MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Tuesday mocked the Trump administration’s move to delete references to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from federal websites — but which have inadvertently led to some completely unrelated pages being nixed, just because they include those words in different contexts.
In one instance, noted Maddow, a tax manual was reportedly removed that referenced “the inclusion of a taxpayer identification number on a particular form.”
Maddow suggested the “particularly ostentatiously stupid ways” in which some Trump staffers are behaving have two outcomes.
“It undercuts the air of intimidation and omnipotence that they’ve tried to use to get their way,” she explained. “I mean, it doesn’t mean that they don’t have the worst and most malicious intentions. They clearly do. But it gives lie to the fact that they’re just not that good at any of the things they’re trying to do.”
Their “level of stupidity has the benefit of making us less intimidated by them because they’re being dumb,” she said. Second, it “also has the benefit of emboldening people to push back,” Maddow argued.
Watch Maddow’s full analysis here: