A new invisible empire strikes back The backlash to the “created equal” decisions and policies of the last century percolated along for decades. First, resistance to 1954’s Brown v. Board decision with the growth of segregation academies. Then the blue to red flip of former Confederate states in the wake of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 under LBJ. Then the promotion of the religious right by the conservative movement. By the end of the last century, the internet and right-wing media facilitated isolated cranks and bigots bonding with others of their kind, including flat earthers and other conspiracy theorists. The election of a Black man to the White House threw accelerant onto white grievances building for half a century. What has grown into a white grievance industrial complex pairs racial and ideological goals with commercial ones supported by YouTube, Fox, and other social media. Charles Blow examines the next generation of efforts by unsettled whites to turn back the clock and return nonwhite minorities to their proper places at the bottom of the social order. Chris Rufo, the man who turned critical race theory (CRT) into a popular, right-wing bugaboo, is moving on from CRT to DEI: D.E.I. stands for diversity, equity and inclusion, a concept that goes far beyond just the racial prism of critical race theory, and moves into the worlds of ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, age and class. What Rufo is proposing is the distorting and demonizing of legitimate…