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- Trump told supporters that eliminating CRT from schools is a “matter of national survival.”
- His comments were interpreted by one critic as a call for violence like the US Capitol siege.
- Others say he’s speaking the truth about CRT or just trying to stay relevant.
A Trump critic fears his latest comments about critical race theory could be interpreted by his most ardent supporters as a call for a violent uprising like the January 6, 2021, Capitol siege.
Former President Donald Trump’s message that eliminating critical race theory from schools is a “matter of national survival” puts “a target on the back of every educator” who teaches the truth about history and systemic inequalities, Sumi Cho, of the African American Policy Forum, wrote in an email to Insider.
His Saturday speech during a South Carolina rally, she said, promotes “anti-democratic vigilante violence,” just as his call to “fight like hell” stoked white power militias and paramilitary extremists who breached the US Capitol last year to try to overturn the 2020 election results.
Depending on the listener, Trump’s comments were interpreted as either a statement of truth, an attempt to stay relevant, or, to Cho, as a call to arms from someone who knows his followers will understand his message as “white national survival.”
“This entreaty is no standard campaign slogan,” said Cho, who leads AAFP’s #TruthBeTold campaign, promoting accurate education on racial issues. “It must be read in the context of our recent history of violent insurrection following Trump’s exhortations to his base.”
She added that his rhetoric “seeks to activate the lowest common denominator of those with white grievance, antisemitic, anti-feminist, and anti-LGBTQ fantasies to threaten the physical, emotional and mental health of our most vulnerable students and their parents and educators.”
Since late in his administration, Trump has been voicing his disdain for critical race theory, the study of racism in US laws. He issued an executive order prohibiting certain diversity training in the federal government and created a “1776 Commission” to promote “patriotic” education in schools, where he says CRT is being taught. Educators say that’s false.
He has previously called the teaching of CRT “psychological abuse” for children and “a program for national suicide” because he believes that it portrays America as”systemically evil,” according to commentary he authored in June.
But his comments on Saturday caught wide attention. “The fate of any nation ultimately depends upon the willingness of its citizens to lay down, and they must do this, lay down their very lives to defend their country,” he said. “If we allow the Marxists and communists and socialists to teach our children to hate America, there will be no one left to defend our flag or to protect our great country or its freedom.”
—Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 13, 2022
Most headlines described this as a call to arms, but some conservatives heard his words differently – and said he is correct.
“If those pushing this toxicity are not rooted out of our classrooms, school boards and education bureaucracies, then we will indeed have generations of Americans who incorrectly believe our nation is bad and not worth defending,” said Adam Waldeck, president of the 1776 Action group that supports laws banning CRT. “Fortunately there’s a rapidly growing movement of people from every political stripe and background dedicated to ensuring that doesn’t happen.”
Political consultant Jeff Roe is a former campaign advisor to Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who kept Trump at a distance during his campaign but who has also targeted critical race theory. Roe said he agrees with Trump and doesn’t believe the comments encourage violence.
“Republicans feel like the country is going to shit right now and that American pride is waning,” he said. “Part of American exceptionalism is being taken away – it’s being purposely taken away.”
The cultural fight that’s most meaningful in Republican politics is the question of who will keep President Joe Biden and the progressive left from “taking away the things that we hold most dear,” he said, adding that Trump is using CRT as a way to get to that point.
“That’s the core of the Republicans right now,” Roe said. “We are freaked out how fast it feels like our country is sliding and we blame Biden and Schumer and Pelosi.”
Cho, however, said it’s clear that Trump is calling on the “same white power militias and paramilitary extremists who breached the Capitol to ‘lay down their lives'” to fight critical race theory. His rhetoric is “putting a target on the back of educators or anyone who wants to discuss our full history, which includes systemic discrimination and inequalities, and their ongoing effects,” she said.
Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, a Trump critic, said Trump’s “dramatic gaslighting and fake patriotism is unserious.”
“‘National survival’?” he said in an email. “Lest we forget, HE was the one who fomented an insurrection against America; not CRT.”
Trump has been making down-ballot endorsements as he rewards candidates who continue to reject the 2020 election results. And he has been dropping hints left and right about running for president in 2024.
Some of his “divisive” rhetoric is about staying relevant, said Lucy Caldwell, a former Republican who managed former Rep. Joe Walsh’s 2020 presidential campaign.
“He’s not governing, he’s not in power,” she said. “He’s raising a lot of money but he’s not engaged in any race. It serves Trump, too.”
Trump always stirs emotions, and the country is addicted to his statements, said Doug Heye, a longtime Republican strategist. His base will love his comments, and if it inflames the left, that’s even better from his standpoint, he said.
“Trump is like a professional wrestler,” he said. “If you boo him or you cheer him, it means you’re giving him attention, and that’s ultimately what he seeks.”
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