It’s Time for True Liberals to Stand Against Critical Race Theory
Let’s face it: Democrats won’t be able to avoid CRT and ‘Wokeness’ in 2022
In the wake of a disasterous election day across the US for the Democratic Party two weeks ago, there has been deep soul searching as to what went wrong for the Democrats. While there were likely plenty of reasons at play, one reason many people are talking about is the widespread unease around Critical Race Theory (CRT). After all, Virginia governor-elect Glenn Youngkin ran on a platform of opposing CRT, and it clearly resonated in the suburbs. As I have previously explained, CRT thinking is fundamentally at odds with liberalism, therefore the concern of voters is well justified. While I do acknowledge that some Republicans are using it to play politics, the growing influence of CRT is actually an important concern, not some dog whistle invented by right-wing strategists.
What is most notable and worrying for me is that, most of the talk about CRT within Democratic-leaning circles seem to be one way only: pro-CRT activists blaming Biden and McAuliffe for not countering the ‘Republican narrative’ on CRT. What they appear to insist on is for Biden and the Democratic leadership to affirm that CRT is a good thing. Of course, many Democrats won’t actually do that. I guess it’s because they have their own reservations about CRT too. However, for some reason, they aren’t pushing back against the pro-CRT narrative either. Instead, they tend to focus all their analyses on the Democrats’ inability to get their agenda passed in congress, even while they are aware that passing the Biden agenda likely won’t save them next year.
So this is what it has come to. Liberal (in the traditional sense of the word) and moderate Democrats alike have decided to not take a stand against CRT, at least publicly, even though they probably know that CRT doesn’t sit well with their liberal principles. They almost certainly know that CRT is going to be rejected by most Americans, and is going to damage them at the ballot box next year. Yet they are refusing to take a stand on the issue. I’m sorry, but this looks like shying away from a much needed debate to me. And this doesn’t earn you any respect.
One exception to this is Clinton-era Democratic strategist James Carville, who bluntly blamed ‘wokeness’ for the Democrats’ loss. Predictably, AOC has responded negatively to Carville. According to AOC, wokeness is a term ‘almost exclusively used by older people these days’. Well, AOC is clearly wrong then. I’m not conservative or old, but I do see that Carville is making an important point. (I’m a non-white trans millennial, if that’s relevant.) From what I see, many people are using the word ‘woke’ to describe a growing problem, that they otherwise don’t have a word for. Whether that’s the correct term is another debate, but the problem is real.
So what is the problem?
Basically, it’s the supplantation of liberalism by the radical critical theory worldview. CRT is but one manifestation of this phenomenon, however, given it is the most prominent manifestation right now, the debate appears to be centered here. As I previously explained, it’s a problem that goes back at least several decades, when a very influential part of the Left turned away from old school JFK-style liberalism, and came to embrace a new politics based on a variety of academic theories. These theories are ultimately all rooted in the critical theory worldview, which sees everything as the result of power dynamics between oppressor and oppressed groups.
The trouble with this worldview is that, it is fundamentally against the long-standing liberal values held dear by most people in the Western world. Values like free speech, freedom of conscience, individual-level equality of opporunity, the ideal of a colorblind society, and so on, are all threatened by the more radical conclusions of various critical theories. People like myself, who value liberalism and believe that the West should continue to be liberal, will not give into criticalism’s campaign to supplant liberalism under any circumstances. Therefore, if the Democrats think they can just push the issue aside without properly addressing it, they are sorely mistaken.
The true liberal needs to stand up now!
For the past five years or so, the Democrats have been trying their hardest to avoid recognizing this problem even exists. This worked as long as they had something else to focus on, i.e. Trump, but once Trump left office, it has become harder and harder to avoid the elephant in the room. Indeed, in Virginia, Biden and McAuliffe tried to make the election about Trump, but that clearly didn’t work anymore. Instead, right now, Republicans have found a winning issue in taking a stand against CRT, and they clearly intend to continue to do so next year. This means that, in the run-up to the midterms next year, the Democrats will have nowhere to hide from this issue. They could superficially address it by saying things like CRT isn’t taught in schools (it literally isn’t). However, that is very unlikely to work, because it doesn’t address the concerns people are actually having (i.e. CRT-influenced ideas are making their way into many areas of life, and could potentially influence school curriculum). Indeed, I believe Democrats wouldn’t be able to neutralize the coming Republican onslaught over CRT short of taking a clear and firm stance against CRT.
So why are the Democrats afraid to come out against CRT? Some say it’s probably because they want to be seen as serious about tackling racism, and they don’t want the non-white parts of their base to think otherwise. However, according to a Pew study published just a few days ago, the furthest left ‘tribe’ of the Democratic coalition is the whitest, while most non-white people are more moderate politically. According to the same study, the furthest left ‘tribe’ is also the smallest, accounting for only 12% of Democrats, meaning that 88% of Democrats would likely prefer a more moderate politics.
Besides, it is clearly possible to be serious about addressing racism while opposing the critical theory worldview. One can emphasize the importance of teaching history accurately, while still making a case for the liberal version of racial equality in the present. Liberals don’t have to ‘find common ground’ with CRT advocates in order to be anti-racist, because being anti-racist is already baked into our long-standing values and principles. Indeed, for the true liberal, CRT’s pseudo-class based us-vs-them worldview is actually incompatible with our anti-racist commitments!
Given all the aformentioned points, you would think that coming out against CRT, while still emphasizing the need to take action to end racism, would be a winner move for the Democrats.
Yet still, they aren’t doing it. I guess that’s why it’s important for true liberals to take a public stand against CRT now. There is no better (and more crucial) time for a clear anti-CRT, pro-racial equality narrative rooted in liberalism, to enter the public debate. It might be what is crucial to save the future of liberalism and liberal anti-racism.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who recently published her autobiography The TaraElla Story, in which she described the events that inspired her writing.
She is also the author of the Moral Libertarian Horizon books, which argue that liberalism is still the most moral and effective value system for Western democracies in the 21st century.
