You’re not paranoid, it’s a propaganda tactic. DEI, just like CRT, has become a dog whistle for the party loyalists. Then the fringes of the party use that language to label anything they don’t like, it’s doesn’t matter if it’s true or something that has been established for decades. (People my parents age used to be proud to say they got the polio vaccine when they were kids, some of those same people are anti-vax now)

Once a thing has been labeled as DEI, then the major news starts to report on it, “some people say thing X is DEI”. Then if something fails, it’s all DEI’s fault for and becomes another example for the party loyalists.

That behavior also forces people who might not care one way or another into a camp. Ghostbusters 2016 comes to mind there. I enjoyed the work of all of those women on SNL and in other movies. I had no interest in the movie because I just don’t care for remakes of classic movies in the first place but I feel there are always exceptions. My girlfriend wanted to go so we went. It was an average/good movie that got some belly laughs out of me and I enjoyed it overall but that’s where my opinion ended. If I said I enjoyed it with no context, I would be dealing with a bunch of snarky comments and I can either stay silent (passive allowance of their behavior) or I have to defend myself to them. Now I’m wasting my time defending and average/good movie that I don’t really even care about in the end.