Democrat Terry McAuliffe wasn’t the only loser in Tuesday’s gubernatorial election in Virginia. There’s Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Stacy Abrams, Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrat establishment that threw their support behind the man who is best known as Bill and Hillary Clinton’s “consigliere.”
But the standout losers of televised coverage were the two stars of MSNBC, Rachel Maddow and Nicole Wallace, who dishonestly told their viewers that one of the main galvanizing issues that propelled Republican Glenn Youngkin to victory is a myth or hallucination.
Referring to critical race theory (CRT), Maddow claimed “it’s not actually taught anywhere” and “it’s not a real thing.” Wallace cribbed the same talking point when she asserted with absolute confidence that critical race theory “isn’t real.”
It’s no surprise, of course, that two of the biggest dolts on MSNBC would pretend that the radical and polarizing educational doctrine championed by liberals doesn’t exist. But it was disappointing to see professor Larry Sabato from the University of Virginia Center for Politics join the MSNBC charade by calling CRT “a phony issue.”
Critical race theory is quite real and is a concept taught in many K-12 public schools. The most extreme version posits that all white people are privileged oppressors while Black people are oppressed victims. A more benign version (if you can call it that) argues that America is systemically racist. That is, U.S. social institutions are infected with racism that is fueled by malignant government laws and regulations premised on racial bias.
However you define CRT, it has found its way into curricula and policies in schools nationwide. It is not some imaginary theory residing only in the academic ether and “not actually taught,” as Maddow and Wallace would have you believe.
Nor is CRT a “racist dog whistle” that has “never been taught in Virginia,” as McAuliffe asserted in the waning days of his doomed campaign. Parents in the state knew first-hand that he was lying. His deceit was easily exposed.
As Fox News reported, when McAuliffe was governor, his Virginia Department of Education featured the term “Critical Race Theory” on its website and promoted its instruction in public schools. An accompanying presentation encouraged teachers to “embrace CRT” in “order to re-engineer attitudes and belief systems.” But that’s not all.
Virginia public schools received a directive from the Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2019 all but ordering teachers to adopt CRT as a vital education “tool” in classrooms. Many teachers capitulated. Students came home indoctrinated and their parents reacted with alarm.
More recently, Virginia’s Department of Education promoted a book that says “teachers must embrace theories such as critical race theory” and “be taught how to question Whiteness.” All the while, McAuliffe kept telling audiences that “it’s not taught here in Virginia…this is made-up.” He labeled it “a right-wing conspiracy.”
The only conspiracy afoot is the one advocated by liberal media CRT-deniers on MSNBC. They ignore the recent admission by education officials in Loudoun County, Virginia that CRT influences their work and that administrators had received training on critical race theory. To Maddow and Wallace, it’s all just an illusion.
Thomas Aquinas called this ignorantia affectata — a willful ignorance of the facts. Maddow and Wallace seem determined to deny reality. Without hesitation or conscience, they condoned McAuliffe’s deception by inventing one of their own.
But parents in Virginia knew better. They expressed their anger by rejecting both the lie and the liar in the only way available to them —at the ballot box.
Too bad MSNBC anchors can’t be voted off the air. Although judging by the network’s abysmal ratings, viewers are accomplishing the same thing.
