Donald Trump has assumed the presidency after a campaign in which he frequently engaged in openly divisive rhetoric, including saying that immigrants “poison the blood” of the American people. Now that he is in office, he has moved quickly to attack diversity and inclusivity in American society – stunning even conservative activists who agree with his agenda.
Trump’s most significant move so far came in an executive order issued on his second day in office. The order ends diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in the federal government, ordering any staff working in these programs to be placed on leave. The order defines DEI only vaguely and instructs staff to snitch on any colleagues who continue working on DEI in violation of the order.
The resulting climate of fear is causing DEI training programs to be closed and anything that can vaguely be construed as advancing DEI principles. According to media reporting, one agency even cancelled an event celebrating the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. Health agencies also appear to be rolling back efforts to encourage racial and gender diversity in clinical trials of new treatments. In the long term, we can expect a purging of any federal government program which aims to protect the rights and interests of minorities.s

This order also aims to extend this climate of fear beyond the government and into the private, non-profit and educational sectors. It instructs U.S. government agencies to conduct investigations of outside organizations allegedly running illegal DEI initiatives. It even sets an arbitrary number of lawsuits against them – nine. Although the legal basis for these lawsuits is unclear, it is causing many organizations to pre-emptively shut down their diversity efforts to avoid being caught in the crosshairs.
These efforts seek to build on and amplify a pre-existing trend whereby corporations were already trying to signal alignment with Trump’s view of DEI – a response typified by Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement of sweeping changes at Facebook. As social media companies try to ingratiate themselves with conservatives and relax restrictions on hateful and discriminatory speech, the result will be a cultural climate which is more hostile to diversity.
And Trump didn’t stop there. He also revoked a previous order that banned federal government contractors – who employ nearly four million people – from discrimination in their hiring practices. He declared that the federal government would only recognize “an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female”, which may be a precursor to a broader rolling back of transgender rights.
Xenophobia lies at the core of Trump’s political movement, and his policies are also targeting immigration. His order eliminating birthright citizenship – which grants citizenship to anybody born on U.S. soil, regardless of the immigration status of their parents – has already been challenged in court. But it sends the message that immigrants and their children are not welcome – a direct expression of Trump’s campaign concerns about “poisoning the blood”.
The situation is bleak for those outside the United States hoping to get in to seek refuge. The administration is seeking to reimpose its first-term “Remain in Mexico” policy, which required those seeking asylum in the United States to wait in dangerous and unsanitary camps in northern Mexico while their court cases are processed. Trump has also paused refugee admissions, denying resettlement to some of the most vulnerable people in the world. He can be expected to pursue the long-term dismantlement of the U.S. refugee program, a goal he failed to achieve in his first term.
In other areas of foreign policy, Trump is hostile to multilateral initiatives and programs which seek to protect human rights and the rights of minorities. His decision to withdraw from both the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization removes U.S. support for initiatives which do much to protect the world’s most vulnerable. He can also be expected to reinstate the so-called Mexico City policy, which bans foreign NGOs which receive U.S. government funding from educating people about abortion, along with a similar policy at home.
Beyond these specific policies, the Trump administration is also encouraging a cultural atmosphere in which hatred and discrimination are more acceptable. One of his first acts in office was to pardon people convicted in connection with the January 6th insurrection, including Enrique Tarrio, leader of the far-right Proud Boys.
Trump is sending a signal that far-right violence is acceptable and that those committing it can expect clemency or pardons from his administration. Some of the January 6th insurrectionists are scheduled to run for Congress, where their presence will further normalize political violence.
In the Trump era, we must not just watch what the government does – but also an increasingly emboldened network of far-right activists who now have the official approval of the White House.
Andrew Gawthorpe is an expert on U.S. politics and foreign policy at Leiden University in The Netherlands. He writes the newsletter America Explained.