There is an age-old warning to be careful what you wish for. That advice has inspired a myriad of literary works. An archetype of this theme is “The Monkey’s Paw,” written in 1902 by W.W. Jacobs. In his classic horror story, the mummified paw of a monkey offers three wishes, each of which, as the paw’s owner tragically discovers, can only be granted in the worst possible way. History, like literature, is littered with similar patterns. The French Revolution is what you would get if you asked the paw for liberté, égalité, and fraternité. In spite of all these cautionary tales, the core lesson is one that we never seem to learn. Consequently, modern America is the culmination of cursed wishes for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

 

Diversity

Cornell University’s definition of “diversity” is a recipe for a socially incohesive and ethically incoherent culture: “The age, socioeconomic background, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, and ethnicity differences in the workforce. At Cornell, we express this as ‘Open Doors, Open Hearts, and Open Minds.’” The promise of “open doors” essentially defeats the purpose of doors, reducing them to nothing more than holes in a wall. In like manner, “open hearts” and “open minds”—although these hearts and minds remain closed and locked to anything beyond what academia deems acceptable—produce the kind of morally porous and intellectually hollow population that endorses unenforced borders and indiscriminate immigration.

The Statue of Liberty’s bronze plaque features Emma Lazarus’ 1883 poem, “The New Colossus.” The final lines extend what Lazarus characterized as a “world-wide welcome” from the “Mother of Exiles”:

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Lazarus did not address the invitation to those with the most to offer this country, but rather those to whom the country has the most to offer. Over 140 years later, we see the results of Lady Liberty advertising America as humanity’s landfill.

Two and a half centuries prior to the poem’s depiction of our country as a diverse and democratic charity, it was the select and superlative city upon a hill. While Lazarus cried for ancient lands to keep their storied pomp, men before her celebrated the United States as a fresh land that would reach new heights of storied pomp. In J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur’s 1782 letter, “What is an American,” he wrote, “Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world… here they are incorporated into one of the finest systems of population which has ever appeared… The American ought therefore to love this country much better than that wherein either he or his forefathers were born.” An immigrant himself, Crèvecœur practiced what he preached. Born in France as Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur, he became an American citizen, adopted the anglicized name J. Hector St. John, married the daughter of a New York merchant, and bought a farm in the Hudson Valley. This dedication to assimilation from eighteenth-century European settlers was both a cause and an effect of America’s fine system of population and Americans’ great changes in the world.

Today, we see more than the mere neglect of Crèvecœur’s vision—we suffer the perverse inversion of it. In Michael Anton’s 2021 essay, “Unprecedented,” he explained, “Not only does no American institution encourage (much less demand) assimilation, they all foment the opposite. Immigrants to America are exhorted to embrace their native cultures and taught that the country to which they’ve chosen to immigrate is the worst in world history, whose people and institutions are intent on harming them, and that their own cultures are infinitely superior. In this respect, one supposes, immigrants are encouraged to ‘assimilate’—to the anti-Americanism of the average Oberlin professor.”

Consider Sigmund Freud’s theory of humanity’s two fundamental forces—Eros, the life instinct, and Thanatos, the death instinct. Crèvecoeur’s description of the relationship between America and its immigrants is an Eros-inspired one of creation, while Anton’s description of the same relationship is a Thanatos-driven one of destruction. Our country’s increasingly Thanatic approach to immigration has been culturally sacrificial and civilizationally suicidal.

 

Equity

The George Washington University’s definition of “equity” is an even more insidious extension of the already flawed doctrine of equality. “Equity,” they say, “recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.” Equity does not just seek to provide equality of opportunity to unequal people—it attempts to enforce equality of outcome amongst unequal people.

This ideal of equity stems from the illusion of equality. In 1776, Thomas Jefferson penned these famous lines in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” However, the self-evident truth is that all men are not created equal; there are inevitable inequalities between all men by whichever metric you choose to measure. While egalitarians actually may accept that all men are not created equal, that does not stop them from trying to create equality amongst all men. The right of all men to the pursuit of happiness is not enough for them: they want to restrict all men to the same degree of happiness (or unhappiness), even if it means sacrificing life and liberty in the process.

The enshrinement of equality is not so much a prerequisite for freedom as it is a peril to freedom. The creation of equity for the masses requires the reduction of independence for the individual. In Alexis de Tocqueville’s 1835 book, Democracy in America, he wrote, “…there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom… nothing can satisfy them except equality, and rather than lose it they resolve to perish.”

One example of the valuation of equality at the expense of all else is affirmative action. To raise those with inferior qualifications to the strata of those with superior qualifications is to tether everyone to the level of the lowest common denominator. The consequence of this artificial elevation is the real degradation of the schools and workplaces that employ such policies. Egalitarians’ insatiable hunger for unattainable equity is turning the country into a graveyard of institutions killed in the name of fairness.

Destroying something in the name of a virtue does not make the destruction virtuous. The idea that the road to our Harrison-Bergeron-esque hell was paved with good intentions is entirely too kind to egalitarians. In truth, they are motivated by the worst versions of what they claim to hate the most—selfishness, injustice, and dehumanization. Those who advocate for egalitarianism are most often trying to serve themselves under the guise of serving others. They weaponize the notion of ethical superiority in an attempt to unethically take what they have not earned. Whether it is a liberal arts major demanding mass student-loan forgiveness in order to benefit himself financially, a suburban housewife putting an “In this house, we believe…” sign on her lawn to benefit herself socially, or a Democratic candidate promising to “make the wealthy pay their fair share” to benefit himself politically, they use equality as a tool for self-elevation. In Murray Rothbard’s 1972 speech, “Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature,” he said of egalitarians, “Since their methodology and their goals deny the very structure of humanity and of the universe, the egalitarians are profoundly antihuman; and, therefore, their ideology and their activities may be set down as profoundly evil as well.” The impossibility of natural equality makes for the immorality of man-made equity. The so-called moral high ground upon which the egalitarians stand is in the pit of Tartarus.

 

Inclusion

St. John Fisher University’s definition of “inclusion” underscores its communistic characteristic: “Inclusion is celebrating the value of all, fostering a sense of belonging, and encouraging authentic and full engagement in our community. Inclusion ensures that each is a part of the whole.” This statement rests on two false premises—the first being that everyone should be included in a community, and the second being that integration with all men is more important than the individuality of each man.

One of the earliest visions of America promoted the principle of inclusion. In John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon, “A Model of Christian Charity,” he proclaimed, “…we must be knit together, in this work, as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of others’ necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body.” The Plymouth Pilgrims’ Mayflower Compact espoused similar goals to the Massachusetts Bay Puritans’ “A Model of Christian Charity”: to combine themselves into a singular civil body politic, to frame laws most convenient for the general good of the colony, and to promise all due submission and obedience. Ultimately, their socialist society proved to be an Atlas-Shrugged-style catastrophe. The colony’s governor, William Bradford, described in his journals how the combination of unequal contributions of labor with equal distributions of goods bred idleness from the weak and indignation from the strong. After suffering a winter of starvation and death, they replaced the framework of collective land and communal wealth with one of private property and personal profit. This, Bradford reported, had great success. The desire to exclusively work for the benefit of oneself and his family always has been and always will be a much stronger source of motivation than the demand to inclusively work for the benefit of everyone else.

The Pilgrims’ change of course from social welfare to self-interest put America on a path of exceptionalism. This path led to everything from victory in the Revolutionary War to the spirit of Westward Expansion. In Frederick Jackson Turner’s 1893 Frontier Thesis, he listed the defining attributes of America’s character: “That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and for evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom…”

Contrast Winthrop’s ideals of meekness, gentleness, patience, and liberality to Turner’s ideals of coarseness, strength, acuteness, and inquisitiveness. Winthrop’s embrace of familiar commerce comes from the desire for inclusion, while Turner’s championing of dominant individualism arises from the pride of exclusivity. In the former, each man is a part of a whole; in the latter, each man is whole. The 2024 election was a competition between those two societal models, and the majority of voters chose the right one. To make America great again is to restore it to the glory Turner extols; to once more become the country that made the New World its own in the 1600s, that declared its independence in the 1700s, that won the west in the 1800s, that achieved groundbreaking technological revolutions in the 1900s, that is now capable of untold triumphs in the 2000s.

The words of Winthrop and Turner illustrate the issues with the “each is a part of a whole” portion of St. John Fisher University’s definition; however, the other half of their statement, in which they insist on the celebration, belonging, and engagement of all people, is even more detrimental. This compels people to coexist with those whose beliefs and behaviors range from slightly displeasing to severely dangerous. In Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s 2001 book, Democracy: The God That Failed, he wrote, “Discrimination is outlawed. Employers cannot hire whom they want. Landlords cannot rent to whom they want. Sellers cannot sell to whomever they wish; buyers cannot buy from whomever they wish to buy. And groups of private property owners are not permitted to enter in whatever restrictive covenant they believe to be mutually beneficial. The state has thus robbed the people of much of their personal and physical protection. Not to be able to exclude others means not to be able to protect oneself.” The right to justifiable exclusion has been replaced with the requirement of unjustifiable inclusion. Hoppe explained how this results in countries being stuck with parasitic immigrants, teachers being stuck with ill-behaved students, employers being stuck with lazy employees, landlords being stuck with irresponsible renters, insurance companies being stuck with high-risk clients, restaurants being stuck with unpleasant customers, clubs being stuck with incompatible members. This compulsory integration coerces people to become a part of a whole and simultaneously reduces the quality of that whole. Refusing to exclude what is bad for the community encourages discord and destruction. By pushing people together, they cause the population to fall apart—the center cannot hold.

 

Our Monkey’s Paw

In W.W. Jacobs’ story, the previous owner of the paw, a sergeant-major, warns, “If you must wish, wish for something sensible.” Of course, a sensible wish would still be twisted into a senseless tribulation, making this advice little more than a hopeless attempt at harm reduction. That being said, diversity, equity, and inclusion are not sensible wishes. Even the Platonic ideal of each of these values, given enough time, unavoidably devolves into a reductio ad absurdum of itself.

According to the sergeant-major, a fakir originally cursed the paw to show that those who interfere with nature pay a price for it. To manufacture diversity, to legislate equity, and to force inclusion is to interfere with nature, and our society is going bankrupt paying the price for this interference.

Kamala Harris is a caricature of this price. In 2020, when it came time for Joe Biden to name his running mate, he prioritized choosing a woman of color over a person of capability. Harris became the 2024 Democratic candidate because she was selected based on her status as “disadvantaged” in terms of gender and race, not because she was elected based on inherently advantageous qualities. If she had won the presidency, she would have doubled down on the death-dealing demands for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

In contrast, Donald Trump’s agenda puts forth ways to undo the damage that these initiatives have done to our country. Instead of increasing diversity, he seeks to seal the border and carry out the largest deportation operation in American history. Instead of instituting equity, he aims to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory or radical gender ideology. Instead of imposing inclusion, he pledges to keep men out of women’s sports, lock up violent offenders, and end sanctuary cities. Trump’s victory is a mandate to save the United States from a DEI-inflicted demise.

“Better let it burn,” said the sergeant-major, after tossing the paw into the fire. Now that we have taken the paw away from the Biden-Harris administration, it is time to let Trump burn it for good.