Thread by @Nate_Cohn

I said this to a few people on the phone so it may be worth adding publicly too: from the standpoint of electoral implications, one of the most important things about CRT (either IRL or caricature) is that it's a critique of liberalism from the left.

The implication: it lets certain GOPers be relatively liberal on race.
If CRT is raised to sufficient salience, GOPers don't have to rev up the base with outright conservative views--like anti-immigration or denial of police brutality--to polarize along racial attitudes

Of course, many Republicans will instead emphasize outright conservative views that alienate more voters. I'd guess one might have lost VA.
But for more moderate GOPers, CRT is a gift. They can bash the left and earn cred by merely sounding like... Obama '08

As an aside: watch some Youngkin. Obviously he's a Republican. It's *not* Obama '08. But there is that implicit aspiration to a postracial, colorblind society. It lets the GOP assert that it's the other side dividing by race. It's a big turn from the Trump era

And look, I was a HS debater--I get the instinct to simply say CRT is a legal theory, say nothing's there in public schools, etc. It would win some debates. But don't let that obscure how it's playing out in practice

And I mentioned this in a thread about Hungary (lol) a few weeks ago, but if you're someone who basically lives on Twitter you can see it in your neighborhood simply by watching these silly Twitter debates over iconoclastic Substack accounts.

There's a public group of liberal, Obama-era writers who now have entire brands built around distinguishing themselves from the left on race/culture. This is clearly potent stuff, and CRT is the first time it really got off Twitter

To the 'watch Youngkin' point:

https://twitter.com/ericbradner/status/1456065398319853574?s=20