I am writing this because I watched a CNN video of Arkansas Governor Sara Huckabee's response to President Biden's "State of the Union" speech in February, 2023 and a recent Fareed Zakaria interview with John Stewart titled "Jon Stewart on America's Culture Wars". I was surprised hearing the same Republican culture war (abortion, homosexuality, transgender rights, pornography, multiculturalism, racism), a.k.a. "cancel culture", garbage talking points in Governor Huckabee's speech considering she in the governor of a state that ranks 49th in healthcare, 41st in education, 41st in economic capacity, and has the 4th highest per capita crime rate. She didn't focus on these issues and highlight what is being done to improve the economic and social issues that exist in Arkansas because that would mean she would have a plan which would include governmental policies to address them. Having this type of plan would violate one of the fundamental aspects of today's Republican party, i.e. having a party governing platform will enable the media and Democrats to ask about what is in their platform to address issues effecting the citizens they were elected to represent.
In 1996 I told my close friends that I thought I suffered from "White Man's Disease" my whole professional life based on all the federal programs put in place (e.g. Affirmative Action policies and practices and the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Act (1972) to ensure fair treatment to all segments of society without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, or sex based on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) during my life. These federal programs are referred to as DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) by MAGA Republicans. These programs incentivized federal organizations and large US corporations to extend the criteria for selecting and promoting employees in their workforce to include DEI. This was typically referred as the "quota system" used to hire and promote people in identified demographic groups (Black, Brown, Asian) in the US workforce. These programs and policies also resulted in skewing hiring and promotion practices toward women. The result was that hiring and promoting "white males" in the US workforce was disincentivized due to DEI policies put in place by the US government. I know that casting DEI programs and practices as the cause of "White Man's Disease" is probably taken as a negative assessment but during my discussion of this I stated: "Yes, there is some near term impact on my opportunity as a "White Professional Male" but in the long term DEI will increase US economic potential without the US racing to increase our population to compete economically with China and India and I will still be professionally successful” which was the case.
Yes, I was frustrated due to being professionally impacted by these policies. I thought about the key factors driving US economic growth in the foreseeable future which are worker effectiveness and productivity. The US population is currently >300M. The population of China is >1.1B and the population of India is >1.3B. I don't want the US population to increase for US businesses to compete in the worldwide economy. I don't want the H-1B visa program to be amended to increase temporary foreign workers in this country to address workforce shortages and allow US businesses to use slave labor in this country to increase profits and displace US workers. Therefore, the US needs to have all resources in our workforce engaged and contributing to US economic effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity. DEI policies resulted in engaging all workers in the US economy to contribute at the highest level. It resulted in workers getting paid for their contribution and being promoted. During the period from 1990 through 2020 US worker productivity increased from ~4.9% to ~5.5%. Therefore, having the entire US workforce engaged via DEI and contributing to the US economy resulted in the highest ever reported worker productivity. After 40+ years of implementing these policies and supporting programs, more women are contributing to US economic growth while still getting paid at 82% of what men are compensated; black families have a median household income of just over $41,000, whereas white families have a median household income of more than $70,000. These results are great. However, the pay gap between women and men in the US workforce still exists. The substantial difference in household incomes between minority families and white families still exists. As such, there is more work to be done to decrease the male/female pay gap and increase minority income opportunities.
The purpose of the Republican "Woke" culture war is to destroy federal DEI policies and practices. The result is the level of US workforce engagement to increase organizational productivity and effectiveness has decreased. Now that Republican's are attacking DEI and US workers, the result is US worker productivity is falling. CNBC highlighted a Workforce Wire article titled "Worker productivity is falling at the fastest rate in four decades" published 12/18/2022. The article states " Employers are not only battling inflation and slowing growth, but worker productivity that is falling at the fastest rate in four decades. This has been the first year since 1983 to include three straight quarters of year-over-year drops in average productivity per worker, ADP chief economist Nela Richardson said during CNBC’s recent Workforce Executive Council Town Hall."