Despite election defeats in early November, the Democratic Party has showed no signs of letting up on their critical race theory (CRT) messaging.
In fact, some strategists are advising the party to double down on its portrayal of anti-CRT Republican candidates as “liars” and traffickers in “racist dog whistling.”
Business Insider published a story on the matter Tuesday afternoon, quoting several Democratic strategists.
Jesse Ferguson, for example, believes the Democratic Party hasn’t pushed back on anti-CRT messaging as strongly as it should. If Democrats take the pushback to a new level, they will find new electoral success, he claimed.
“Voters run from the Republicans when Democrats peel back the onion on what these claims really mean,” he told Business Insider. “It’s not just that Republicans want a bigger role for parents in education, it’s that Republicans are willing to let white supremacists write curricula.”
Other strategists, like Chris Taylor of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, think a pro-CRT message can be sold to voters as “[teaching] the truth about U.S. history and [honoring] those who fought to make the country better.”
Concomitant with that should be a forceful rebuke of GOP candidates for their “divisiveness” and “lies” about CRT, he added.
Echoing Taylor’s sentiments on the “truth about U.S. history” was Celinda Lake, a pollster. She even claimed it’s popular among the electorate.
“Voters are wildly, wildly in favor of it and even half of Republicans think some of this stuff should be taught,” she told Business Insider. “Their strategy is, mobilize their base and distract us, and shame on us if we get distracted.”
The veracity of this claim is highly questionable, however, given the success of Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin and many school board candidates in different parts of the U.S. who ran on anti-CRT platforms. Such candidates even found success in Minnesota.
The Center for the American Experiment also published poll results in late October which found that only 22% of Minnesotans think CRT should be taught in public schools. In addition, only one in three believe a CRT framework should be incorporated in the state’s social studies standards.
Evan Stambaugh
Evan Stambaugh is a freelance writer who had previously been a sports blogger. He has a BA in theology and an MA in philosophy.
