Since the first days of his second term, President Donald Trump has systematically attacked diversity, equity, and inclusion programs — terminating DEI offices, eliminating equity-related grants, and attacking universities accused of promoting diversity. Meanwhile, right-wing media have spent the past two years fearmongering about DEI, blaming it for everything from plane crashes and bridge collapses to wildfires and shootings. 

It’s no secret that DEI has become an extremely effective boogeyman for the American right as they push policies that attack racial and sexual diversity. We find ourselves in a political moment when the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is investigating universities for partnering with a nonprofit that supports Black, Latino, and Native American students seeking a doctorate degree. But how did we come to this age of doublespeak? And what lessons can the media find from their past mistakes in covering this type of racist disinformation?

1990s: How to manufacture a moral panic over “political correctness”

In his book The Myth of Political Correctness, author John Wilson described the process of “mythmaking through anecdote” and detailed the spread of one such example “which first appeared in a Wall Street Journal column by Alan Charles Kors in 1989.”

The administrator did not take any actions to punish the student for their statement — they only wrote a comment. However, as Wilson reported, “Probably no other note scribbled on a memo has ever attracted this much attention.” Writing in 1995, he observed that the incident “has reappeared in at least thirty-five articles and books about political correctness.” 

The PC panic exploded onto the American media landscape in the first half of the 1990s. Wilson reported that the Nexis media database showed 65 articles that mentioned political correctness in 1990. The next year, there were over 1,500. By 1994, there were nearly 7,000.

Speaking to NPR in 2021, Wilson said:

So, how did the right manufacture a myth about the “vast repression of conservative voices on college campuses” that persists to this day?

Throughout the 1980s, marginalized groups had gained power in American culture. Black Americans were being elected into powerful offices, winning Miss America, and going to space. Second wave feminism brought increased attention to systemic sexism baked into American society. The AIDS crisis brought gay rights into the national focus. And on college campuses, an ongoing push for ethnic and feminist studies programs was elevating the perspectives of marginalized voices in academia. 

But where there is social progress, there is also backlash — and sometimes that backlash is fueled by right-wing dark money. 

Beginning in the late 1980s, the conservative John M. Olin Foundation started pouring money into propaganda about political correctness and liberalism on college campuses. The Olin Foundation supplied right-wing academic Allan Bloom with a grant to write an article for National Review that became the basis for his 1987 national bestseller, The Closing of the American Mind, which blamed “cultural relativism” for “destroying the West's universal or intellectually imperialistic claims, leaving it to be just another culture.”

The Olin Foundation gave Dinesh D’Souza a $30,000 grant to write his 1991 book, Illiberal Education, and another $20,000 to help promote it. D’Souza argued that “an academic and cultural revolution is under way at American universities,” adding, “It is changing what students learn in the classroom, and how they are taught. It is aimed at what University of Wisconsin chancellor Donna Shalala calls ‘a basic transformation of American higher education in the name of multiculturalism and diversity.’”

The Olin Foundation also funded critic and commentator Roger Kimball to write essays in the conservative journal New Criterion, which would go on to become the basis for his book Tenured Radicals. Kimball wrote:

And it wasn’t just books. The Olin Foundation also spent $15 million a year funding conservative magazines like the American Spectator, National Review, and Crisis, which would publish horror stories about “political correctness” going too far. 

In 1991, right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation published a speech by conservative scholar Harvey Mansfield titled “Political Correctness and the Suicide of the Intellect.” Mansfield claimed there was a growing epidemic of “politicization and PC” that was “manifest in three aspects of the universities: first, in the admission of students and recruitment of faculty, and the related question of affirmative action; second, in campus life and the demand for sensitivity; and third, in the curriculum and the criticism of the traditional canon.” His speech railed against the use of “he or she” rather than male pronouns as a default, calling the practice “ridiculous” and “an attempt to create an atmosphere of self-censorship,” and defended the right of a Harvard student to hang a Confederate flag from her dormitory window. Mansfield concluded by calling for conservatives to “raise a little hell” over political correctness on campuses. 

Right-wing money also funded lawsuits. By 1995, the Center for Individual Rights had received nearly $2 million in support of its work bringing suits by students and professors claiming to be victims of campus incidents of “political correctness.” 

Through publicizing anti-PC anecdotes and filing lawsuits, right-wing groups successfully manufactured the illusion of a crisis. Suddenly, the term was on the cover of major magazines, with Time describing political correctness as “the fraying of America,” Newsweek publishing an anti-PC cover story titled “Thought Police” and warning of “the New McCarthyism,” and New York magazine asking: “Are you politically correct? Am I guilty of racism, sexism, classism? Am I guilty of ageism, ableism, lookism?”

 In 1994, The Open Mind, an educational program on PBS, brought on anti-PC activists to fearmonger about “intolerance and witch-hunting in the name of political correctness and multiculturalism.” Universities also granted the panic legitimacy with public debates like one held at the University of Pennsylvania in 1993 as part of William F. Buckley’s Firing Line, which declared political correctness to be a “menace.”

2000s: Mainstreaming the PC panic

Throughout the first two decades of the 21st century, the right’s conception of political correctness evolved from a panic about speech on college campuses into a catch-all term used to mock anything concerned with social justice. Fox News started blaming the “PC Police” for miniscule social changes like removing a racist caricature from a baseball team’s logo, adding female characters to a children's TV show, or relabeling “family restrooms” as “all-gender restrooms.” 

The PC panic permeated popular media beyond Fox News, with political correctness becoming a punchline on shows like The Simpsons, South Park, and Modern Family. Mainstream news outlets also deployed the term to criticize progressive perspectives on a variety of issues, like a movie about Israeli-Palestinian relations and university students' protest of a commencement speech by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

While mainstream media were making jokes about political correctness going too far, something far more sinister was taking place on the far right — the term was evolving from a punchline about liberal sensitivity into an outright defense of bigotry. “This might not be politically correct” became the qualifier ahead of blatantly hateful, frequently Islamophobic statements, as though being self-aware made the bigotry itself permissible. Americans watching Fox News would hear statements like, “It’s not politically correct but I am sick of hearing that Islam is a religion of peace,” or, “It may not be politically correct but I’ll say it — many Americans link all Muslims to terrorism.” 

On the right, political correctness was also depicted as an actual threat to Americans. After the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, carried out by a Muslim service member, right-wing media were quick to find the real culprit, declaring: “The problem is political correctness, that’s what we’re talking about. And this is not the first time political correctness when it comes to Islam and Muslims has gotten people killed.” On Fox, Michelle Malkin called political correctness “the handmaiden of terror” and claimed that U.S. military officials “worship the false god of diversity over putting national security and the safety of their own officers first.” According to Fox & Friends, “Because of this political correctness climate, the military [and] the FBI sort of perhaps looked the other way.” 

Americans watching right-wing media were told that political correctness was a threat that, by limiting their speech, was making them unsafe from people they perceived as dangerous (e.g. Muslims, Black Americans, women accusing men of sexual assault). By the late 2010s, Americans seem to have categorized political correctness as harmful. A 2017 Cato Institute poll found that 71% of Americans said that political correctness had silenced necessary social discussions, and a 2018 poll from More in Common found that 80% of Americans disliked “political correctness.”

This landscape made for an ideal cesspool for anti-PC crusader Donald Trump, who launched his first presidential campaign in 2015 by railing against immigrants and political correctness. 

Trump took the subtext of the panic over political correctness and made it explicit — the problem was never overly sensitive students. It was that you couldn’t be openly bigoted anymore. And after consuming decades worth of anti-PC propaganda, conservative Americans viewed Trump’s unleashed bigotry as freedom from the controlling PC mob. 

Right-wing media celebrated Trump’s disdain for political correctness.

“The politically correct crowd often fires vile accusations toward those they don't like,” Bill O’Reilly said. “Folks who oppose gay marriage, for example, are homophobic. People who want a responsible welfare system are anti-poor. Americans who believe that the enormous out-of-wedlock African American birth rate is hurting the country are anti-Black. That's vile stuff, and clear-thinking people, Americans know it. Thus, when a guy like Trump actually attacks politically correct madness, he gains devoted followers.” 

Fox contributor and future Trump official Monica Crowley said, “The American people understand the nature of the enemy, all this political correctness about Islam and the threat and so on — Trump just barrels right through it and gets to the core.” 

Fox guest Hadley Heath Manning: “We can’t allow political correctness to come ahead of our national security and that’s part of the reason Trump was elected — because he ran against political correctness.”

“The effort to control our minds by controlling our language has been growing more and more powerful each year — until Trump,” said then-Fox Business host Lou Dobbs. “Trump is almost singlehandedly burying political correctness and tearing up the playbook.” 

Former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke also praised Trump’s anti-PC campaign, saying that the candidate “deserves a close look by those who believe the era of political correctness needs to come to an end.”

2020s: Cancel culture, DEI, and more become the new PC boogeymen

When he first proposed the “Muslim ban,” Trump said, “You’re going to have more World Trade Centers. It’s going to get worse and worse, folks. You can be politically correct or stupid.” 

When he attempted to enact the policy upon taking office, Fox White House correspondent Kristin Fisher reported, “President Trump really pushed political correctness aside by saying this: ‘People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN.’”

Trump’s first presidency really was an end to the age of political correctness. He called African nations “shithole countries.” He called COVID-19 a “Chinese virus” and the “kung flu.” Through his presidency, right-wing media could celebrate his politically incorrect language and unapologetic bigotry. 

At the same time, Americans were experiencing another reckoning over racism. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the consequences of racial inequality in the U.S. After the police murder of George Floyd, protests erupted around the country. There was a wave of states removing Confederate symbols and monuments. 

Much like in the early 1990s, Americans were experiencing a shift in cultural awareness about race and inequality in their country — a shift that conservatives already had a tried-and-true strategy to fight back against. They could weaponize the same PC panic to stir up racial anxiety in their white base, except “political correctness” was a bit worn out and overplayed. They needed a scary new term to paint social progress as a threat to Americans’ safety. 

Cancel culture

Beginning in 2020, conservatives had a new catch-all fearmongering term: “cancel culture.” The term spiked into the national consciousness that June, while America was in the heat of protests against racist policing. 

Right-wing media now fearmongered that Americans would be “canceled” by society for saying something bigoted. While the name had changed, the structure of the new narrative was virtually identical to that of the PC panic: Minority groups have taken control, they’re silencing conservatives, and you’re not allowed to say the truth anymore. 

Much like the earlier campaign against political correctness, the panic over cancel culture was fueled by a hodgepodge of the most trivial anecdotes that right-wing media could scrape together. Fox & Friends Weekend ran down a list of “some of the recent victims of cancel culture,” including Paw Patrol, Aunt Jemima, and The Muppets. Fox & Friends First warned: “Cancel culture extending its reach this time to — deep breath — Snow White.”

Anxiety about cancel culture quickly spread from right-wing media ecosystems into the broader American media space. It was covered on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, it was on the cover of New York magazine, it got a segment on 60 Minutes. Members of Congress took to the floor to call cancel culture “anti-American” and “fascist,” comparing it to “a medieval mob coming to burn witches.” 

Much like with political correctness, the definition of cancel culture evolved. While it initially spoke to the experience of public backlash in response to offensive behavior, its meaning morphed to describe any attempt to hold powerful people or institutions accountable for their actions. Cancel culture was when a politician was investigated for sexual harassment, or when the police were criticized for murdering Black people, or when people chose not to promote the work of a transphobic author. Before long, white supremacists like Nick Fuentes were using the term to defend themselves from criticism. 

Conservatives had correctly identified “cancel culture” as an effective term for stoking fear and outrage in their base. At the 2020 Republican National Convention, at least 11 GOP speakers used the platform to speak about the threat of cancel culture.

Wokeism

Reinventing the PC panic with cancel culture worked so well, why not do it again? A few months later, a new moral panic emerged on the right around “wokeism.” 

The formula was exactly the same: Minorities have taken control, they’re silencing conservatives, you can’t tell the truth anymore. And just like with political correctness and cancel culture, the wokeism panic was fueled by minor anecdotes amplified by right-wing media. A Fox News host announced that “Lego is going woke,” for instance, after the company unveiled a range of characters with disabilities.

The term went mainstream with big spikes of attention in 2021 and then again in 2022, permeating mainstream media with segments like CNN asking, “Is ‘wokeness’ a problem for the Democratic Party?” 

While political correctness and cancel culture both evolved into more vague, all-encompassing terms that referred to any backlash to bigotry, “wokeism” achieved new levels of ambiguity. Wokeism was when white people were forced to think about race. Wokeism was when kids were exposed to the existence of trans people. Wokeism was when people welcomed immigrants into their communities. 

As Philip Bump wrote in The Washington Post: 

Much like its predecessors, wokeism worked to rile up the conservative base, with GOP voters soon identifying it as an election issue. A 2023 Wall Street Journal poll found that a majority of Republican primary voters agreed that “fighting woke ideology in our schools and businesses” was more important than preventing cuts to Medicare and Social Security.

Critical race theory

Woke may have been the “perfect pejorative” but it was also a little too nebulous to create policy around. Conservatives needed a new villain, one that they could run against to win general elections. And that brings us to “critical race theory,” an academic framework for understanding the impacts of systemic racism that quickly became the right’s new villain. 

The CRT panic had the same bones as those before it: Minorities have taken control, they’re silencing conservatives, you can’t tell the truth anymore. Once again, the panic was fueled by trivial anecdotes boosted by right-wing media.

Much like with cancel culture and wokeism, CRT’s meaning was amorphous and vague. CRT was when people acknowledged the existence of racism in American society. CRT was when Black people were appointed to the Supreme Court. CRT was when “white people feel guilty.” 

This panic, however, created political changes at hyperlocal levels. Anti-CRT groups disrupted school board meetings, ousted liberal board members, and harassed parents who supported teaching children about racial equity. 

Christopher Rufo, the right-wing activist who invented the campaign against CRT (funded by some of the same groups that created the PC panic), described the success of the CRT panic to The New Yorker. 

The CRT panic took the right’s anxiety about “political correctness” and turned it into a real political project. Throughout 2021 and 2022, local, state, and federal officials across the U.S. introduced a total of 563 anti-CRT measures, 241 of which were enacted or adopted as of April 2023. In Texas, the state passed a law designed to keep CRT out of Texas public schools by banning courses that make any individual feel “discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex.”

DEI

The political success of the CRT panic gave conservatives a blueprint for attacking racial equity policies — they just needed a new term to expand the scope of their campaign beyond education. DEI was exactly the same villain as CRT but it had the added benefit of existing in schools, workplaces, and government agencies alike. Anti-DEI policies allowed for the expansion of attacks on diversity efforts across most sectors of American life. 

Of course, the DEI panic contained the same structure as each panic before it: Minorities are in control, they’re silencing conservatives, you can’t say the truth anymore. 

By March 2024, more than 30 states had introduced bills banning or limiting DEI efforts. When Trump took office for his second term in January, many of his first actions involved attacks on DEI.

If the Obama-era cries of political correctness run amok were racist dog whistles, the panic over DEI is a megaphone, emboldening right-wing media to loudly proclaim their racist, sexist, and anti-LGBTQ beliefs. What started out as complaints about corporate diversity trainings rapidly devolved into proclamations about how Americans can’t trust nonwhite doctors. 

“Now speaking of DEI, we’re ushering in an era of deadly medicine as well,” claimed Laura Ingraham. “It could lead to actual human suffering.” 

A Fox guest warned, “DEI is a poison to objective standards of excellence. This is going to ruin medicine. You will now go into a doctor and not know by which merits they became a doctor.”

Where that leaves us

The right wants to manufacture the belief that we're facing some radical new culture war but the reality is that we’ve been having the same argument for over 30 years now. Just compare how then-House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik spoke to Fox Business about DEI last year versus how a former head of the KKK used to speak about affirmative action: 

It would appear that we are stuck in a time loop. The right knows that arguing against social progress isn’t great optics — it’s challenging to look like the good guys and defend racist policies. To hijack conversations around social progress, conservatives need to keep reframing the same old racist narratives around new boogeymen like political correctness, cancel culture, wokeism, CRT, and DEI. 

It’s like picking a scab. Left alone, Americans might eventually accept racial equity policies that build a stronger society for everyone or curricula that acknowledge our country’s deeply racist past. These racial-anxiety boogeymen are how the right-wing convinces Americans to keep caring about maintaining our racial hierarchy — to keep picking at the scab. And if you are picking at a scab, it doesn’t heal. It gets infected.

Part of the reason this propaganda strategy works is that liberals keep falling for it too. After Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election, liberal commentators immediately began blaming Democrats for being too concerned with identity politics, too woke, too politically correct, too nice to trans people. Remarkably, Democrats similarly blamed John Kerry’s loss in 2004 on the party’s perceived acceptance of gay marriage. Two decades later, Democrats are still asking themselves if they should sacrifice queer people to win elections.

Folks, we are playing a rigged game. The right creates a panic, hijacks the news cycles, then forces their opponents to play defense — always arguing that the left is too woke or too politically correct — as if this entire conversation wasn’t invented by right-wing think tanks. 

And it’s going to happen again. Eventually, conservatives will have exhausted all of their anti-DEI policy options and will need to rebrand the same racial panic yet again. And as long as the media keep taking the bait, accepting the premise that we can be too oriented toward equality, we’ll stay stuck in this loop, playing their game, turning on each other while the right rolls back the most basic attempts at social progress. 

As it turns out, the only winning move is not to play.