People were to be given authority in this new order not in recognition of their gifts, hard work, accomplishments, or contributions to society, but in inverse proportion to the disadvantages their group had suffered, as defined by radical ideologues. According to them, as James Kirchick concisely put it: “Muslim > gay, black > female, and everybody > the Jews.”
She left out the Christians, but otherwise it can't be said much better than that.
DEI is new camouflaged for an old corruption, downward levelling, presented as "social justice."
The impulse towards downward levelling has three deep roots. The first is simple greed: "I want, therefore I will take."
The second is resentment. This can be rationally based if wealth, status and power have been gained by illegitimate means. But very often, and flagrantly at this point, resentment is often a toxic projection of a deeply internalized inferiority complex.
Third, resentment is often cultivated as a political tool by people whose real objective is power. This is certainly true today. DEI is being exploited as a mask for a power grab. The outcome of DEI policies will not significantly benefit the mass of the "victim group" being fetishized -- and objectively, it often makes them worse off -- but it will benefit the elites who use it as an extortion racket.
The third is by far the dominant factor today.
“She left out the Christians, but otherwise it can’t be said much better than that.”
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I’m pretty sure that Christians were included in the “and everybody” part of that equation. Also, she was quoting someone else, she didn’t come up with it. Otherwise, I completely agree with you.
“Nothing consumes a man more completely than a passion for resentment’’.- Frederic Nietzsche.