We're in a place now where competence is a threat to the party's power, and more importantly it's an obstacle to smash-and-grab looting of the federal coffers, so all competent staff are being purged to make way for dimwitted loyalists.
The people most against DEI are actually for allowing taxpayer funds to be spent on hiring people for their beliefs. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act allows your taxes to fund religious groups who only hire members of their religion, and conservatives fought all the way to the Supreme Court to ensure it stayed that way.
> not for their competency at the job
This is a common misconception (at best, and it's also a common talking point among closeted bigots): nowhere did DEI ever call for hiring incompetent people because of their status. What it does call for is to expand the recruiting search for qualified talent, to actually hire based on merit, to focus on qualifications, rather than on personal connections or vague 'vibes'.
Show me how the DOGE workforce was selected from a diverse talent pool, assessed objectively, and not simply hand-picked based on connections. The hiring process for this crack team is utterly lacking in transparency for some reason.