When is a horrific terrorist attack upon the U.S. homeland not a “terrorist attack?” When the FBI spins for ideological reasons that it is not.

Immediately after the New Year’s Eve terrorist attack in New Orleans, Alethea Duncan, the FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge for that city told our nation and the world: “This was not a terrorist event.” Except everyone – including the far-left mayor of New Orleans – knew that it was.

Why would Duncan say such a thing? Three answers come to mind. The first is that under the Biden-Harris administration, the knee-jerk reaction of the FBI’s politicized leadership has been to project homegrown American “White Supremacists” as the largest terrorist threat to our nation and not obviously radicalized Islamists. Next is the fact that the FBI has prioritized identity politics over merit in many of its hiring decisions and has greatly weakened itself in the process. Third, this particular agent is unqualified for her position and is way over her head.

To these points, soon after the attack, Tennessee Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn posted on X: “The FBI should be focused on fighting criminals and terrorists. Instead, the agency has wasted valuable resources hosting DEI seminars, investigating churchgoers, and raiding President Trump’s home.”

To be clear, I don’t care if someone is male, female, white, black, gay, trans, conservative, liberal, a person of faith, or an atheist.  If he or she is the best person for the job, they should get it.  Period.

However, when said job can hold the lives of other human beings in the hands of the person who gets it, then that person must be hired solely on merit. Sadly, that is far from the case.

If we look at occupations which are responsible for the lives of others – say the FBI, CIA, the Secret Service, the military, police, firefighters, pilots, air traffic controllers, and the healthcare industry – we will see that forced DEI hiring has greatly watered-down the effectiveness of those occupations and is putting Americans at higher and completely avoidable risk.

Thankfully for our nation, President-elect Donald J. Trump is about to be sworn in as our 47th president on Jan. 20.  As we celebrate that, never forget that he came within about an eighth of an inch of being assassinated on an outdoor stage in Butler, PA on July 13 of last year.

Do you know who saved the life of candidate Trump at that moment? Donald Trump himself. Thanks entirely to him realizing that a bullet had just grazed his head and immediately getting down, he is alive today.

Can you imagine the state of our nation and the world if that wannabe assassin had been successful? Not only did the Secret Service not save Trump that day, the U.S. Secret Service still faces serious questions as to whether their gross incompetence put Trump’s life in danger.

That is not to say that the vast majority of agents in the Secret Service are not patriotic and exceptional.  For they truly are.  That said, when your “leadership” under the guidance of the Biden-Harris White House goes full woke, cracks are going to appear in the foundation of competence.

Two years ago, I spoke with a senior pilot for a major airline who told me that he was retiring early. He no longer felt safe in the cockpit of his own aircraft because the airline had put a premium on forcing “identity politics” hires into the fleet’s aircraft to the direct detriment of the passengers on those planes as well as innocents on the ground. He further stated that when there is an incident – say one aircraft hitting the other on the tarmac or worse – the leadership of the airline tries to suppress the identities of the pilots involved to cover for their DEI mandates.

Make no mistake, American lives are increasingly being put at risk because of DEI mandates for occupations that potentially hold the lives of millions of people in their collective hands. And we are not talking about it or trying to save those lives for what reason?

This is insanity.

Going back to the terrorist attack in New Orleans, a source close to President-elect Trump told Fox News Digital: “The FBI has a no-fail mission. There is no room for error. When they fail, Americans die. It’s a necessity that Kash Patel gets confirmed ASAP.”

That source could not be more correct. But guess what? All of our three-letter agencies are “no-fail”; our military is “no-fail”; the Secret Service is “no-fail,” our police, firefighters, pilots, air traffic controllers, and doctors are “no-fail.”

For the sake of us all, it’s time to shove political correctness aside and address the DEI elephant in the room before it’s too late.

Douglas MacKinnon is a former White House and Pentagon official and author of the book “The 56 – Liberty Lessons from those who risked all to sign The Declaration of Independence.”  Follow him @DougOfSkye.