To me, this executive order is basically a Jordan Peterson-esqe criticism of identity politics and making identity politics illegal within federal government agencies and their training materials.
I found myself somewhat shocked to be agreeing with the language in Trump’s executive order. Reading through it, it doesn’t read like anything even close to what Trump appears to be capable of writing, which I guess is a testament to the quality of the people Trump surrounds himself with. Whoever authored the order is appears to be of a much higher intellectual caliber, actually capable of ideological leadership and should probably be president instead, but that’s four years too late. It makes me a bit more open-minded about Trump’s re-election if he has people like this on his staff, yet it is unfortunate that Trump is dictating to the author rather than the author dictating to Trump. That said, this executive order does present some interesting problems that make me somewhat conflicted.
I guess the easiest way to describe it is, I agree with the sentiment that identity politics has evolved into a toxic doctrine that is destabilizing our nation, but I am not sure an executive order that bans an ideology is the proper solution. Like, what do we have the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion for if not to have our own ideologies? That said, the federal government is under the purview of the president and he probably has a right to dictate to them, but it feels like a dangerous precedent, nonetheless.
Whenever a politician exercises a seemingly undue amount of power, it takes a little wisdom to step back and say “Even though I am biased to agree with this, is this really the precedent we want to set? What happens when a person I disagree with becomes president and starts using this same precedent to enact control over ideology in a way I disagree with?” Would it be better to deliberate these types of issues in congress rather than give the president unilateral authority to control ideology? What do you think?
Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping – The White House (archives.gov)