WaPo columnist warns CRT is 'potent' in VA governor race: Dismissing parents as racist is 'doomed to backfire'
Fox News
Washington Post columnist James Hohmann sounded the alarm on critical race theory as a “potent” issue ahead of the Virginia gubernatorial race.
"What McAuliffe misses is that this term has become a stand-in for deeper-seated fears among parents about what their children are learning," Hohmann wrote. "CRT is now shorthand for a broader basket of issues relating to education. Polling shows a plurality of Virginia voters opposed to the teaching of this theory, so dismissing those who speak out against it as racist is doomed to backfire."
The columnist compared McAuliffe's dismissal of the "pervasive parental anxiety" to Democrats' underestimating the rise of the Tea Party ahead of the 2010 midterms, writing, "It was common then for many on the left to dismiss people getting engaged with right-wing politics for the first time as racist whack jobs who were being taken advantage of by Astroturf groups funded by billionaires."