I think what makes CRT stick is because it sounds academic and of course universities are institutions that brainwash children into becoming liberals /s
The initialism is also abstract enough that it can basically be defined as whatever the person wants it to be. I bet if you ask 10 random people what CRT is, you’d probably get 10 different definitions. It’s basically gonna be the next socialism when it comes to dog whistles.
It also sounds vaguely like a term the Nazis would have come up with so it makes it easy to do a reverse judo and say, actually critical race theory is racist and un-American. It’s right there in the words, Race and Theory.
I’m afraid that this CRT stuff has some serious staying power.
Yes and no. “Critical race theory” is a buzzword that will go out of fashion pretty quickly, but the core idea of students learning about terrible racist shit the US has done is a timeless grievance. In my day they called it “revisionist history,” I’m sure previous generations has some incarnation of this theme. “Critical Race Theory” is actually pretty terrible branding: nobody who isn’t watching Tucker has any clue wtf it even means or why we should be mad about it.
Screaming about transgender people isn’t going to go away. Screaming at the existence of gay people is gradually becoming less acceptable in the mainstream, so the transgender crowd becomes the next obvious target for fragile men to yell at.
The hating of transgenderism can get idiots temporarily riled up but will gradually fall away because it doesn’t really matter (to the idiots–obviously it matters to the people impacted by it, which is why it’s so cruel). On the other hand, teaching the actual history of this country might inspire young folks to critically assess our laws, power structures, economy, etc, and that is definitely not something that the right wing will allow. The end goal of the right is to maintain (or expand) existing power structures and they see [CRT / revisionist history / whatever the next version is called] as a direct threat to that. There will always be a CRT-like boogeyman because it will always be perceived as a threat by those in power.
The people who have the $$$ to fund such a effort on “the left” explicitly want moderates and not progressives on the court, and would do everything in their power to stop such an effort if the progressives gained traction on their own. Same way they are trying to stop “the Squad” in Congress.
First syllable either rhymes with saw or soy.
We’ll see, the deplorable lizard brain loves new things to be outraged about, and strategically the establishment conservative institutions (Fox, Republicans, the rich) benefit from constantly forcing Dems to defend against new false accusations. As long as the right keeps liberals busy explaining why the New Lie is a lie, then the public discourse never gets around to discussing the real policy problems that need to be fixed. An ideal Biden term for the right is Culture War Of The Week bad faith arguments plus no meaningful policy change. This is what they’re getting.
Complaining about CRT is just another way for racists to be racist while claiming they’re not racist. CRT may go out of fashion eventually, but the underlying racism never will.
None of the Fox News Kulturkampf issues really “matter” in that sense, but they’re still extremely potent.
There always going to be a need for insecure men to beat up on something and yelling at gay dudes getting married is going out of style, so I think yelling about trans people existing is gonna be around for a while.
Another issue is that generations of Americans have been told that America is a unique country compared to the rest of the world. That America is the best country in the world. That we’re lucky to be in America and everybody who isn’t here wants to be here. We have American exceptionalism imposed on us by both political parties starting as children and throughout history classes as teenagers.
CRT is a threat to that idealized vision of America. It’ll teach people that America still does fucked up shit that we shouldn’t be proud of. Children can rationalize past misgivings by saying that, “Oh, they were different people in a different time. That isn’t us.” But when you connect that stuff to current events and show the impact things like slavery has on people today, it becomes harder to assauge that guilt and harder to maintain the American exceptionalism that the government wants to push onto people.
Maybe it’s just the circles I run in, but absolutely nobody I interact with under the age of 40 thinks the US is great.
Anyone who can’t tell this is us in the middle stages of the falling empire cycle is fucking stupid. We’ve got the entire bingo card punched in from the spiraling wealth inequality and the decadence that goes with that to the absurdly overpriced military that can’t win wars, and the inability to find the political will to do basic blocking and tackling.
We’re fucked as an Empire. At this point I’m just praying for a soft landing.
Wait, would this be a totally normal conversation for you to have in a restaurant?
“What would you like to drink?”
“A Coke, please”
“What kind?”
“Diet Dr. Pepper”
People wrapping themselves in the flag to go to Trump rallies, cult-like appreciation for the military and the constant blasting of patriotic music at any holiday considered remotely patriotic isn’t indicative of excessive nationalism?
Millions deal with the cognitive dissonance of bitching and complaining about America while simultaneously holding onto the belief that it’s the greatest country in the world. Go into work and talk about how much better Europe is and you’ll hear way more, “Well if you don’t like it here then you should gtfo of America!” from your coworkers than “Yeah, I agree. I wish America was that way.” Even if they agree with you in principle, they still won’t jump on the Europe >>> America bandwagon because their years of indoctrination won’t allow them to make that leap.
I don’t know who needs to hear this but Jimmy Carter is a truly exceptional human. Bravo.
HE’S HISTORY’S GREATEST MONSTER!!
Have def heard “what kind of coke” asked in the south.
Has anyone ever done a blind soda taste test? I doubt I would be able to discern between Coke and Dr. Pepper if I couldn’t see the bottle. It all tastes like bubblegum tbh.
I only ever spit out one of those when tasting it for the first time, so yeah I am confident I would be able to tell the difference.
WTF - of course you can tell the difference between Coke and Dr. Pepper.