If you have been following our coverage of the pushback against Critical Race Theory as implemented in education, particularly K-12, you would know what Politico is now reporting. The pushback is real, it’s grassroots, and it’s not restricted to “red” states and voters.
The claims you hear from the pre-planned Messaging Guide from teachers unions and leftist foundations about “astroturf” and “right wing dark money” are propaganda. It’s real, and even happening in deep blue Rhode Island.
Politico reports, ‘People are scared’: Democrats lose ground on school equity plans:
On the national level, Democrats have insisted that the brush fires over critical race theory — which has become a political punching bag even for unrelated equity initiatives — are largely the work of right-wing activists who willfully misrepresent what it means, and they blame Fox News for fanning parents’ anger….But those Democrats appear to be underestimating parents’ anger in places where critical race theory is top of mind. Objections to new equity plans are not the sole province of conservatives but extend to many moderate and independent voters, according to POLITICO interviews with school board members, political operatives and activists in Democratic and left-leaning communities including the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.; Palm Beach County, Fla.; New York’s Westchester County; Maricopa County covering Phoenix, Ariz.; and suburban Detroit….The stakes aren’t lost on Amanda Litman, founder of the Democratic organization Run for Something, which works to elect school board members and other local officials: “This is a perfect storm of something that can appeal to, or draw back in, some of the suburban parents that might have voted Republican in 2016, Democrat in 2018 and 2020, but could be drawn back to the Republican Party in 2022.”
But Democrats should not ignore the potentially potent politics around critical race theory, said Litman of Run for Something, who compared anxiety about critical race theory to the fear of “death panels” during 2009’s Obamacare debate.
“The Republican Party historically has used this kind of panic effectively,” Litman said. “And they have managed to unite a few different components of anxiety — racial anxiety, anxiety about schools that came up through the pandemic and who’s managing schools, and this idea of cancel culture — in one.”
The pushback is real. And it’s spectacular.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY