Renewable Revolution

Maximillian Alvarez <contact@therealnews.com>

Jun 25, 2021

Before the hysteria over critical race theory, it was a war on “wokeness”; before that, it was a crusade against “political correctness”; before that, it was a battle against the “reverse racism” of affirmative action; before that, it was a feverish panic over an earlier iteration of “political correctness”; before that, it was a life-or-death struggle against the evils of “multiculturalism” … The right has long perfected the art of manufacturing fake boogeymen to justify cultural backlash and political crackdowns that do real harm. The pattern is clear, it’s predictable, and it’s consistent—because it works. Just look at how effortlessly conservative political figures and pundits mobilized their base over the past year to fear and fight the “threat” of critical race theory. In so doing, the right-wing outrage machine is sustaining the deep cultural resentments that made Trumpism attractive in the first place, even if Donald Trump himself is currently out of power and out of the limelight.

The outrage over critical race theory was never really about critical race theory as such. As Camika Royal, associate professor of Urban Education at Loyola University Maryland (and an actual CRT scholar), discusses with TRNN’s Jaisal Noor, most people who want to see CRT banned from schools and wiped off the face of the earth know very little about what CRT really is. Again, CRT itself is not the issue; it is merely an effective vehicle for channeling the political rage of everyday conservatives, and an even more effective vehicle for justifying conservative politicians’ calculated efforts to continue shaping society in their own image. On June 16, for instance, Texas became the latest state to ban the teaching of CRT in schools, following similar bans in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Florida. And this week, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis went one terrifying step further by signing legislation that, among other things, will make colleges and universities in Florida track the political leanings of students, faculty, and staff.

That’s not all. As we all know, voters in Georgia stunned the nation by delivering key presidential and Senate victories for Democrats in the last election cycle. In response, Republicans have used the hollow specter of “voter fraud” to launch a renewed assault on voting rights that, critics argue, directly targets traditionally non-Republican voters and will be especially detrimental to Black, Brown, and working-class people. In this week’s episode of The Marc Steiner Show ✨, Marc continues his ongoing investigation into the battle over voting rights by talking with State Rep. Renitta Shannon (District 84) from the Georgia House of Representatives about Georgia’s new voting law, which imposes stricter voter identification requirements and makes it even more difficult to secure and submit absentee ballots. (As of today, the Department of Justice is suing the state of Georgia over this voting law.)

Anyone who knows about me or has followed my work knows that I lived over half of my life as a conservative. It took many years of political education and deprogramming for me to emerge from the ideological fog that once had me and my family convinced, like today’s anti-CRT crusaders, that America as we know it is under attack. Whether it’s the content we’re producing at TRNN or the conversations we have with our coworkers, neighbors, and family members, all of us have a role to play in providing that political education for those who are receptive to it; we all have to work together to counteract the toxic ideological air conditioning coming from right-wing media. Because that air conditioning is constant, it’s effective, and the effects it can have on people are exceedingly dangerous.

No matter how fake or overblown they are, the “threats” posed by the right-wing outrage machine’s manufactured monsters will continue to 😈 stoke the fears, anxieties, and even hatred of real people—and that, in turn, will provide justification for more monstrous assaults on what’s left of our democracy.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support of TRNN, and stay tuned for more important stories. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other.

Maximillian Alvarez , Editor in Chief
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