Humor & Battle Strategy: My LOL-Worthy Email to the Federal Anti-DEIA Tip Line + the Substack Warrior Archetype
They were really asking for it. And you can give it to them - just aim your energies in the right direction, soldier.
Earlier this week, Charles Ezell, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, sent a memo to federal agency heads. The call to action there? To tell their employees to report any DEIA programs or efforts trying to fly under the radar in the wake of Trump’s executive order banning “Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing”1. Thuggish language - a threat of “adverse consequences” - was used in an attempt to scare federal employees who choose not to snitch on their colleagues.
Unsurprisingly, members of the internet’s monkey wrench gang2 - myself among them - aren’t having it. So far, the tip line has been signed up for porn websites; emailed queer fan art; and been bombarded with entire works of literature (published serially, I hope, with a new chapter hitting the inbox every hour…hint hint, fellow writers).
Personally, I DID report an egregious DEIA hire situation. Here’s a screenshot of my email to the tip line; full text is below the image.
To: DEIAtruth@opm.gov
Thank you so much for doing this. I know you all are catching a lot of hell over this but without it, concerned citizens wouldn’t have the ability to help our government drag America out of the dark ages we’ve entered.
Now, here is the DEIA problem I am here to report. It’s one of the most egregious examples of DEIA I have ever seen, and I have personally been harmed by this, so I am very invested in seeing it rectified.
On November 5th, it was announced that the head of my company would be replaced. The head of the company at that time was a highly-qualified white man. He wasn’t universally loved but he always did right by us - even the people who criticized him. When he announced he was stepping down, a VERY qualified person was set to take his place - honestly, she was even more qualified than the old boss. She had worked in every sub-sector that our company served; she was the associate head of the company, so she really already knew the role; and had she been a member of the company for quite a long time. She had a successful track record but never bragged about all the great things she was doing behind the scenes for the company.
Then, all of a sudden, it was announced that one of the OLD heads of the company would be coming back to take the place of our retiring head. Not only was this person much less qualified than the associate head that we thought would be taking over - this person was the reason that the company had almost failed a few years back! When some of us employees pressed the matter, hoping for answers to why this happened, we learned that this old company head was basically a crony of the majority shareholder of the company, who would have lost money under the more employee-beneficial direction that the company would have gone in if the current associate head became the new head of the company.
This crony DEIA hire is going to run our company into the ground. Not only does he barely know what he’s doing - he spends far too much of his time on the golf course, and he’s a lightning rod for trouble in our industry. We’ve also seen confirmed information that he has in the past engaged in embezzlement and corporate espionage FOR our competitors!
The only reason this person is being brought back on is because he’s poised to be a puppet for our company’s majority shareholders, and because a contingent of our employees who have proven themselves to be rabblerousers essentially promised that there would be even MORE trouble if the ACTUALLY-qualified candidate took over this position.
As you can imagine, this DEIA hire is very worrisome to those of us who actually understand how this company works and why it was founded to begin with. We don’t want to lose our livelihoods just because some underqualified so-and-so “deserves” to be in this position - the only person who deserves any position is the person who is *actually* most qualified to be there!
Again, thank you so much for bringing your attention to this matter that is plaguing our beautiful country. Once this kind of thing is stamped out of our great nation, I have no doubt we can get America back on track to being everything we know she can be.
Warmly,
Jack Thomas
PS: silly me - I nearly forgot to give you the info you need to investigate the company! The web address is whitehouse.gov. There’s even a corny video featuring this DEIA hire right on the home page, before you even get to any info about the company itself, or any of us who actually contribute to keeping things afloat. Unbelievable.
Thanks again!
Friends, this kind of subversive, humor-based action is merely one prong of an effective long-term resistance strategy…but it IS one of the prongs.
In my unfortunately vast interactions with members of the far right - including the kind that wear business suits - I’ve learned some very important things about them. Chief among those things is that they fucking hate to be laughed at. Hate it. They can throw literal punches and publicly, they act like they can take metaphorical ones…but beneath that puffed-up Billy-badass exterior is a startling fragility that they don’t want us to know about. We should definitely take them seriously, and literally - we see where folks not taking Trump both seriously and literally has gotten us. But in addition to believing that someone is a Nazi when their words and actions tell you they’re a Nazi - in addition to taking these things very seriously - we also have to laugh at them.
In the same breath, though, I also want to encourage this: aim your lampooning at the people and institutions who are in power (whether via election or online/IRL influence). Holding people - all people - accountable for their actions in the moment is one thing; proactive ridicule of a fellow working-class American whose political beliefs are the product of a hollowed-out public education system and the strength of right-wing propaganda is quite another.
Lest you think I’m defending workaday, working-class Trump voters, let me assure you that I’m not. Rather, I’m asking that when you unsheathe your weapons of humor, energy, and time, lunge for the braggadocious captain - not the trembling footsoldier. That footsoldier is likely starting to realize that he may have made a terrible mistake in signing up for all of this. He’d just as soon go home but his ego won’t let him because everyone is watching…and the whole reason he got into this in the first place was because he felt disconnected from belonging and security and a sense of greater value in the world - and the recruiter promised him those things, and more. If he runs away now, he’ll be further than ever from the warm glow of those essential human needs, so he’s hoping to just kind of fade into the background and then scuttle home and be a more cautious man from here on out. But nothing will rally that footsoldier back to that dark cause faster (and with actual conviction this time) than you running him through with your sharp humor…when the slick-talking recruiter who got him into this rich-man’s war in the first place was in reach.
Yes, it may feel very good and very righteous to pick off small-fry adversaries on facebook and the like…but do you want to feel good, or do you want to win? If you merely want to feel good and do a bit of virtue-signaling, sure…wasting your precious time and attention insulting the footsolider is the way to go. He’s easy pickings.
But the people who go after footsoldiers are merely footsoldiers themselves. That’s how battle works. But that’s not you - you’re on Substack, which - in internet terms - makes you an elite scout. Your modus operandi is to observe, think creatively, plan strategically - then strike where your skills will have the greatest cascade of impact. And because you’re smart, you don’t constantly strike and plan, always reacting to every opportunity - you also rest. You cook and eat. You write. You speak with loved ones. You laugh. You make coffee or tea. You stand in sunshine. You fall asleep in bed with a book, not a battle map. Only in this way can your well-honed skills be put to their best, highest, & most sustainable form of resistance.
This weekend, I’m encouraging us all (myself included) to make two lists:
A list of the specific people and institutions where your elite-scout talents (humor, writing, etc.) and your precious time could have the greatest pro-democracy impact; and
a list of the specific things that make you feel the most rested, fulfilled, sharp, resilient, and ready for return to the good fight.
If it’s not uncomfortably vulnerable, I hope you’ll share your lists in the comments. We can all glean help, humor, power, ideas, and resources from each other in these strange times.
Wishing you a restful and resilient Friday, my friends.
Warmly,
Jack
Monkey wrench gang (n): a term describing a group that engages in sabotage or activism to preserve typically liberal ideals. Comes from the title of a 1975 novel by Edward Abbey.