Oh absolutely. Anyone who rails against "DEI" is by definition a white supremacist.

As I keep telling people, they keep saying "DEI" because even most Bible belt folks get uncomfortable when you drop the hard R they really want to say.

They can’t stand to see someone “undeserving” do as well as or better than them, so they try to mow it down.

in australia and new zealand we have a concept called “tall poppy syndrome” (people who stand out from the crowd, who promote themselves excessively and publicly) and the reaction to that: “cutting down the tall poppy”. cutting down the tall poppy originally meant just bringing them back down to earth, but kinda morphed into simply criticising anyone that does well

we tend to have a relatively strong egalitarian streak, and perhaps that change was tearing people down rather than distributing their success to equalise

anyway, related: tearing down the tall poppy, ie pulling down anyone that stands out

Remember that their fascism is based in feelings of superiority in addition to fear.

Hi, it's me, I'm the "well akshuslly" guy today. Fascism (and the whole right-wing mindset) is based on fear, primarily fear that they, personally and individually, are interior. That's why they need the constant and over-the-top demonstrations of dominance and claims of superiority—to drown out those fears.

I like to think these ones self select.

If someone hired someone provably less qualified that would be easy grounds for a discrimination lawsuit. The problem is actually usually the opposite. People from disadvantaged groups often have to work way harder and be way more qualified just to be treated equally in society.

DEI isn't about who we hire and fire specifically but about how we as a society of institutions act overall. People in DEI might review the hiring and firing practices more holistically as one part of their job. Possibly focusing on recruiting practices including all communities (who are you advertising the job to?), job descriptions being simplified and more honest to what is actually required (broadening who qualifies), training hiring and firing authorities about unconscious bias, etc. That enables them to follow the eeoc laws and truly hire people that are most qualified while having a more representative candidate pool, resulting in a more representative group of employees. When you're correcting your hiring practices to be more equitable, you don't need to hire people less qualified.

DEI would also be how they are treated once there, how the organization treats their staff in a fair and equitable manner. How current policies and processes can be changed to remove structural bias. How to best utilize a broad range of perspectives to improve your organization. For business often how you can include a broader range of targets to market to, etc. Analyzing the structure as a whole for institutional bias. That's all DEI.

The right has perverted the concept of DEI to make people believe unqualified people are landing positions when that's not what DEI is even there for.