Dec 1, 2021 6 min read

Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia governor’s race, and many analysts attribute his victory to his focus on public education and fears about critical race theory (CRT). They argue that the lesson Democrats should learn is that they must rein in the “woke” progressives in order to win elections. On the defensive, progressives point out that the party that won the White House lost the Virginia (and New Jersey) governors’ elections in 10 of the last 11 races, so the fact that the more progressive Paul Murphy maintained the New Jersey governorship means that those analysts are engaged in hyperbolic handwringing over nothing. But in today’s polarized environment, Virginia has become a much more Democratic state, so McAuliffe’s loss there does go against the trend.

Historically, Republicans have used racially based fears to get white voters to vote for them for decades. While prior to the Civil Rights Movement the Democratic Party was the party that relied on racial fears as its source of power, by the 1960s the parties’ positions on race began to reverse. The Democrats became the party that championed civil rights, while Republicans began to run on racial fears. In 1964 Barry Goldwater’s libertarian ideology led to his allowance for private parties to discriminate based on race, while Richard Nixon consciously ran on a “Southern Strategy” in 1968 to appeal to white Democrats who were unhappy with the dismantling of segregation in the South. In the 1980s Ronald Reagan vilified Black “welfare queens” who were supposedly living the high life on the backs of the white working class, while in 1992 George H.W. Bush used Willie Horton to paint Democrats as wanting to allow whites to be victimized by recidivist Black criminals. Bill Clinton tried to deflate these arguments by criticizing rapper Sister Souljah and putting more cops on the street to defend against “superpredators.”

Although Donald Trump was a private citizen at the time, he paid for a full page ad calling for the death penalty for the “Central Park Five,” a group of Black youths convicted of the rape and beating of a white woman who had been jogging in Central Park. This was Trump being “tough on crime” in preparation for a political career. Of course, the Central Park Five were exonerated by DNA evidence, so instead of demonstrating the validity of white fears of Black criminals, the case validated Black fears of being the legal victims of racist stereotypes.

Republicans are much better at politics than the Democrats. One of their brilliant political tactics is to take a small problem, make it seem like an existential threat that only Republicans can solve, and once elected, declare the problem under control (even if they only take token steps). Obamacare will make America the USSR. Death panels will allow government bureaucrats to kill Grandma. Obama will take your guns. Gay marriage will be the end of the family. Allowing transgender kids to play sports will ruin girls’ sports. The problem for Democrats is that if they try to put Republican hyperbole into perspective, Republicans claim they are naïve or uncaring. In the Virginia race, Republicans were able to combine fears of racial change with a manufactured crisis (CRT invading public schools).

Democrats accurately point out the CRT is a graduate school concept that is not being taught in the public schools. CRT was made an issue by the Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo and Fox News. In a tweet on March 15, Rufo revealed his political strategy: “We have successfully frozen their brand – “critical race theory” – into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category. The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think “critical race theory.” We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.”

CRT is not some hot new theory taking over education. It was developed decades ago. From 2012 to 2019, Fox mentioned CRT 4 times. From May to August 2021, during the heat of the race, CRT was mentioned more than 1,900 times. That’s how you create controversy.

CRT evolved because while ending legal discrimination in the 1960s was a step in the right direction, it did not end all racial discrimination. CRT was looking at the persistent impact of racial discrimination, and grappling with what could be done to end it. But in the Republican demonization of CRT, it is the brainwashing of white children to hate themselves.

Teaching about race can be challenging. Race is clearly a powerful and persistent theme in American history, so to ignore it would be negligent, and leave students ignorant. But race is not the only driving force in American history, so focusing only on race is also wrong. The debate around the 1619 Project shows how this issue is contested.

Republican politicians are not really concerned about what is being taught in schools, they are simply using the issue to win elections. They are not offering a better way to teach about racial injustice, they are using culture war themes to get elected and distract their base in order to pass legislation that promotes their real agenda, lower taxes and less business regulation, which is what their donors care about.

Once elected, Republicans pass laws they claim will prevent the teaching of CRT in public schools; while this might seem harmless, because it’s already true, it will make educators more hesitant to teach about difficult issues (like race), for fear of losing their jobs. And that will impede learning. Learning is getting out of your comfort zone and being challenged to understand things you don’t know. Education that reinforces what you already think you know is a waste of time. Education is about thinking, not reciting approved facts.

Kent James has a doctorate in History and Policy from Carnegie Mellon University and is an adjunct in the History Department at Washington & Jefferson College.