In case you didn’t know, Dispatch senior editor David French was Bill Kristol’s hand-picked independent candidate to run against Donald Trump in 2016. He doesn’t write for The Bulwark but he does seem to be one of those “conserving conservatism” types of conservative. He’s been arguing on Twitter against state bans on critical race theory in public schools (seeing it as a free speech issue) and found a piece in TIME to be excellent: “The Conservative Case Against Banning Critical Race Theory.”
This is excellent: https://t.co/vpETItWIEm
— David French (@DavidAFrench) July 13, 2021
NARRATOR: It wasn’t.
— John Rabe (@johnrabeFL) July 14, 2021
"The Conservative Case Against Banning Critical Race Theory," written by a former staffer for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, columnist for the The Nation, and donor to Hillary Clinton. 👍
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) July 13, 2021
Aziz Huq’s contention is that “The case against CRT, in short, is … about wanting to avoid certain feelings of discomfort or even shame.”
Ironically then, if there is a lesson to be learned from the war on CRT, it has nothing to do with how to talk about race—and everything with how the Trumpian revolution continues to devour the principles of American conservatism.
Trump … drink!
(deep sigh)
I'm tired, man. I really wish you would publish or promote even a single thing that addresses the concerns of parents who are dealing with this shit
Please, please, please, tell us in your own words what should *not* be taught in public schools.
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) July 14, 2021
Do you have any inkling of what is going on or any defense for the parents who are genuinely shocked by what is taught to their children?
Would you put your children in a room with someone you didn't know teaching something you didn't trust for 6 hours a day?
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) July 14, 2021
Read it twice hoping I’ll find an honest good faith argument and couldn’t find one.
— James Virant (@jdvirant) July 13, 2021
This is completely missing the point. CRT based training is totally different than just presenting it as an abstract theory in a college course. A 5 minute cursory scrub of educational websites in WA state found 10 large school districts where CRT is embedded in training.
— Steve Gordon (@stevemgordon67) July 13, 2021
The case against banning CRT here seems to be based in the author’s belief in its veracity.
— Ostro Nord (@NordOstro) July 13, 2021
Can't wait for the follow-up: The Conservative Case for Teaching Critical Race Theory
— The Intersect (@mburm201) July 13, 2021
Sad thing is we all know it's only a matter of time
— Chet Steadmen (@The_Rocket_32) July 13, 2021
This was a complete misrepresentation of the conservative complaints against CRT
— Sagebrush Survivalist (@survbrospod) July 13, 2021
It just means teaching about slavery. Why don’t you want kids to learn history?
I don't want racial essentialism taught in schools, David. Using the law to prevent that is absolutely acceptable.
— with JustANobody() as rick: (@rickyteachey) July 14, 2021
Here for the ratio
— NR (@royhutchins) July 13, 2021
David French has transcended — he is now *literally* a meme
— D. Cabeza Blanca 🦖 (@la_thomistica) July 13, 2021
You have to be trolling at this point.
— GDM (@libertymattersc) July 13, 2021
Narrator: it is not, in fact, excellent.
— Howard Prime (@BluishCheckMark) July 13, 2021
Should CRT be taught in K-12?? Yes? Or no?
— Oliver (@revilowright) July 13, 2021
This piece is flawed in a number of ways, but it’s chief flaw is that it treats as equal the restricting what can be taught to children and what adults should discuss.
— S (@SammySo_So21) July 13, 2021
"For at the core of the case against CRT is instead the simple idea that people shouldn’t be made to feel uncomfortable about their advantages or others’ disadvantages."
That's bullshit and obviously so, but clearly you accept it as valid, so yeah, to you it's "excellent."
— HoodlumDoodlum (@HoodlumDoodlum) July 13, 2021
Reading this make it seems like the unstated premise is that CRT is good. The argument only works in K-12 if the discomfort in question is in some sense worthwhile, productive, etc? Because there are lots of things that would discomfit children that have zero pedagogical value.
— Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd) July 13, 2021
This seems like a straw man. Those I know who oppose CRT do so because its implemented as dogma, not theory, and its underlying framework promotes division and animosity. Alito's opinion is immaterial. I would have appreciated a honest discussion not a cop-out argument.
— James Thatcher (@JamesThatcher6) July 13, 2021
A government school with compulsory attendance is not a marketplace of ideas. The taxpayers have every right to dictate what the government employees in those schools present to their children. Arguing otherwise is foolish.
— Hans von Röhr (@Roadants) July 13, 2021
The very first line is totally false; sets up a completely false premise. This article is garbage.
— EJ Haust 🙂 (@erinhaust) July 13, 2021
From the article – bans are "about appealing to people who feel unease in their present relative advantage, but find it costly to dissect such discomfort." This is basically the Ezra Klein analysis. And now, apparently the David French analysis.
— John S Penn (@johnsamuelpenn) July 13, 2021
The article is poor. It only points out supposed hypocrisy by conservatives but fails to explain why K-12 students should be subjected to ideological teaching that stigmatizes or stereotypes them based on race, or that seeks to impose race-based collective guilt.
— Beelzebub (@Beelzeb64119785) July 13, 2021
Excellent? Hardly. It’s a lame straw man trying to associate, and discredit, everyone opposed to CRT as pro-Trump, which is nonsense. CRT is nothing more than repackaged neo-Marxism that’s replaced class with race & assigns collective guilt to individuals based on skin color
— Rich Burke (@RichBurkeSME) July 13, 2021
God bless you David, but this is a terrible article, that deliberately misses the whole point, and isn't remotely framed from a conservative viewpoint. It's not about free speech. It's about tax-funded indoctrination. Nobody cares what these teachers say in their free time.
— Joel Kurtinitis (@Joel_Kurtinitis) July 13, 2021
Please stop using the term conservative to describe libertarian positions.
— Concerned Citizen (@ConcernedChri16) July 13, 2021
There is nothing remotely conservative about this critique.
1) it tries to make the 1st amendment protect government.
2) it openly strawmans the case against CRT.— Well Redneck (@WellRedneck) July 14, 2021
Now do "Intelligent Design".
— Ben Aksar (My Pronouns? I Trust You) (@BenAksar) July 14, 2021
I'm working on a new piece now, thinking about calling it: "The Liberal Case For Banning Critical Race Theory," by Christopher F. Rufo.
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) July 13, 2021
Here’s Dan McLaughlin’s rebuttal in National Review, which is hardly part of the “Trumpian revolution.”
— Tricia Butler (@Triciabee13) July 14, 2021
If Time wants to publish a progressive academic reciting the usual progressive case against anti-CRT bills, it is certainly free to do so. But it is affirmatively deceptive to its readers to bill this as a “conservative case” when it is not written by a conservative and does not take conservative premises or arguments as legitimate. Worse, it fails to tell the reader that this is not a conservative writer. One would think that minimal standards of journalistic honesty would demand that.
It’s amazing how little some people think of parents and their ability to sniff out poison.
Related:
NEA goes all-in on critical race theory, will also tackle cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, and other forms of power and oppression https://t.co/C59qukL6YX
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) July 5, 2021
