftists don’t necessarily pass laws or make declarations because a problem actually exists.  Rather, they do these things in order to encourage false perceptions within the populace.

In other words, equality has been a legal fact within the US for decades, but leftists want people to believe racism is a never-ending battle that requires their perpetual activism and government intervention.  The more they demand “equity”, the more division and conflict they end up inciting. 

Democrat Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro insists that racism is an ongoing problem in his state and he has taken bold action to fight back by passing the “CROWN Act”, a law which prohibits discrimination based on a person’s hairstyle, type or texture.

CROWN, which stands for “Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair”, is clearly aimed at placating the black voting base for Democrats in PA and is unlikely to be applied to any other group. 

For example, black female managers wearing wigs and weaves and appropriating white women’s hair styles will never be accused of racism, but a white manager at Taco Bell who fires a black worker for not wearing a hair net properly will probably face civil litigation for discrimination.  Woke laws are meant to create privileges and double standards, not equal protections.  As Shapiro notes:

“Real freedom means being respected for who you are – no matter what you look like, where you come from, who you love, or who you pray to…For too long, many Pennsylvanians have faced discrimination simply for hairstyles that reflect their identity and culture – that ends today…”

“This is going to help people by making sure that, wherever you work, or wherever you’re applying for a job, they can’t look at your hair and size you up – not based on your qualifications and all of the professional development you have and all of your education,” said PA House Speaker Joanna McClinton. “They will not look at your hair and decide you can’t work here. They will not look at your hair and decide you don’t belong in this C-suite. They will not look at your hair and say, ‘you can’t be in the boardroom.’” 

U.S. Rep. La’Tasha D. Mayes, a West Philadelphia native who now represents parts of Pittsburgh, was the lead sponsor on the bill and said the fight will help improve lives across Pennsylvania.  “Hair discrimination has taken confidence from our children, but that ends today,” Mayes said. “Hair discrimination has taken dignity from workers, but that ends today. It has taken access to economic opportunities, hopes and dreams, but that begins to end today.”

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Minnesota university teaches about ‘whiteness pandemic’ and it does not sit well with taxpayers

DEI appeared alive and well in the Twin Cities, where a new report cast a light on the “absurd ideas” a university perpetuated on “whiteness” at the taxpayer’s expense.

Among the many initiatives of President Donald Trump’s administration, tackling the woke ideologies that have permeated the federal government and society has been given priority treatment. Now it appeared the University of Minnesota would be facing some extra scrutiny from the Department of Justice after the pet project of the school’s Culture and Family Life Lab director was found to be promoting the idea of a “Whiteness Pandemic.”

Featured in a report from the watchdog group Defending Education, Dr. Gail Ferguson of the university’s Institute of Child Development had led current and former graduate fellows on a project that contends, “If you were born or raised in the United States, you have grown up in the Whiteness Pandemic, and you can play a role in halting and reversing this pandemic, especially if you are White because of the power and privilege you hold in this racialized society.”

“If you were socialized into the culture of Whiteness during childhood, it is not your fault, but as an adult it is now your responsibility to self-reflect, re-educate yourself, and act,” continued the project, still prominently featured on the university’s website. “If you are a White adult, antiracist action involves an ongoing process of self-reflection in order to develop a healthy positive White identity while engaging in courageous antiracist parenting/caregiving.”

An example from the report featured by Defending Education took aim at families as it read, “Naming the Whiteness Pandemic shifts our gaze from the victims and effects of racism onto the systems that perpetrate and perpetuate racism, starting with the family system. At birth, young children growing up in White families begin to be socialized into the culture of Whiteness, making the family system one of the most powerful systems involved in systemic racism.”

“This far-left programming at a major public university is another example of how ingrained DEI is in higher education and is not going away any time soon,” Defending Education research Director Rhyen Staley told Fox News Digital.

“It is not only concerning that these programs appear to still be up and running, but that absurd ideas like ‘whiteness’ also gain legitimacy through dubious activist-academic ‘scholarship.’ Universities must end this nonsense yesterday,” added Staley.

As to how Ferguson’s project had drawn its conclusions, the research was said to have surveyed close to 400 white mothers, nearly all of whom were from Minnesota, with an average income between $125,000 and $150,000. The vast majority had a college education, and 61% identified as “somewhat or very liberal” compared to 18% as “somewhat or very conservative.”

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UK Ofcom Pushes Rules Targeting “Misogynistic” Content, Prompting (Even More) Free Speech Concerns

Britain’s communications regulator, Ofcom, has unveiled a new framework urging social media and technology companies to censor so-called “misogynistic” content as part of its A Safer Life Online for Women and Girls campaign.

The initiative, framed as an effort to protect women from online abuse, further weakens the distinction between “harmful” conduct and lawful expression, a tension Ofcom itself acknowledges in its own documentation.

The regulator’s new guidance encourages platforms to adopt a wide range of “safety” measures, many of which would directly influence what users can post, see, and share.

These include inserting prompts that nudge users to “reconsider” certain comments, suppressing “misogynistic” material in recommendation feeds and search results, temporarily suspending users who post repeated “abuse,” and de-monetizing content flagged under this category.

Moderators would also receive special training on “gender-based harms,” while posting rates could be throttled to slow the spread of unwanted speech.

Ofcom’s document also endorses the use of automated scanning systems like “hash-matching” to locate and delete non-consensual intimate imagery.

While intended to prevent the circulation of explicit photos, such systems typically involve the mass analysis of user uploads and can wrongly flag legitimate material.

Additional proposals include “trusted flagger” partnerships with NGOs, identity verification options, and algorithmic “friction” mechanisms, small design barriers meant to deter impulsive posting.

Some of the ideas, such as warning prompts and educational links, are voluntary.

Yet several major advocacy groups, including Refuge and Internet Matters, are pressing for the government to make them binding on all platforms.

If adopted wholesale, these measures would effectively place Ofcom in a position to oversee the policing of legal speech, with tech firms acting as its enforcement arm.

In a letter announcing the guidance, Ofcom’s Chief Executive Melanie Dawes declared that “the digital world is not serving women and girls the way it should,” describing online misogyny and non-consensual deepfakes as pervasive problems that justify immediate “industry-wide action.”

She stated that Ofcom would “follow up to understand how you are applying this Guidance” and publish a progress report in 2027.

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University Site Warns of “Whiteness Pandemic” Urges ‘Re-education’

The University of Minnesota’s  “Culture and Family Lab” has a website page warning against a “whiteness pandemic” and offering advice and resources to “halt and reverse” the issue.

The “Whiteness Pandemic” is defined as, “Whiteness refers to culture not biology” and “features colorblindness, passivity, and White fragility, which are all covert expressions of racism common in the United States.”

Racism is an epidemic (CDC, 2021) that can also be considered a pandemic given its large cross-national proportion and spread (APA, 2020). However, there is another pandemic lurking behind and driving the racism pandemic – the Whiteness Pandemic. Whiteness refers to culture not biology: the centuries-old culture of Whiteness features colorblindness, passivity, and White fragility, which are all covert expressions of racism common in the United States.

Naming the Whiteness Pandemic shifts our gaze from the victims and effects of racism onto the systems that perpetrate and perpetuate racism, starting with the family system. At birth, young children growing up in White families begin to be socialized into the culture of Whiteness, making the family system one of the most powerful systems involved in systemic racism. 

The site warns that no one has escaped this ‘pandemic.’

“If you were born or raised in the United States, you have grown up in the Whiteness Pandemic, and you can play a role in halting and reversing this pandemic, especially if you are White because of the power and privilege you hold in this racialized society.”

The site then urges parents to ‘re-educate’ their children, noting, “If you were socialized into the culture of Whiteness during childhood, it is not your fault, but as an adult it is now your responsibility to self-reflect, re-educate yourself, and act.”

“If you are a White adult, antiracist action involves an ongoing process of self-reflection in order to develop a healthy positive White identity while engaging in courageous antiracist parenting/caregiving.”

According to the website, the ‘Whiteness Pandemic project’ is funded by the Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, the National Institute of Mental Health, a Provost Research Fellowship from the University of Minnesota, and an Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellowship from the University of Minnesota.

Defending Education, a parents’ rights watchdog group, shared a disturbing report.

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America’s Largest Teachers Union Is Doubling Down On Radical Left Ideology

Recently obtained internal documents from the National Education Association, the largest teachers union in the US, focus on training educators to become far-left activists in support of spreading woke propaganda to their students.  

According to information gathered by a conservative non-profit called Defending Education, the NEA’s upcoming training at an undisclosed location this December doesn’t focus on academics, but on attacking Republicans as “racist and transphobic,” pushing race-class-gender narratives, and promoting gender-transition guides for staff.

The training is targeted for union staff and teams as part of the NEA UniServ and Organizing Training Program 2025–2026.  

The goals of the session include, but are not limited to, “dismantling systems of privilege and oppression as it relates to LGBTQ+ educators and students” and “deepening skills and strategies to confront implicit bias, micro-aggressions and stereotypes.”  

Republicans are characterized as using an “arsenal of racist dog whistles,’ according to training materials. Participants are instructed how to evoke a “Race Class Gender Narrative” to push back.  

“Over the last ten years, Republicans in state legislatures have increasingly turned to anti-transgender rhetoric and legislation as a powerful complement to their arsenal of racist dog whistles used to whip up fear and consolidate power…they have paired these attacks with fear-mongering about Critical Race Theory, mobilizing their base with a potent mix of racist and transphobic tropes.”

The documents focus heavily on issues like “structural oppression” and transgender propaganda with an emphasis on defending the medical transitioning of children.  Teachers are encouraged to use gender fluid language (like neutral pronouns) with students while avoiding scrutiny from parents and administrators. 

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US State Department Designates “DEI” As A Violation Of Human Rights

There is no way for a government to enforce Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies without also discriminating against certain groups of people.  DEI, by its very nature, is anti-merit, anti-success and pro-privilege.  Of course, the groups that are most commonly discriminated against under DEI quotas are mostly white, male and straight.  The assumption being that white dudes are widely considered “fair game” by the rest of society. 

This dynamic creates a never-ending cycle of people clamoring for oppression status rather than personal integrity and accomplishment.  To win in life, you must figure out a way to catch the government’s favor and attain that coveted prize; to rise to the top of the diversity totem pole.

This ideology has infected societies throughout most first world countries and even some developing nations.  Woke activism seems rampant in the US, but that’s because DEI faces American opposition.  The color revolution is louder because their power is failing.  For the rest of the west, however, DEI in government is an absolute.  This is a problem because it requires Americans to reconsider which countries they view as “allies.” 

The Trump Administration is adjusting to this ideological conflict quickly, and part of this change requires that the US starts openly calling out far-left governments for their destructive behaviors.

Countries enforcing DEI policies will now be at risk of the Trump Administration deeming them as human rights abusers, which upends the status quo when it comes to diplomatic relations.  The State Department is issuing new rules to all US embassies and consulates involved in compiling its annual report on global human rights violations.  

Other policies by foreign governments which US embassies will be told to categorize as human rights infringements include:     

Subsidising abortions, “as well as the total estimated number of annual abortions”     

Gender-transition surgery for children, defined by the state department as “operations involving chemical or surgical mutilation… to modify their sex.”     

Facilitating mass or illegal migration “across a country’s territory into other countries.”     

Arrests or “official investigations or warnings for speech” – a reference to the Trump administration’s opposition to internet safety laws adopted by some European countries to deter online “hate speech” (any speech which is critical of woke ideology no matter rational).  

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Cal State Schools Require Students To Take DEI Classes To Graduate. Options Include ‘Queer Crip Lit’ and ‘Decolonize Your Diet.’

The University of California system made news earlier this year when it eliminated mandatory diversity statements for new hires. But at California’s other public university system, DEI isn’t in retreat—it’s required.

Nearly every California State University campus requires students to pass at least one diversity and cultural competency class, according to graduation criteria identified by Do No Harm, a group that opposes identity politics in medicine. The exact requirements vary across schools, but they typically prescribe a specific course or allow students to pick from a list of classes that “explore the interrelatedness and intersection of race and ethnicity with class, gender and sexuality, and other forms of difference, hierarchy, and oppression.”

San Francisco State University has among the most demanding criteria, requiring students to take courses in “areas that the campus feels are important to graduates”: American ethnic and racial minorities, environmental sustainability and climate action, global perspectives, and social justice. Some classes cover several requirements, like “Queer Crip Lit,” which examines “connections between ableism and other forms of discrimination, such as racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and transphobia” in literary works. Another class that covers multiple requirements: “Decolonize Your Diet: Food Justice and Gendered Labor in Communities of Color” focuses on “food justice in communities of color addressing issues including sex/gender and food production, racism and attacks on traditional food systems.”

Some Cal State schools require students to take two DEI courses, one with a domestic focus and another centering on global issues. Students at the Humboldt campus can satisfy the domestic requirement with “Decolonizing Public Health,” which applies “decolonizing methodologies and anti-racism interventions to analysis of public health frameworks.” The options on the international side are more straightforward, though among the classes offered is “Sex, Class and Culture: Gender and Ethnic Issues in International Short Stories.”

Do No Harm senior director of programs Laura Morgan said the Cal State system “is all in on politicized propaganda.”

“These classes are based on concepts that have roots in critical race theory and promote ideology instead of sound learning principles,” Morgan told the Washington Free Beacon in a statement. “As a taxpayer-funded system, [Cal State] is obligated to prioritize education instead of operating a factory for politically indoctrinated activists.”

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After Removing Statue Of American Hero, UVA Plans To Replace It With Massive Land Acknowledgement

After removing the statue of a famed Revolutionary War hero in 2021, the University of Virginia (UVA) plans to replace it with a park that will serve as a de facto land acknowledgement to an Indian tribe, The Federalist has learned.

The Federalist obtained the school’s plans for the site that once held the statue of Brigadier General George Rogers Clark, which indicate that the new park will celebrate “the Virginia landscape and Indigenous stewardship practices.”

“The politicization of the university has reached a level of absurdity as it has gleefully destroyed statues of Virginians,” Ann H. McLean, a lifelong Virginia resident who received her doctorate in art and architectural history from the University of Virginia, told The Federalist. “Rather than celebrating the courage and problem-solving of exploration represented by the George Rogers Clark sculpture, cultural Marxist city leaders and academics are choosing to celebrate those who had no written language, no concept of private property, no trial by jury, or many other improvements brought here by western civic life and Biblical practice.”

Charlottesville, Virginia, became ground zero for the left-wing drive to destroy American culture and history when the city decided to remove the statues of Confederate Civil War generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson from their respective places in the historic downtown.

Clark was not a Confederate general, not that it should matter, but these leftists wanted to remove his statue anyway. Like President Donald Trump said in 2020, noting that the leftist movement wants to tear down our Founding Fathers as well, “They’re tearing down statues, desecrating monuments, and purging dissenters. It’s not the behavior of a peaceful political movement; it’s the behavior of totalitarians and tyrants and people that don’t love our country.”

It is a crime against Americans, and the people behind the removals — school leadership, city leadership, and everyone else — belong in prison for those crimes.

For most Americans, statue removal and the related Unite the Right rally are basically the only thing the city is known for at this point. That the city is also home to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello or the university he founded is an afterthought.

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