Donald Trump’s recent executive orders dismantling Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs aren’t just a temper tantrum from a petulant billionaire, though they certainly contain that element. This is about something much deeper: a desperate attempt to reassert settler-colonial dominance in an era where U.S. empire is slipping. And like all good reactionary movements, it comes wrapped in familiar slogans—”anti-woke,” “meritocracy,” “ending race-based preferences”—all meant to disguise the fact that what’s actually being protected is the long-standing racialized class order that built this country in the first place.
The real story here isn’t that Trump is banning DEI because he’s opposed to “racial preferences”—the entire history of the United States is one long racial preference for white settlers. No, what we’re seeing is a factional fight within the ruling class over how to keep the imperial ship afloat. On one side, we have the Cowboys—the fossil fuel oligarchs, real estate tycoons, and reactionary nationalists who want a return to the good old days when white power didn’t need a human resources department to justify itself. On the other, we have the Yankees and the Digerati—the Wall Street financiers, Silicon Valley overlords, and professional-class technocrats who understand that empire needs a bit of rebranding now and then to stay competitive in the global market.
Trump’s attack on DEI is the Cowboys declaring war on the neocolonial agenda of the Yankees and Digerati. Not because DEI was some radical anti-racist force—it wasn’t—but because it represented a different strategy for managing a declining empire. DEI was the Yankees’ and Digerati’s way of giving just enough symbolic representation to keep the system running smoothly, without actually changing anything fundamental. The Cowboys don’t want even that. They want a return to raw settler rule, stripped of its diversity veneers.
DEI: A Corporate Fix for a Settler Problem
Let’s be clear: DEI was never a radical challenge to racial capitalism. It was a managerial tool, a way to integrate just enough nonwhite professionals into the system to keep things stable. The logic was simple—throw some scholarships and board seats at a select few, and you might avoid a broader revolt from below. In that sense, it was no different from affirmative action, which fundamentally was a system for modernizing empire, not dismantling it.
Corporate America didn’t embrace DEI because it cared about justice. It embraced it because it was profitable. A more diverse workforce made U.S. companies look better on the international stage and provided a buffer against social unrest. And it allowed the Yankees and Digerati to present themselves as the “responsible” faction of the white ruling class—the ones who understood that you can’t run a global empire in the 21st century with a 19th-century racial hierarchy.
Trump and his Cowboys, however, are done with the theatrics. They don’t care about maintaining the illusion of inclusivity. Their vision of America is pure settler revanchism—white power in its most naked form, enforced through law, violence, and digital propaganda.
Trump’s Technofascism: Settler-Colonialism Goes Digital
This is where Trump’s particular brand of technofascism comes in. Unlike the Digerati, who see technology as a way to make empire more efficient, Trump and his allies see it as a weapon for pure reaction. They don’t want a technocratic, algorithmically refined system of racial capitalism—they want brute force. This is why Trump’s movement thrives in the most toxic corners of the internet, where conspiracies and white nationalist fantasies mix freely with billionaire-backed propaganda.
The attack on DEI is just one piece of this broader strategy. The goal isn’t just to dismantle diversity initiatives; it’s to erase even the memory of them. The right-wing digital machine churns out propaganda about how DEI was “Marxist,” “anti-white,” and “destroying America”—as if allowing a few nonwhite professionals into boardrooms was some grand communist plot. The irony, of course, is that real Marxists have been pointing out for decades that DEI is just a tool for stabilizing racial capitalism. But in the world of settler technofascism, facts are an inconvenience. What matters is the narrative—the idea that white America is under siege and must reclaim its rightful place.
The Liberal Response: A Flimsy Defense of Empire
Predictably, the liberal establishment has responded with its usual mix of outrage and impotence. “Diversity is our strength,” they declare, as if empire would be any less brutal if its decision-makers came in a wider range of skin tones. What they refuse to acknowledge is that their version of diversity was never about justice—it was about legitimacy. DEI was their way of maintaining control, of ensuring that imperial institutions could survive without losing credibility.
But now, the Cowboys have decided they don’t care about credibility. They don’t need legitimacy when they have raw power. They have the courts, the police, the billionaires, and the media machine to push their agenda forward. And so the Yankees and Digerati, despite all their wealth and influence, find themselves playing defense—because at the end of the day, their version of empire is still just that: empire. And empire, no matter how diverse, cannot be reformed into something just.
What Comes Next? Settler-Colonialism Cannot Be Rebranded
The real lesson here isn’t that we need to save DEI. It’s that the entire debate over it was a distraction. Whether the empire is managed by Cowboys who prefer brute force or Yankees and Digerati who prefer a more sophisticated approach, the fundamental reality remains the same: the U.S. is a settler-colonial state in decline, and its ruling class is scrambling to find the best way to maintain control.
So what do we do? The answer is certainly not to cling to the wreckage of DEI, hoping the Yankees and Digerati can regain the upper hand. Instead, we need to reject both factions of empire and start building something that doesn’t depend on the permission of corporate elites. That means breaking with the illusion that representation within a settler state is progress, and instead organizing for its dismantling. It means rejecting both the white nationalist fantasies of the Cowboys and the digital feudalism of the Digerati. It means understanding that the system isn’t broken—it’s functioning exactly as it was designed.
The Settler State’s Death Rattle
Trump’s attack on DEI isn’t just about race, or jobs, or “meritocracy.” It’s about the long arc of empire and the desperate flailing of a ruling class that knows its time is running out. The Cowboys want to turn back the clock to an era where white power didn’t need excuses. The Yankees and Digerati want to tweak the system so it can last a little longer. But no matter which faction wins, the empire is still rotting from within.
The only real question is: do we keep fighting for a seat at the table of a dying empire? Or do we finally flip the table over and walk away?
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