Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / The Poisoning of the American Mind ft. Christopher Rufo

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The Poisoning of the American Mind ft. Christopher Rufo · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Parents across the country have been storming school board meetings
0:04
Speaker 1: to demand an end to critical race theory in the classroom,
0:08
Speaker 1: and prominent leftists have responded in one of two ways.
0:12
Speaker 1: Some of them have defended critical race theory is a
0:15
Speaker 1: good and important academic movement, and others have denied that
0:19
Speaker 1: critical race theory exists at all. And actually many prominent
0:24
Speaker 1: leftists have done both at the same time. Critical race
0:26
Speaker 1: theory doesn't exist, but it's also terrific and wonderful and
0:29
Speaker 1: very important. Well, here to help us break it down,
0:32
Speaker 1: we have one of the nation's top experts on critical
0:35
Speaker 1: race theory. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back
0:44
Speaker 1: to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I am Michael Knowles, and
0:47
Speaker 1: this week I am joined not only by the Senator himself,
0:51
Speaker 1: but also by Christopher Ruffo, who is senior Fellow at
0:55
Speaker 1: the Manhattan Institute and who is largely responsible for many
1:00
Speaker 1: people around the country waking up to critical race theory
1:03
Speaker 1: and the associated leftist ideological movements that are poisoning the
1:08
Speaker 1: minds of young America. All right, you understand my opinion
1:12
Speaker 1: of CRT, but I want to take a somewhat balanced
1:14
Speaker 1: perspective Chris, thank you so much for being here. It's
1:17
Speaker 1: great to be with you. So, Senator, you and I
1:20
Speaker 1: were talking not so long ago about what CRT was
1:23
Speaker 1: like back when you were a student in law school,
1:26
Speaker 1: because it did begin in the law schools, but it
1:29
Speaker 1: didn't end in the law schools. Well, that's right, and
1:32
Speaker 1: Harvard Law School is really where it originated, and unfortunately
1:37
Speaker 1: it is metastasized and spread and Chris has done a
1:41
Speaker 1: terrific job of chronicling where and when it has spread
1:47
Speaker 1: and how it's manifesting. And so maybe one thing to
1:51
Speaker 1: start this conversation, Chris tell us, does critical race theory exist?
1:57
Speaker 1: Because if I turn on MSNBC, I see a lot
1:59
Speaker 1: of people screaming at me that there is no such thing. Yeah,
2:03
Speaker 1: it definitely exists. And I've noticed a lot of folks
2:06
Speaker 1: on the left, especially in places like MSNBC, equating critical
2:09
Speaker 1: race theory with Bigfoot, with the Lockness monster. It seems
2:13
Speaker 1: to be impossible to find only in the fevered imaginations
2:16
Speaker 1: of conservatives. But critical race theorists, unfortunately for them, left
2:20
Speaker 1: a very heavy paper trail. If you look at the
2:23
Speaker 1: original academic writings in the late eighties and early nineties
2:25
Speaker 1: all the way now to K through twelve schools where
2:28
Speaker 1: I've meticulously documented not just people's experiences and people's opinions,
2:34
Speaker 1: but actual PDFs, videos, documents, and hard evidence of these
2:39
Speaker 1: really atrocious ideas that are not just so give us
2:44
Speaker 1: an example of what's being taught to kids in schools. Sure,
2:47
Speaker 1: I mean in Kupertino, California, they forced third graders, kids
2:51
Speaker 1: that are about eight years old, to deconstruct their racial
2:54
Speaker 1: and sexual identities and then rank themselves according to a
2:57
Speaker 1: racial hierarchy. In fifth grade, in Buffalo and Philadelphia, they
3:03
Speaker 1: were teaching that quote all white people contribute to systemic racism.
3:07
Speaker 1: They were forcing kids to hold an assimilated black power
3:11
Speaker 1: rally and the auditorium chanting for Angela Davis to be
3:14
Speaker 1: freed from prison. In a public high school in New York,
3:17
Speaker 1: they sent out an email to white parents saying that
3:20
Speaker 1: and hold on, Chris, let me stop you on that
3:22
Speaker 1: Angela Davis. For someone who doesn't know who she is,
3:27
Speaker 1: Who's Angela Davis? You know? In many ways, Angela Davis
3:30
Speaker 1: was the kind of prototype of critical race theory. She
3:33
Speaker 1: was the doctoral student of the kind of founding American
3:37
Speaker 1: critical theorist named Herbert marcusa who advocated for revolution, who
3:41
Speaker 1: condoned even violence. Angela Davis was his student, steeped in
3:45
Speaker 1: Marxist ideology, who eventually was provided weapons for a hostage
3:52
Speaker 1: situation in a courtroom. She was a member of the
3:54
Speaker 1: Communist Party. She advocated for the overthrow of the United States,
3:57
Speaker 1: abolishing capitalism, and a lot of the ideas that during
4:01
Speaker 1: Davis's time we're really on the radical left fringe have
4:04
Speaker 1: now moved not only into mainstream university discourse, but even
4:08
Speaker 1: into public K through twelve schools under this guise of
4:12
Speaker 1: critical race theory. So, Chris, you know, I want to
4:15
Speaker 1: have a good answer for the leftists who have now
4:19
Speaker 1: made it seems that they're speaking in Unison. After spending
4:22
Speaker 1: weeks defending CRT, now they're denying it, and they are
4:24
Speaker 1: saying that almost by definition, critical race theory is only
4:30
Speaker 1: taught and discussed in law schools, and that the things
4:33
Speaker 1: that are going on in K through twelve maybe they're
4:36
Speaker 1: anti white, maybe they're bigoted, maybe they're vicious and far left,
4:40
Speaker 1: but whatever it is, they're not the same thing as
4:43
Speaker 1: critical race theory. What do you say to people who
4:46
Speaker 1: are making that argument. Yeah, I mean it's important. Like
4:49
Speaker 1: all Marxist ideologies, you have theory and praxis or kind
4:54
Speaker 1: of general ideas, and then the practical implementation of those
4:57
Speaker 1: ideas that's embedded within critical race theory. So what it
5:01
Speaker 1: looks like in a scholarly paper. Obviously they're not teaching
5:03
Speaker 1: kindergarteners how to read the Harvard Law Review, but what
5:06
Speaker 1: they are teaching kindergarteners could think can be thought of
5:09
Speaker 1: as applied critical race theory. So I'm just gonna lay
5:12
Speaker 1: out some key terms, and these are really kind of
5:14
Speaker 1: red flag terms that if they're teaching in a K
5:17
Speaker 1: through twelve school, it's almost undoubtedly informed by critical race
5:21
Speaker 1: theory and using the principles of critical race theory. So
5:24
Speaker 1: if you hear whiteness, white privilege, white fragility, oppress or oppressed, intersectionality,
5:30
Speaker 1: systemic racism, spirit murder, equity, anti racism, collective guilt, or
5:34
Speaker 1: affinity spaces which are racially segregated training programs and educational lectures,
5:41
Speaker 1: all of those key terms which you hear in hundreds,
5:44
Speaker 1: if not thousands, of school districts across the country, even
5:47
Speaker 1: if they don't say under the heading critical race theory.
5:50
Speaker 1: Those are all ideas that are derived from critical race
5:53
Speaker 1: theory and then applied in the classroom through critical pedagogy. Okay,
5:57
Speaker 1: so Chris back up a little bit and run through
6:00
Speaker 1: those terms. A lot of those terms we may or
6:02
Speaker 1: may not have heard of. But what do they mean?
6:04
Speaker 1: To go through them one at a time. Yeah, So
6:07
Speaker 1: I'll first take the trio of terms related to whiteness.
6:10
Speaker 1: It's this idea that people of different racial categories can
6:14
Speaker 1: be reduced to a racial essence, this almost metaphysical property
6:18
Speaker 1: of whiteness, the condition of being white, and that includes,
6:22
Speaker 1: by definition, in their theories, white privilege, the idea that
6:26
Speaker 1: society is tilted towards you. You are embedded by simply existing,
6:30
Speaker 1: You have vested property, interests, and advantages because of the
6:34
Speaker 1: color of your skin. And also white fragility, the idea
6:36
Speaker 1: that any reaction against something like critical race theory doesn't
6:40
Speaker 1: come from principled agreement or dissent, it comes from the
6:43
Speaker 1: kind of the kind of psychopathology of being white. That
6:48
Speaker 1: you are fragile, that you are going to react out
6:51
Speaker 1: of rage, out of other sorts of emotions, to any
6:54
Speaker 1: challenge to your identity. And then I think a second bucket.
6:58
Speaker 1: You have to look at oppressor and oppressed. This is
7:01
Speaker 1: Marxian conflict theory, you know, derived in the nineteenth century,
7:06
Speaker 1: but now looking at that through a racial lens, the
7:08
Speaker 1: idea that the oppressors are not you know, the capitalist
7:12
Speaker 1: landlords and ownership class, but actually a racial category of whites.
7:16
Speaker 1: The oppressed are black Americans and people of color. And
7:20
Speaker 1: then intersectionality basically takes this kind of uh, you know,
7:24
Speaker 1: kind of shake them up approach to this oppressor an
7:26
Speaker 1: oppressed distinction, saying all the different racial categories, religion, language, disability, status,
7:32
Speaker 1: your body mass index, even are all vestiges of this capitalist,
7:37
Speaker 1: white supremacist patriarchy that oppresses people. And then this is
7:42
Speaker 1: then the kind of antidote that they profess is something
7:46
Speaker 1: like equity or anti racism. And Ibraham Kendy, who I
7:50
Speaker 1: think is the kind of critical race guru of our time,
7:53
Speaker 1: defines anti racism, defines equity and very simple terms, he says,
7:57
Speaker 1: the cure for past discrimination is present dis corimination, the
8:01
Speaker 1: idea that being, you know, we don't want to have
8:03
Speaker 1: equality under the law, we don't want to have color blindness,
8:06
Speaker 1: we don't want to have meritocracy. We want to have
8:08
Speaker 1: a legal regime that favors people on the basis of race,
8:11
Speaker 1: that tips the scales to someone on the basis of race,
8:14
Speaker 1: and even in many cases in critical race theory actually
8:18
Speaker 1: abolishes the system of capitalism redistributes land and wealth on
8:22
Speaker 1: the basis of racial identity. So let me break down
8:25
Speaker 1: because there are a number of concepts in there, like
8:27
Speaker 1: like you mentioned equity. Now, equity sounds very similar to equality,
8:32
Speaker 1: and equality is a good thing. I mean, we are
8:35
Speaker 1: a nation that was built under the principle of equality
8:39
Speaker 1: under the law. But when you hear the critical race
8:43
Speaker 1: theorists talking about equity, they don't mean equality. What's the
8:47
Speaker 1: difference between the two. It's a really key difference. And
8:49
Speaker 1: I think that they've adapted the term equity really to
8:53
Speaker 1: play a language game to trick most Americans to think
8:56
Speaker 1: it's just equality two point zero. It's just a better
8:59
Speaker 1: version of what we had before. But the philosophical premise
9:03
Speaker 1: of these of these ideas is quite different. Equality, as
9:07
Speaker 1: you said, seeks to provide equal protection under the law.
9:11
Speaker 1: It protects the individual's right to things like private property,
9:15
Speaker 1: to freedom of speech, to political participation or representation so
9:19
Speaker 1: equality says you can't discriminate. Equity says you must discriminate.
9:24
Speaker 1: Is that am I following this right? That's right? And
9:27
Speaker 1: the key difference is that equality looks to you as
9:30
Speaker 1: an individual and says that the unit, the key unit
9:33
Speaker 1: of measurement, analysis and policy is the individual human being
9:36
Speaker 1: who should be protected from discrimination. Equity says, we don't
9:39
Speaker 1: want to look at society as as a collection of individuals.
9:43
Speaker 1: We want to look as society as a collection of
9:45
Speaker 1: competing racial groups, and we need to achieve the equality
9:49
Speaker 1: of outcomes between those racial groups by whatever means necessary,
9:53
Speaker 1: including racial discrimination which they call positive discrimination or affirmative action.
9:59
Speaker 1: Which is so And Chris, let me stope you because
10:02
Speaker 1: one thing you said there that I think is really
10:04
Speaker 1: important as you talk about the language games and in
10:07
Speaker 1: the world of critical race theory, I mean, the left
10:10
Speaker 1: is very good and creative when it comes to language
10:12
Speaker 1: and the similarity between equity and equality. It's like, well, gosh,
10:16
Speaker 1: who could be against equality, which I guess means everyone
10:19
Speaker 1: has to be for what they call equity, which is
10:21
Speaker 1: discriminate based on race, which is the exact opposite of
10:25
Speaker 1: what we should be doing. But but they do a
10:26
Speaker 1: similar thing with systematic racism. And when you say so,
10:33
Speaker 1: systematic racism is different from racism, like like nobody disputes
10:38
Speaker 1: racism is real. There are bigots in the world. There
10:42
Speaker 1: are bigots, There are white bigots, there are black bigots.
10:45
Speaker 1: There are bigots of every race and creed you can find. Now,
10:50
Speaker 1: that is a very different thing from the notion of
10:52
Speaker 1: systematic racism, which is that the system is fundamentally racist,
10:57
Speaker 1: whether it's the criminal justice system, whether it is the
11:00
Speaker 1: capitalist system, whether it is whatever the systems we have
11:04
Speaker 1: in the country that they are built into their structure racist.
11:09
Speaker 1: That's very different. But the problem is when someone's listening
11:12
Speaker 1: to it and they hear systematic racism, they think, well, yeah,
11:15
Speaker 1: racism exists, so that must be right. And when they
11:18
Speaker 1: hear someone denying it, they say, well, gosh, that guy's
11:21
Speaker 1: alone because he says there's no racism. How much mileage
11:27
Speaker 1: do they get out of these language games trying to
11:30
Speaker 1: make something invidious sound like it's innocuous. Yeah, I mean
11:36
Speaker 1: they've been very successful with it, and I think that's
11:38
Speaker 1: why we have to be very vigorous in creating language
11:42
Speaker 1: and also subverting their language. So systemic racism is very interesting.
11:46
Speaker 1: It achieves really two objectives for them simultaneously. One, it
11:50
Speaker 1: assumes that any disparity and outcome through any kind of
11:53
Speaker 1: statistical measure where things aren't equal in the ways that
11:56
Speaker 1: they want them to be equal kind of makes the
12:01
Speaker 1: case for racism as the original cause of everything. So
12:05
Speaker 1: what it tries to do is basically say that all
12:07
Speaker 1: of these systems are racist because they produce unequal outcomes
12:11
Speaker 1: by whatever measure that they're measuring of the day. But
12:15
Speaker 1: the second thing that it does is it also implies
12:18
Speaker 1: a solution. If something is systematically racist, the only solution
12:22
Speaker 1: is to tear down that system. So they try to
12:24
Speaker 1: put this systematic lens, institutional lens, systemic lens on all
12:29
Speaker 1: of the various categories, whether it's the constitution, whether it's law,
12:32
Speaker 1: whether it's private property, whether it's the Civil Rights Act,
12:35
Speaker 1: and nondiscrimination. And then they try to say, basically the
12:38
Speaker 1: only solution, because we've tried civil rights, we've tried equality,
12:43
Speaker 1: we've tried everything that they said was going to lead
12:46
Speaker 1: to greater equality, it all has to go. And I
12:49
Speaker 1: think at heart, if you look at critical race theory,
12:51
Speaker 1: it is anti constitutional, it is explicitly anti Fourteenth Amendment,
12:57
Speaker 1: the idea of equal protection under the law. It's explicit
13:00
Speaker 1: the anti capitalist, so our economic system has to go.
13:03
Speaker 1: And if you go on down the line, you find
13:05
Speaker 1: that people that the critical race theoris don't want to
13:08
Speaker 1: reform the United States. They want to overturn the United States.
13:13
Speaker 1: They want to kind of fundamentally destroy the institutions and
13:17
Speaker 1: the hope that something better will emerge. So the question
13:21
Speaker 1: that keeps striking me because I think absolutely your right, Senator.
13:24
Speaker 1: I mean, you actually saw this ideology develop at the
13:29
Speaker 1: place where it developed in the years that it was developing,
13:32
Speaker 1: and Chris, you've traced that out very well, and I agree.
13:35
Speaker 1: I think the argument now that's being made on the
13:37
Speaker 1: left that actually, when educators in high schools and middle
13:41
Speaker 1: schools repeat all of the various axioms of critical race theory,
13:45
Speaker 1: that that somehow is totally different from critical race theory.
13:48
Speaker 1: I think it's a kind of weak argue. It's actually
13:50
Speaker 1: a nominalist argument that basically just tries to run away
13:53
Speaker 1: from words having any meaning at all as general principles.
13:56
Speaker 1: But I am still left with this question, how did
14:00
Speaker 1: critical race theory developed in the nineteen eighties at Harvard
14:03
Speaker 1: Law School. How did it go from this kooky fringe
14:06
Speaker 1: movement at one law school, a very disreputable law school
14:10
Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned, by the way, But how
14:14
Speaker 1: did it go from there to every system of education
14:18
Speaker 1: in the country. Yeah, I mean that's a big question,
14:21
Speaker 1: and I think you can look at a couple different
14:23
Speaker 1: methods of transmission. I think probably the most important one
14:27
Speaker 1: is graduate schools of education. So there's a large body
14:31
Speaker 1: of academic research that they think of as the critical
14:33
Speaker 1: turn and education. So taking critical legal studies, taking critical theory,
14:38
Speaker 1: taking critical race theory, and applying it to education, and
14:41
Speaker 1: the idea being that if you can shape a curriculum
14:44
Speaker 1: and shape a pedagogy to apply the ideas of critical
14:48
Speaker 1: race theory to kids, you're going to bring up a
14:50
Speaker 1: generation that can solve some of these problems such as
14:53
Speaker 1: white privilege and white fragility, systemic racism, etc. And if
14:58
Speaker 1: you look at graduate at schools of education, I mean
15:01
Speaker 1: they are steeped in this stuff. The kind of foundational
15:05
Speaker 1: textbook in most graduate schools of education is the pedagogy
15:09
Speaker 1: of the oppressed by the pedagogies Paulo Freira, and then
15:13
Speaker 1: they take all of these ideas from critical theory and
15:16
Speaker 1: then do essentially critical race theory the practice portion the practice.
15:21
Speaker 1: And then you have I don't know, thousands or maybe
15:23
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of people who are graduating from these schools.
15:27
Speaker 1: This is really the only framework that they know, and
15:30
Speaker 1: they're being put into place in school districts around the country.
15:33
Speaker 1: And one thing that I've seen is that older teachers
15:35
Speaker 1: are not teaching this. Older teachers are in many cases
15:39
Speaker 1: the people who leak documents to me because they're saying,
15:41
Speaker 1: this is tearing our institutions apart. But if you're under
15:44
Speaker 1: thirty five and you're a new public school teacher or
15:47
Speaker 1: within the first five ten years of career of your career,
15:50
Speaker 1: this is the water that you swim in. This is
15:53
Speaker 1: what you're teaching, this is how you're designing your curriculum.
15:56
Speaker 1: And then you have a network of nonprofits of critical
16:00
Speaker 1: race theory based training programs and diversity lecturers and contractors
16:05
Speaker 1: that have created an economic ecosystem where they can attach
16:08
Speaker 1: themselves to public institutions like school districts, and then push
16:12
Speaker 1: these ideas from that fringe all the way into in
16:16
Speaker 1: some cases, a kindergarten classroom, and I think it. You know,
16:21
Speaker 1: in a way, you have to give these folks respect.
16:24
Speaker 1: They've had a thirty year plan to get their ideas
16:27
Speaker 1: into the institutions, and in many ways they're just on
16:30
Speaker 1: the cusp of success unless we stop them. So, Chris,
16:34
Speaker 1: one very useful thing I think you've laid out for
16:36
Speaker 1: folks listening or watching the pod. If you're a parent,
16:39
Speaker 1: if you have kids. Heidi and I are girls are
16:41
Speaker 1: ten and thirteen, if you're looking at their curriculum in school,
16:45
Speaker 1: they're buzzwords that you want to be looking for. Things
16:48
Speaker 1: like white privilege, or whiteness or white fragility, which are
16:52
Speaker 1: weird concepts. Things like anti racism, which I have to say,
16:57
Speaker 1: by the way, I have to step back in marvel
17:01
Speaker 1: at the cleverness of the propaganda because anti racism, I think, well, absolutely,
17:07
Speaker 1: I'm anti racism. Racism is horrible and evil and bigotry,
17:11
Speaker 1: and so of course I'm against that. But anti racism
17:16
Speaker 1: is a code word that doesn't actually mean being against racism.
17:20
Speaker 1: It means being a racist explicitly and discriminating number one
17:26
Speaker 1: against white kids, discriminating number two, viewing the system in
17:34
Speaker 1: a way that it is inherently biased and wanting to
17:37
Speaker 1: tear it down. And you know, we talked a minute
17:39
Speaker 1: ago about how all of this originated in Marxism. What's
17:44
Speaker 1: interesting is it didn't just originate in Marxism. The endpoint
17:48
Speaker 1: that this curriculum is designed to teach the kids to
17:51
Speaker 1: go to is Marxism itself. It is designed to tear
17:54
Speaker 1: down capitalism and replace it with communism, replace it with
17:58
Speaker 1: Marxism with government power, although on racial lines. And is
18:04
Speaker 1: that a fair characterization? Yeah, I think it is. And
18:08
Speaker 1: one of the things that I've noticed in my research.
18:10
Speaker 1: You look at critical race theory, and you look at
18:12
Speaker 1: their literature, you look at their academic work, and they're
18:15
Speaker 1: always focused on pointing out problems. And I've always asked,
18:19
Speaker 1: in the back of my mind, well, what do you want?
18:20
Speaker 1: What are you proposing? What kind of policy solution are
18:24
Speaker 1: you suggesting would solve these problems? And in every case,
18:27
Speaker 1: it is active discrimination, this idea that the that equality
18:33
Speaker 1: of outcomes must be achieved through government action and government force.
18:36
Speaker 1: It's skepticism about private property, saying that private property actually
18:40
Speaker 1: is a form of whiteness, that actually private property and
18:44
Speaker 1: white identity are inextricably linked, and in order to reduce
18:47
Speaker 1: whiteness and white privilege, you have to actually change property arrangements.
18:52
Speaker 1: And then it's someone like Ebrahm Kendy again who proposes
18:55
Speaker 1: a federal Department of Anti Racism that's unaccountable to voters,
18:59
Speaker 1: unaccountable to Congress, on accountled to the executive. And what
19:02
Speaker 1: would that department do. It would have the power to
19:06
Speaker 1: veto nullify or abolish any law at any level of government,
19:09
Speaker 1: and silence political speech that's not deemed anti racist. So
19:13
Speaker 1: when you put all of these disparate parts together, you
19:16
Speaker 1: have again kind of the end of private property. You
19:20
Speaker 1: have redistribution of land and wealth along racial lines, and
19:22
Speaker 1: then you have an omnipotent federal bureaucracy with the power
19:26
Speaker 1: to suppress speech and the power to invalidate law outside
19:29
Speaker 1: of the confines of our federalist system. It starts looking
19:33
Speaker 1: a lot like a Marxist twentieth century style state. And
19:37
Speaker 1: you should keep in mind, Look, I got to say
19:38
Speaker 1: that that as you describe the Federal Department of Anti Racism,
19:42
Speaker 1: that is terrifying, and it's not just Marxist, it's profoundly
19:46
Speaker 1: anti democratic. To have some government bureaucrat with the ability
19:50
Speaker 1: to set aside any law he or she doesn't like
19:53
Speaker 1: and to silence and censor speech. But this nonsense is
19:59
Speaker 1: not us being taught in the schools, although being taught
20:01
Speaker 1: in the schools is dangerous. It's also being taught in
20:05
Speaker 1: corporate America. It's also being taught in the federal government.
20:07
Speaker 1: It's also being taught in the military. Is a right, Yeah,
20:10
Speaker 1: that's right. I've reported on all of those domains. I mean,
20:13
Speaker 1: started last year with a series of reports I did
20:15
Speaker 1: on the federal government. So give us some examples. Yeah,
20:18
Speaker 1: so give you some examples. You know. The example that
20:22
Speaker 1: I like to tell as Sandia National Laboratories, which is
20:25
Speaker 1: a federally affiliated laboratory that designs America's nuclear arsenal, so
20:30
Speaker 1: the actual nuclear weapons that we have to keep our
20:33
Speaker 1: country safe. They sent their white male executives to a
20:37
Speaker 1: three day white male privilege re education camp. They sent
20:41
Speaker 1: them to a resort down in New Mexico, and they
20:44
Speaker 1: had them deconstruct their white male identities. They had them
20:47
Speaker 1: read and recite white male privilege statements, and they had
20:51
Speaker 1: them right letters of apology to fictitious women and people
20:54
Speaker 1: of color. The idea is that breaking down their identity
20:59
Speaker 1: in order for them to be kind of softer and
21:02
Speaker 1: more open to absorbing this ideology. And some of these things,
21:06
Speaker 1: if you look at them, you say, well, you know,
21:08
Speaker 1: this is one crazy training, this is this is something
21:12
Speaker 1: that was probably well intentioned, but it went awry. But
21:15
Speaker 1: then I started doing reporting at I think now more
21:17
Speaker 1: than a dozen federal agencies. I'm sure it's now almost
21:20
Speaker 1: every federal agency, including very important places like the Treasury Department,
21:24
Speaker 1: like Homeland Security, like the FBI, like West Point Military Academy.
21:28
Speaker 1: All of these these these institutions that most Americans had
21:33
Speaker 1: faith in, have been really really infected with this ideology
21:39
Speaker 1: and really have started to adopt it as their own.
21:42
Speaker 1: And I think over the short term it makes for
21:44
Speaker 1: a splashy headline, but over the long term, it's something
21:47
Speaker 1: that is very dangerous for our country. So Chris, let
21:51
Speaker 1: me play Devil's advocate for a second here. This past week,
21:56
Speaker 1: General Mark milly is, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
21:58
Speaker 1: of Staff, was testifying in Congress and made a lot
22:02
Speaker 1: of news. And I know General Milly well. I like him.
22:05
Speaker 1: He's a Princeton grad. He actually is the only general
22:08
Speaker 1: officer in the military. That is a Princeton grad and
22:11
Speaker 1: I got to know him when he was the commanding
22:12
Speaker 1: officer of Fort Hood in Texas, when he was a
22:15
Speaker 1: three star general, before he had gone up to be
22:18
Speaker 1: hit Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. But but General Milly
22:20
Speaker 1: kind of vented and he was under questioning in the
22:24
Speaker 1: House and he said he was offended that people were
22:27
Speaker 1: criticizing the military as woke. And the argument he gave is,
22:32
Speaker 1: I've read Karl Marx, but that doesn't make me a communist.
22:35
Speaker 1: So what's the response to, Well, what's wrong with reading
22:39
Speaker 1: some of this stuff? Yeah, I mean there's a really
22:42
Speaker 1: important distinction, right. It's like I read a lot of
22:45
Speaker 1: critical race theory. I think it's important to read. I
22:47
Speaker 1: think it's totally fine to read in the context of
22:49
Speaker 1: a college classroom. But there's there's there's two different ways
22:53
Speaker 1: you can approach it. You can approach it as one
22:55
Speaker 1: perspective of among many, where you have a reason debate,
22:58
Speaker 1: where you look at its flaws, you look at it
23:00
Speaker 1: its benefits, and then you try to come to a
23:02
Speaker 1: better understanding of the world by comparing a variety of subjects.
23:06
Speaker 1: The other way is to really use it as a
23:08
Speaker 1: form of indoctrination, to compelling people to believe, to forcing
23:12
Speaker 1: them to believe in this, to presenting it not as
23:14
Speaker 1: one perspective among many, but as the truth as dogmat
23:18
Speaker 1: So there's a difference between say, West Point having a
23:21
Speaker 1: survey class of you know, different views of race in
23:26
Speaker 1: America and including this among many different views, and also
23:29
Speaker 1: reading doctor Martin Luther King Junior and Booker T. Washington
23:33
Speaker 1: and Frederick Douglas, and in that context a survey class,
23:36
Speaker 1: this could be reasonably incute included as among the views
23:41
Speaker 1: there are. That's very different from say a training program
23:45
Speaker 1: that you're forcing young eighteen nineteen twenty year old soldiers
23:49
Speaker 1: and sailors and airmen and marines to complete this training
23:52
Speaker 1: program in order to be able to serve in the military. Yeah,
23:56
Speaker 1: that's right. And I think from some of the documents
23:58
Speaker 1: that I've seen from within the United States military, it's
24:01
Speaker 1: not presenting it as a survey. It's not presenting it
24:04
Speaker 1: as one perspective of many. It's saying this is the
24:06
Speaker 1: ideology of the US Army or the Marine Corps or
24:09
Speaker 1: West Point Military Academy. These are the books you need
24:12
Speaker 1: to read. It's Robin D'Angelo, it's Ebram Kendy. It's this
24:16
Speaker 1: new gospel of critical race theory that they're presenting as
24:20
Speaker 1: this kind of thing that you need to believe. Not again,
24:23
Speaker 1: a competing perspective. I think it's also very different when
24:26
Speaker 1: you're talking about kids, when you're talking about K through
24:29
Speaker 1: twelve education, where again it's different. It's presented not as
24:34
Speaker 1: an academic subject, but it's presented as a kind of
24:38
Speaker 1: method of indoctrination. And I think that's why you're seeing
24:40
Speaker 1: millions of parents rise up to say, hey, look, we
24:43
Speaker 1: want to have a discussion about these issues. We want
24:45
Speaker 1: to work on these issues, but what we don't want
24:48
Speaker 1: is a one sided, manipulative kind of Marxism based curriculum
24:53
Speaker 1: that is being forced down our children's throats, despite the
24:56
Speaker 1: fact that the parents, the people who actually are invested
24:59
Speaker 1: in these school and paying for these schools, disagree with
25:02
Speaker 1: this stuff and it violates their conscience. And it's worth
25:05
Speaker 1: pointing out a third grade classroom is not exactly a
25:07
Speaker 1: free marketplace of ideas. You know, whatever you might have
25:11
Speaker 1: in a graduate seminar or an even undergraduate really, when
25:15
Speaker 1: you're what you're teaching to eight year olds is this
25:18
Speaker 1: is true and this is false. Right, You're giving them
25:20
Speaker 1: rudimentary education so that they can think later on in
25:24
Speaker 1: more complex ways. And I think you're absolutely right, Chris.
25:26
Speaker 1: This is not. Though there are many defenders of CRT
25:30
Speaker 1: who are trying to pretend that this is just one
25:32
Speaker 1: idea among many in a free marketplace of ideas, it's
25:34
Speaker 1: not how it's being taught. And as you also point out,
25:37
Speaker 1: as Senator, the fact that this has made it into
25:40
Speaker 1: the US military, the fact that officers are being told
25:43
Speaker 1: to imbibe this stuff and are being encouraged to treat
25:47
Speaker 1: it as the gospel truth rather than just as some
25:49
Speaker 1: crazy idea among many, the fact that this is infiltrated
25:52
Speaker 1: corporate boardrooms, that this has infiltrated so many institutions in
25:56
Speaker 1: our country. It does make you almost lose hope. And
25:59
Speaker 1: I wonder is there any glimmer of hope here. It's
26:02
Speaker 1: very strange that I think probably the majority of Americans
26:06
Speaker 1: disagree with this kind of stuff. You see a lot
26:08
Speaker 1: of parents rushing to their school boards, and yet all
26:11
Speaker 1: of the powerful institutions seem uniformly to be pushing it. Yeah,
26:16
Speaker 1: I'm an optimist. I'm very hopeful about this, and I
26:18
Speaker 1: think that what I'm seeing on the ground, what I'm
26:21
Speaker 1: seeing in hundreds of emails every day, is people are
26:24
Speaker 1: people from all walks of life, people from a variety
26:27
Speaker 1: of racial backgrounds, people from all over the country that
26:29
Speaker 1: are starting to rise up to say, wait a minute,
26:32
Speaker 1: I don't want this in my kids school, I don't
26:34
Speaker 1: want this in my church, I don't want this in
26:36
Speaker 1: my local government. I don't want this being pushed by
26:38
Speaker 1: the US Congress. And what I think we're seeing every
26:41
Speaker 1: day is a new video of hundreds of parents showing
26:44
Speaker 1: up at a school board meeting, getting activated, really pushing
26:47
Speaker 1: on this issue. And you know, I talk with a
26:49
Speaker 1: lot of local and state legislators and they're telling me
26:52
Speaker 1: that when they're out there in their districts, this is
26:55
Speaker 1: the number one issue that they get when they're doorbelling
26:58
Speaker 1: or going door to door or speaking of events. People
27:00
Speaker 1: really care about this. I know that some people are
27:03
Speaker 1: saying this has the same kind of energy as the
27:06
Speaker 1: ninety four Congressional Revolution or twenty ten the Tea Party Revolution.
27:11
Speaker 1: There's something happening in the grassroots of this country that
27:15
Speaker 1: people are being energized by this, They're being focused they're
27:18
Speaker 1: being engaged, in many cases for the first time in politics,
27:21
Speaker 1: and I don't think the institutional responses have been frankly
27:25
Speaker 1: very strong. You see all of the media running cover,
27:27
Speaker 1: you see the playing language games, you see them retreating
27:30
Speaker 1: from critical race theory. None of those strategies are going
27:33
Speaker 1: to hold because people know what's being taught to their kids.
27:36
Speaker 1: People have a visceral and intuitive understanding of what this
27:39
Speaker 1: ideology is trying to accomplish. And we're seeing a critical
27:43
Speaker 1: race theory revolt all over this country. That gives me
27:46
Speaker 1: an immense amount of hope. And I think that looks
27:49
Speaker 1: If Brooklyn and Berkeley want to do critical race theory
27:52
Speaker 1: in their k the twelve schools, that's fine, that's their right.
27:55
Speaker 1: But I think we're looking at somewhere between seventy and
27:58
Speaker 1: eighty percent of Americans that we could alley into opposition
28:01
Speaker 1: on this issue. And I think that's a starting point
28:03
Speaker 1: for incredible success. So, Chris, if someone wants to learn more,
28:08
Speaker 1: where do we go? Where can someone go to learn
28:11
Speaker 1: more about what this is, where it's being taught, and
28:16
Speaker 1: what to do about it. Yeah, I put together a
28:18
Speaker 1: critical race theory briefing book. So if you just search
28:21
Speaker 1: Google Christopher Ruffo Critical Race Theory Briefing Book or CRT
28:24
Speaker 1: Briefing Book. I've provided anything that you'll need to get
28:28
Speaker 1: started to engage on this issue, whether you're a parent,
28:30
Speaker 1: whether you're a local legislator, whether you care about this
28:33
Speaker 1: in the workplace. So I have definitions, I have key
28:36
Speaker 1: concepts and quotations. I have stories about where it's being
28:39
Speaker 1: taught in schools. I also have suggestions for language that's
28:42
Speaker 1: successful in winning on this issue, as well as some
28:45
Speaker 1: model legislation. So that's where i'd recommend you go. You
28:49
Speaker 1: could always reach out to me. I'm happy to help
28:51
Speaker 1: put you in connection with other people that are working
28:54
Speaker 1: on this issue. I think it's just a tremendously important
28:57
Speaker 1: thing right now, and I encourage everyone to get involved.
29:00
Speaker 1: As Chris, we have got to get to the mailbag now,
29:02
Speaker 1: so I will not have you sit around and answer
29:05
Speaker 1: the difficult, impossible questions from our listeners, though I'm sure
29:09
Speaker 1: you could do it, because you really have done such
29:12
Speaker 1: a service with your writing over at City Journal and
29:15
Speaker 1: your work on really making this issue come into stark relief.
29:19
Speaker 1: Chris Farrufo, thank you for being on the show. Thank
29:22
Speaker 1: you before we get to the mailbag. I am so
29:26
Speaker 1: pleased to announce that we are now finalizing the dates
29:29
Speaker 1: for Verdict Live. We are taking Verdicts with Ted Cruz
29:33
Speaker 1: on the road in partnership with the Young America's Foundation.
29:36
Speaker 1: We will be coming to a school near you, or
29:38
Speaker 1: maybe even to your school, but you will need to
29:41
Speaker 1: request that, so you can go to yaff yaf dot
29:45
Speaker 1: org slash Verdict and apply to have your school be
29:49
Speaker 1: one of the spots. Deadline to apply as August eighteenth, Senator.
29:53
Speaker 1: We're taking this thing live. We're going to go meet
29:55
Speaker 1: people in real life. We're headed out on the road
29:58
Speaker 1: to college campuses. We'll have an auditorium, will film it live.
30:02
Speaker 1: We will have hopefully some friendly questions, some hostile questions,
30:07
Speaker 1: and it's really up up to the listeners of Verdict
30:11
Speaker 1: where we should go. You know, should we go to
30:13
Speaker 1: places that are oases of truth and have people that
30:17
Speaker 1: are used to hearing about life, liberty in the pursuit
30:21
Speaker 1: of happiness. Or do we go to places of communist
30:25
Speaker 1: indoctrination where where we're going behind the iron curtain and
30:29
Speaker 1: we might have to have a subversive effort to come in.
30:32
Speaker 1: I don't know we're asking you, the reader, let us
30:35
Speaker 1: know where you think Verdict should be filmed, and we're
30:39
Speaker 1: going to have fun regardless, We absolutely are. We could
30:42
Speaker 1: even head to the University of East Berlin also known
30:45
Speaker 1: as Berkeley in California. There are a lot of a
30:48
Speaker 1: lot of schools we could go to, and hopefully we'll
30:49
Speaker 1: be able to do a combination. So you can apply
30:52
Speaker 1: to hostess at your school. That will be yaf dot
30:55
Speaker 1: org slash Verdict. Get those applications in by August eighteenth.
30:59
Speaker 1: That is the deadline, and we're going to be looking
31:01
Speaker 1: forward to it. And now before we see you live,
31:03
Speaker 1: we will answer your questions in the mail bag. All right,
31:06
Speaker 1: this question completely out of left field, but it's from
31:09
Speaker 1: our colleague on this show, who is sitting right behind you,
31:12
Speaker 1: Real Truth Cactus, who writes, what are some conservative arguments
31:16
Speaker 1: for environmental practices? We all hear the sun monster is
31:20
Speaker 1: going to kill us, But as conservatives, do we not
31:23
Speaker 1: also wish to conserve our planet? Where is the balance?
31:28
Speaker 1: I think that's a great question, and I think a
31:30
Speaker 1: lot of conservatives are really timid when it comes to
31:33
Speaker 1: discussing environmental issues. All of us breathe, all of us
31:37
Speaker 1: drink water, all of us presumably, and you're drinking I
31:41
Speaker 1: think coffee or vodka whatever you're drinking right both actually,
31:44
Speaker 1: but there you go. But but you know, water is
31:47
Speaker 1: at its base. Look, all of us would like for
31:49
Speaker 1: our kids to be able to breathe and drink water.
31:52
Speaker 1: We'd like for our grandkids to be able to breathe
31:54
Speaker 1: and drink water. Protecting the environment. You know, you look
31:58
Speaker 1: at Teddy Roosevelt, who was one of the first great
32:02
Speaker 1: conservationist and environmentalist. We have a responsibility to protect the environment.
32:07
Speaker 1: What does that mean? That means fighting pollution. Fighting pollution
32:10
Speaker 1: is a good and noble role. It is an important
32:15
Speaker 1: government function. We don't want to see factories pour in
32:19
Speaker 1: a bunch of gunk into rivers or into the air
32:22
Speaker 1: that make people sick. All of that is legitimate, it's
32:27
Speaker 1: not where today's environmentalist movement is. Today's environmentalist movement is
32:32
Speaker 1: focused on shutting down production. So it's not. If the
32:36
Speaker 1: test is is the air cleaner and is the water cleaner?
32:40
Speaker 1: Then you can actually tell an amazing story because as
32:44
Speaker 1: American ingenuity has moved forward, we have cleaned the air
32:48
Speaker 1: and cleaned the water dramatically. Last year the year twenty twenty,
32:53
Speaker 1: what country had the greatest reduction of carbon emissions of
32:57
Speaker 1: any country on Earth? Answer? The United States of America
33:01
Speaker 1: by far, not even close. And what caused that? What
33:05
Speaker 1: caused that primarily was the shale revolution and the incredible
33:11
Speaker 1: abundance of natural gas we have, and we've seen a
33:14
Speaker 1: large scale shift from electricity production from coal to natural gas.
33:21
Speaker 1: Natural gas is a much cleaner way to produce electricity
33:24
Speaker 1: than coal, and so we've seen not just carbon emissions
33:27
Speaker 1: going down, but pollutant's going down by dramatic numbers. Now
33:30
Speaker 1: here's the weird thing about environmentalist on the left. You
33:34
Speaker 1: would think if the goal is a cleaner environment, you'd
33:37
Speaker 1: be celebrating that. You'd say that's a good thing. What
33:39
Speaker 1: the environmentalist on the left are trying to do is
33:41
Speaker 1: shut down natural gas. Shut down natural gas, destroy American production.
33:47
Speaker 1: And ironically, they also want to shut down US oil,
33:51
Speaker 1: which then makes us more dependent on fore and oil,
33:54
Speaker 1: all of which is produced in a dirtier way. So
33:57
Speaker 1: you end up hurting the environment more. And today's environmental
34:02
Speaker 1: movement on the left is an ideology where actually clean
34:06
Speaker 1: air and clean water is really low on the priority list.
34:10
Speaker 1: Stopping human production, stopping new businesses, stopping new residential developments,
34:16
Speaker 1: stopping new economic stopping jobs is their priority. And you've
34:21
Speaker 1: got zealots who view economic development inherently as an evil. Look.
34:27
Speaker 1: Most of us think jobs are good. We'd like to
34:30
Speaker 1: have clean air and clean water two and have jobs.
34:32
Speaker 1: You can do both if you actually employ some common sense.
34:36
Speaker 1: The radical left on the environment is not interested in
34:40
Speaker 1: common sense. Yeah, there does seem to be something a
34:42
Speaker 1: little misanthropic about it at all. I don't want to
34:46
Speaker 1: read into our opponent's thought process here or anything, but
34:50
Speaker 1: it did sometimes seem when I was living in California,
34:53
Speaker 1: as though the Left valued the delta smelt more than
34:56
Speaker 1: they did working families who are trying to have jobs
34:59
Speaker 1: and people who trying pay for energy prices. And ironically,
35:02
Speaker 1: so many of their policies actually were harmful ultimately to
35:06
Speaker 1: the environment. Next question from Ben is for me. Ben writes,
35:09
Speaker 1: will your next book be titled shameless because of your
35:13
Speaker 1: shameful plugs of speechless? Yes, it will be. That is
35:18
Speaker 1: if I ever write a book again, Senator. I know
35:19
Speaker 1: you've written multiple books with words. I frankly am sick
35:23
Speaker 1: of writing a book with words. It's much too hard,
35:25
Speaker 1: so I'll probably return to my former magnum opus. The
35:29
Speaker 1: final question is for you from em Taylor, Senator Crews,
35:35
Speaker 1: can you explain standing and why does this not apply
35:39
Speaker 1: in the DOJ case against Georgia voting laws. So I
35:43
Speaker 1: bring up this question because I want on the next episode,
35:47
Speaker 1: I want to get into some legal questions that are
35:49
Speaker 1: very much in the news right now. This one just
35:51
Speaker 1: came up. The DJ is suing Georgia because of George's
35:55
Speaker 1: voter integrity law. They're saying that this is discriminatory and
35:59
Speaker 1: the federal government's can go in and stop Georgia from
36:02
Speaker 1: passing laws to protect their own vote. And because I
36:04
Speaker 1: know absolutely nothing about the law and did not go
36:07
Speaker 1: to law school, Senator, can you please explain it for us? Sure?
36:11
Speaker 1: Two related concepts. One, in order for a court to
36:15
Speaker 1: be able to decide a case, it has to be
36:18
Speaker 1: what's called a case or controversy. It has to be
36:21
Speaker 1: a live dispute between real parties. It can't just be
36:26
Speaker 1: a request for judges to issue an advisory opinion on
36:29
Speaker 1: a question of law. An element of that, one element
36:33
Speaker 1: of that is that you've got to have a real injury.
36:36
Speaker 1: But another element of that is that you've got to
36:38
Speaker 1: have a plaintiff with standing, and standing put simply is
36:42
Speaker 1: essentially someone with a beef in it, someone who's got
36:46
Speaker 1: something at stakes. So listen, if if your book publisher
36:55
Speaker 1: breaks it's contract with you and says Michael, we're tired
37:01
Speaker 1: of publishing books with no words. We're not going to
37:04
Speaker 1: send you any royalty checks. Fair enough. Now, I might
37:07
Speaker 1: look at that and say that is ridiculous. Michael is
37:11
Speaker 1: the poor guy, as a starving yaely. He depends upon
37:15
Speaker 1: these royalty checks to buy his skinny genes and his
37:21
Speaker 1: you know, the outfits he wears on verdict. And so
37:23
Speaker 1: I'm really upset they're not paying it. Well as upset
37:26
Speaker 1: as I might be. I don't have standing to sue
37:29
Speaker 1: over breach a contract. It's not I'm not a party
37:31
Speaker 1: of the contract. I you have standing to sue if
37:34
Speaker 1: if they breach a contract with you, you have standing
37:36
Speaker 1: to sue because you've suffered an injury and you're actually
37:40
Speaker 1: a party to the in this case the contract. So
37:45
Speaker 1: the question is why does the United States have standing
37:48
Speaker 1: to sue Georgia in this instance? They sue Georgia under
37:52
Speaker 1: section two of the Voting Rights Act, and that is
37:56
Speaker 1: a statute that Congress passed to protect voting rights, and
38:00
Speaker 1: it actually gives the Attorney General the authority to bring
38:05
Speaker 1: suits to enforce the law. And so in the role
38:07
Speaker 1: as the chief lawyer for the United States of America,
38:11
Speaker 1: the Attorney General has the authority under the Voting Rights
38:13
Speaker 1: Act to bring suits. Now, I think the suit is
38:16
Speaker 1: not meritorious, and I think we're going to discuss that
38:18
Speaker 1: on a subsequent verdict. But in terms of standing, the
38:22
Speaker 1: way the Voting Rights Act is written, the Department of
38:25
Speaker 1: Justice has standing to bring a case to enforce Section
38:28
Speaker 1: two of the Voting Rights Act. All right, that's just
38:30
Speaker 1: a little teaser for something talking about. Yes, that's the
38:34
Speaker 1: argument from the federal government, and we will knock down
38:37
Speaker 1: why it's a very bad idea to go in and
38:40
Speaker 1: up end this voting rights law in Georgia. But not
38:43
Speaker 1: this time. We run out of time. Senator, Thank you
38:46
Speaker 1: as always. And by the way, I think all of
38:48
Speaker 1: the listeners of verdict would have standing if I could
38:50
Speaker 1: no longer afford my skinny genes. I think that would
38:52
Speaker 1: greatly injure all of the viewers out there. But we'll
38:55
Speaker 1: discuss it coming up. I'm Michael Knowls. This is Verdict
38:58
Speaker 1: with Ted Cruz. This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz
39:08
Speaker 1: is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack,
39:12
Speaker 1: a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations,
39:16
Speaker 1: and candidates across the country. In twenty twenty two, Jobs
39:20
Speaker 1: Freedom and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates
39:24
Speaker 1: running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.