CALLS FOR VIEWPOINT DIVERSITY COME FROM THE LEFT.

It has long been a complaint of traditional conservatives and militant Normals that the reification of diversity by ascriptive categories in higher education tends to reduce viewpoint diversity and reduce the learning that goes on.

Incoming president^(*) Joe Biden has been ticking all the diversity boxes as he identifies future department secretaries.  Here's how Eric London characterizes those appointments.  "Joe Biden’s cabinet: A rainbow coalition of imperialist reaction"  That's on the World Socialist Web Site, where traditional Bolshevik jargon, rather than coastal elite woke-speak is the order of the day.

The corporate media and Democratic Party are celebrating Joe Biden’s incoming cabinet as “the most diverse in US history,” proclaiming that the appointment of women, African Americans and Latinos to key cabinet positions is a sign of tremendous social progress.

In reality, Biden’s rainbow coalition of imperialist reaction encapsulates and exposes the right-wing essence of identity politics.

Nowhere is the excitement more palpable than in the editorial offices of the New York Times, a leading proponent of racial and gender politics, which gushed that the president-elect has “signaled his intention to draw from a diverse cross section of America in building his cabinet.”

The Times writes: “Unlike President Trump’s cabinet, which is more white and male than any in nearly 40 years, Mr. Biden’s list of likely top advisers promises to reflect 21st-century sensibilities.” It cites statements by Biden aides claiming the incoming cabinet “will look like America.”

Whatever the skin color of the cabinet members, the Biden administration will not think like America. The population is demanding massive social change to address the deadly pandemic and unprecedented levels of inequality and social desperation.

Common Dreams participants are less obligated to hew to the Trotskyist line of the day, and yet, they are making similar claims.  Here's Brett Wilkins, yesterday.

"As the Biden administration takes shape, the Beltway insider consensus is that the path to achieving bipartisanship runs through installing corporate-friendly officials in key posts," said David Segal, the progressive Rhode Island politician who in 2010 founded Demand Progress with the late hacktivist Aaron Swartz.

"But our polling shows what is common sense outside of the Beltway," Segal added. "The D.C. insiders are dead wrong. People across party lines want an administration that is run by people who care about the public interest—not by corporate executives, lobbyists, and consultants."

Balph Eubank and Wesley Mouch must have coöperated to write the column. "Other leading progressives have been imploring Biden to fill his remaining cabinet picks with leaders who will prioritize human need over corporate greed." I suppose that is less harsh than the Trotskyite line. "The nominees are not pioneers of their race or gender, they are social criminals." Doesn't matter: none of corporatist technocracy, social democracy with set-asides for protected status, or full-on communism will work.  Even getting control of the high cabinet posts is cause for identity politics faction fighting.  "Black Progressives Denounce Claims They Want Wall Street Insiders in Biden Cabinet." I've got plenty of popcorn.  That column came out while the legacy media were still sitting on the Hunter Biden, Chinese stooge story.  It's really the tilting at the Church of Intersectionality's core catechism that amuses me.

Jeff Hauser, director of government watchdog Revolving Door Project, told Politico that Biden could easily find diverse, qualified cabinet appointees outside Wall Street board rooms and executive suites.

"To say that we would have to have people who are currently working in private equity or Wall Street or the banking industry to take up senior economic jobs is absurd," Hauser said. "You can come up with a very rich set of potential appointees of color without taking on people who are currently and very recently closely identified with high finance."

Apparently, under the logic of intersectionality, being in the intersection of black and banker gives a person a different identity than being in the intersection of black and some (any?) other occupation. That's for another post, though.  Good old viewpoint diversity is enough for me, dear reader.  And watching the self-styled progressives grapple with their intersectionality priors is going to be amusing.

Although Politico reported early Friday that "a critical mass of GOP senators said in interviews that Biden has the right to his Cabinet, indicating he may be able to staff his administration largely to his liking," progressives are alarmed by some potential picks.

People on the "Persons of Interest" page include Jason Bordoff, who "rarely sees a fossil fuel project he doesn't support," former BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, and Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, "a steadfast ally of Wall Street and corporate America throughout her time in politics, selling out pensioners to hedge funds, slashing social services, and making enemies of labor unions."

The page also shines a spotlight on Ernest Moniz—who served as energy secretary during the Obama administration—as well as Heather Zichal, Steve Ricchetti, Bruce Reed, Tony James, Mark Gitenstein, and Brian Deese. Progressives and climate-focused groups have called on Biden to exclude Moniz and former U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota from his transition team or administration due in part to their ties to the fossil fuel industry.

To the extent that Senate Democrats can engage in pink-on-red fratricide, it's probably easier for Senator McConnell to just let the Democrat caucus turn on each other. To the extent that the corporatist and communist factions that argue with, then vote for, Democrats spar, the liberties of the people are safe. I'll let Mr London have the last word about the nominees. "Then there are the white men, whose own records are no more and no less criminal than those of their female and minority counterparts." In militant Normal speak, that says the flawed content of the nominees' characters is more important than the color of the package each comes in.