'Number one cultural issue': GOP turns to critical race theory in push to win back suburbs

[Demovictory9]

https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article252807478.html

“In suburban areas, the number one cultural issue is critical race theory. The suburbs are on fire with anger,” said Corry Bliss, a Republican strategist who works on congressional races. “We are at the beginning of this issue, not the end.”

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Conservatives often use it as an umbrella term to argue that public schools are teaching children liberal ideologies and that the United States is an inherently racist country.

The conservative Fox News mentioned critical race theory 901 times on air in June, the liberal group Media Matters found, up from 537 times in May and 226 times in April. At least seven Republican-led state legislatures have passed legislation opposed to the teaching of critical race theory in K-12 classrooms this year, according to the Brookings Institution.

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Republicans are trying to harness that energy for next year’s midterms as they seek to take control of the U.S. House and Senate, where Democrats hold narrow majorities.

“Critical race theory has so many legs right now,” said Republican pollster Robert Blizzard. “It’s combining cultural frustration GOP voters have nationally with local concerns.”

[cilla4progress]

1. JFC

about 1/4 of local school board candidates
mention CRT as a key issue! So transparent that they are egged on by Fox, etc. I hope local voters don't fall for it, but I'm not confident.

[fishwax]

2. I have a hard time believing the suburbs are really on fire about this

I suppose I could be wrong, but I don't see this as a successful strategy for republicans. It makes some sense, given that sowing division about race has been their basic strategy since Nixon, but this particular effort seems poorly conceived.

[dchill]

3. It's not a huge issue in the 'burbs... Yet...

But wait until Fox News gets done pumping and massaging it...

"Tonight on the fraudcast - Critical Race Theory: it's causing everything from global warming to high rise collapses. They're turning out children into liberals!"

[PortTack]

4. That's right! The issue in the burbs, especially women...frump frightens them!!

[fishwax]

9. I mean, I know they'll try, but there are a few things working against them

For one thing, we've got time to get out ahead of that message.

For another, they're starting without some of the built-in advantages they've had in the past. When Reagan talked about welfare queens and Bush ran the Willie Horton ad, they were tapping into a deep pool of (racist) fear and anxiety. I just don't see the share of the population that can really get worked up about simply discussing racism to be quite so deep. It's not as primal. Especially not coming in the wake of the events of the last year, which saw big shares of the public swinging their sympathies towards a recognition and understanding of, for instance, the biased nature of policing.

Now, republicans were able to push back on that swell by weaponizing that old primal fear against the idea of "defund the police." But I think the reservoir of that fear that can successfully be mobilized against, say, studying racism in schools is going to be much smaller.

Not absent, mind you. Definitely not absent. But smaller and beatable.

[Walleye]

5. Lee Atwater lives!

[uponit7771]

6. As I said MULTIPLE times before it wouldn't matter WHAT the slogan, saying, phrase was the GQP would

... turn it into an issue if dems let the lies go on unchallenged.

They'll lie like rugs we don't let them continue the lies and then use them against us.

[joetheman]

7. A suburban voter who gives that as a reason to continue to vote GOP was never going to

vote otherwise in the first place. The are just using that as a fake excuse to keep on being assholes.

[tanyev]

8. I don't know what suburbs they're referring to, but my suburb just keeps getting more diverse.

Solid red area still, but my voting precinct went blue in 2016 and 2020 and several others did, too.