Christopher Rufo details how a grassroots movement against Critical Race Theory secured policy victories in ten states covering 75 million people, forcing politicians like Josh Hawley and Marco Rubio to address the issue. He highlights Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin's 42-point voter shift after pivoting on CRT, contrasting it with Terry McAuliffe's exclusionary stance, while arguing that decentralized parental rallies effectively challenge taxpayer-funded ideologies. Ultimately, this strategy suggests that connecting cultural battles to family dynamics can successfully reverse political momentum without relying on traditional media figures. [Automatically generated summary]
And I think, too, one of the things that's really been fun is that this was a Not in the consciousness of the American public a year ago, and now you heard even today at the conference, Josh Hawley talking about it, Ted Cruz talking about it, Marco Rubio talking about it.
The people who are in positions of high politics have absorbed the information, the praxis, the language that we've uncovered and created in the last year.
And it's turning into a political issue because people care about it.
You know, when you actually talk about parents, families, real people, this engages them at that emotional level.
And when you connect with that, the sky's the limit.
In a weird way, was it almost a blessing in disguise that they started coming after kids now, the way that they did?
Of course we don't want that to be, but you see what's going on in Virginia right now, and it's like, maybe it's going to be Critical Race Theory and McAuliffe who keep saying that parents don't have a right to be involved in their children's education.
It's so over-the-top bananas that a guy like you, you must be like, thank you Terry McAuliffe, I appreciate it.
You have, two months ago, Glenn Youngkin pivoted his campaign.
He made Critical Race Theory his closing argument.
And then all of a sudden, once he started talking and connecting with people, you see that the issue among voters goes to number one.
And then you see a 42-point shift in those voters towards Junkin, because he's connecting with something that matters, and then aided by McAuliffe's gaffe, where he's saying, parents should be out of the classroom.
And then you see, wow, this is a gaffe that reveals his true thing.
He's going to walk it back.
He doubled down just yesterday on Meet the Press or one of the morning shows.
He said, oh yeah, I was completely right.
And everybody clapped.
Everybody clapped in his mind, but no voters in Virginia are clapping for that because it's one thing when you say, well, you've talked to so many people.
These are the problems in the universities.
This is the corruption in academia.
This is what's going wrong in the bureaucracy.
The average American say, yeah, that's wrong.
That's stupid.
That's corrupt.
It doesn't affect me.
But when you put that between parent and child, you're activating a different set of reactions and a different set of emotions.
And you're now getting that ferocious pushback where people who are even saying I'm on the left.
I mean, the great thing about this is it's decentralized.
It's a grassroots movement with some of us in a leadership position, but not in a top-down position.
We're providing information, we're providing vocabulary, we're providing some inspiration.
But you have, I think now, more than a thousand school districts, parents that are rallying together to fighting against this at the local level.
And we can replicate this on the different axes of this cultural battle.
So we're doing critical race theory.
We can see an analogous movement if we get some better leadership on critical gender theory.
We can see an analogous movement on all these different axes or verticals of these cultural battles that are starting to seep into mainstream culture, that are starting to affect people directly.
And I talk to people all the time in my community.
Normal, small town.
That they're really for the first time starting to ask questions.
And if we can provide a trail of answers to those questions, we can now mobilize people in a way where I sometimes feel like even this group, this is a fairly large group, but it's a very small group compared to the billions upon billions of dollars that are pumped into these ideologies in the opposition.
But we have something that I think is powerful for people and I think with Critical Racer we've demonstrated with like me, James, Lindsey, you, a couple guys and gals.