Political

You might not believe it, but I planned to write a political post yesterday, way before everything happened. 

I wanted to write it because I read my very liberal friends’ blog post a couple of weeks ago. She said that Trump didn’t create any permanent damage to society. That yes, he was annoying and embarrassing, but it’s not like he ruined something. 

I didn’t want to comment on her blog because I am avoiding writing about politics in the Russian blogosphere. I am genuinely admiring her patience and willingness to talk to her blog guests, but I do not feel I can match up. However, I wanted to reply not only to her but also to other people who, at least until yesterday, expressed the same sentiment. 

From the beginning of Trump’s presidency, I thought that the worst thing he did to American society is that he gave this indulgence to people to be not civil. While society was changing and accepting more humanitarian values, it slowly became unacceptable to be openly racist. To be anti-LGBTQ. To be a misogynist. And here comes Trump and says: it’s fine. You can do it. You can be racist. You can hate other people. Moreover, you can say it out loud. It became so much easier for people to display the worst of them. 

And this will not be so easy to revert. 

And one more comment which is somewhat related to the first one.

I heard from many people, even those who consider themselves progressive, that they do not understand why diversity matters.

They say it when Biden is praised for assembling the most diverse cabinet ever. Their rationale is: people should be assigned to the high posts based on their qualifications, not on their race or gender.

Let me tell you why diversity is important, especially in situations like choosing the cabinet.

The truth is that nobody performs the country-wide search for objectively the best possible person to fill a position. There is a pool of candidates known to the president-elect, judged not only by their professional qualifications but also by whether the president-elect feels comfortable working with them. In short, even if candidates are selected based on their qualifications, the pool of candidates itself is selected based on some assumptions. And unfortunately, quite often, these assumptions work against minorities. They are being dropped from the initial circle of consideration. And this happens more often than anybody can imagine. And not only when choosing the cabinet members, but on all levels.

That’s why having a diverse cabinet matter.

I wrote all of the above before yesterday’s events. Actually, for over a week, I had this post “almost ready” and didn’t have ten minutes to finalize it. And yesterdays’ events only reaffirmed my opinion.