Critical Race Theory (CRT) has over the last two years been a topic of enormous controversy. But what is it, exactly? Chapter 4 of my book All One in Christ: A Catholic Critique of Racism and Critical Race Theory is devoted to answering that question at length. I go on in chapters 5, 6, and 7 to spell out the many philosophical, social scientific, and theological problems with the view. (As this breadth of issues indicates, there is much in the book that will be of interest and value to non-Catholics.) But chapter 4 is entirely expository, and quotes extensively from CRT writers themselves, so that there can be no mistake about how extreme and dangerous are the views that the subsequent chapters go on to criticize.
Some advocates of CRT have responded to the exposure of its extremism with what can fairly be described as a program of disinformation. We are told that CRT is merely an abstruse legal theory of little interest to anyone outside the university, and certainly irrelevant to anything being taught to children; or that insofar as it does have influence outside the academy, it is concerned with nothing more than teaching about the history of racism; or that in any event it has nothing to do with the ideas peddled in bestsellers like Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist or Robin DiAngelos’s White Fragility. These claims are so easily refuted that it is hard not to see in them a cynical tactic of deliberate obfuscation.
Is CRT just an abstract legal theory?
Start with the first claim, about the nature and influence of CRT. Law professors Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic are not only critical race theorists themselves, but the authors of Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, a well-known primer on the subject. They write:
Although CRT began as a movement in the law, it has rapidly spread beyond that discipline. Today, many scholars in the field of education consider themselves critical race theorists who use CRT’s ideas to understand issues of school discipline and hierarchy, tracking, affirmative action, high-stakes testing, controversies over curriculum and history, bilingual and multilingual education, and alternative and charter schools. (p. 7)
They then go on to cite “political scientists,” “women’s studies professors,” “ethnic studies,” “American studies,” “philosophers,” “sociologists, theologians, and health care specialists” as among the scholars, professionals, and fields influenced by, and applying ideas drawn from, CRT (pp. 7-8). Similarly, law professor Angela Harris’s foreword to Delgado and Stefancic’s book notes that:
Critical race theory has exploded from a narrow sub-specialty of jurisprudence chiefly of interest to academic lawyers into a literature read in departments of education, cultural studies, English, sociology, comparative literature, political science, history, and anthropology around the country. (p. xvi)
Delgado and Stefancic also note that though CRT began as a movement in the law, the influences on its development extend well beyond that field, and include “radical feminism,” the Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci, and the postmodernists Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida (p. 5). And they emphasize that “unlike some academic disciplines, critical race theory contains an activist dimension. It tries not only to understand our social situation but to change it” and indeed “transform it” (p. 8). They cite the push for “reconstructing the criminal justice system” and the “‘Black Lives Matter’ movement” as among the practical applications of ideas associated with CRT (p. 124).
Another representative CRT work is the anthology Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement, edited by Kimberlé Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller, and Kendall Thomas. In their introduction to the volume, they note that the Critical Legal Studies movement “organized by a collection of neo-Marxist intellectuals, former New Left activists, ex-counter-culturalists” and the like “played a central role in the genesis of Critical Race Theory” (p. xvii). They write that:
By legitimizing the use of race as a theoretical fulcrum and focus in legal scholarship, so-called racialist accounts of racism and the law grounded the subsequent development of Critical Race Theory in much the same way that Marxism’s introduction of class structure and struggle into classical political economy grounded subsequent critiques of hierarchy and social power. (p. xxv)
And in another obvious echo of Marxism, they emphasize that CRT is an activist movement devoted to “liberation,” whose theorists “desire not merely to understand the vexed bond between law and racial power but to change it” (p. xiii).
Hence, when CRT’s critics portray it as far more than a mere academic legal theory and indeed as a wide-ranging revolutionary political program with Marxist and postmodernist influences, which has swept through academia and seeks radically to transform society through the educational and criminal justice systems, they are not manufacturing a bogeyman. They are simply repeating what CRT advocates themselves have explicitly said.
Is CRT merely about teaching history?
Again, another claim often made is that to the extent that CRT has any influence in schools and other contexts outside the university, it is concerned merely with teaching about the history of racism. When people uninformed about CRT hear this, they are likely to think that what it involves is teaching about slavery in the American south, Jim Crow laws, the Ku Klux Klan, and so on. But that is far from the truth. These are examples of what Delgado and Stefancic label “outright racism,” and as they emphasize, this is to be sharply distinguished from the far more subtle “white privilege” that CRT claims to identify and seeks to extirpate (p. 90).
This purported “white privilege” is so subtle that even if “outright racism” of the familiar sorts is entirely eliminated, white privilege would allegedly remain “intact” so that the “system of white over black/brown will remain virtually unchanged” and “we remain roughly as we were before” (p. 91). This unnoticed racism is nevertheless claimed to be “ordinary, not aberrational… the usual way society does business” (p. 8) and indeed is “pervasive, systemic, and deeply ingrained” to such an extent that “no white member of society seems quite so innocent” (p. 91). The purported “white privilege” of these members of society involves a “myriad of social advantages, benefits, and courtesies that come with being a member of the dominant race” (p. 89). The hostility of whites against non-whites is claimed to manifest itself in “implicit bias” or negative attitudes that are so elusive that whites are unconscious of harboring them (p. 143-44), and in “microaggressions” or racist acts so subtle that whites are unaware they are committing them.
Racism is held by CRT to be so “embedded in our thought processes and social structures” that it is not only conservatism that CRT opposes, but liberalism too (p. 26-27). Like Marxism, CRT stakes out a position far to the left of traditional Democratic Party politics. In place of liberalism’s commitment to “color blindness and neutral principles of constitutional law,” CRT writers advocate “aggressive, color-conscious efforts to change the way things are” (ibid.). CRT calls for “programs that assure equality of results,” even if this conflicts with liberalism’s emphasis on the “moral and legal rights” of the individual (p. 29). One CRT proposal, report Delgado and Stefancic, would be to have “admissions officers discount, or penalize, the scores of candidates” of a “white, suburban” background because of their “white privilege” (p. 134). Some CRT writers even wonder whether “whites [should] be welcome in the movement and at its workshops and conferences” (p. 105). Indeed, a central theme of CRT is the malign influence of “whiteness” itself, a “quality pertaining to Euro-American or Caucasian people or traditions” (p. 186). “Critical White Studies,” Delgado and Stefancic tell us, is a subfield of CRT devoted to “the study of the white race,” which has “put whiteness under the lens” (p. 85).
In place of liberalism’s traditional emphasis on freedom of expression, some CRT writers call for “campus speech codes” and “tort remedies for racist speech” (p. 25), or even the “criminalization” of such speech (p. 125) – which, given the amorphous notions of “implicit bias” and “microaggressions,” could cover anything a CRT advocate finds objectionable. At the same time, in light of the systemic racism they claim afflicts criminal justice, CRT writers advocate lighter sentences or even “jury nullification” for offenses “such as shoplifting or possession of a small amount of drugs” (pp. 122-23). Delgado and Stefancic blandly note that one CRT writer proposes that “the values of hip-hop music and culture could serve as a basis for reconstructing the criminal justice system” (p. 124).
CRT also rejects “traditional civil rights discourse, which stresses incrementalism and step-by-step progress” and instead “questions the very foundations of the liberal order” including ideas such as “equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism,” and “equal treatment for all persons, regardless of their different histories or current situations” (pp. 3 and 26). Accordingly, CRT holds that the change it advocates may have to be “convulsive and cataclysmic” rather than involving a “peaceful transition,” and “if so, critical theorists and activists will need to provide criminal defense for resistance movements and activists and to articulate theories and strategies for that resistance” (pp. 154-55).
This is just the tip of the iceberg, for according to the CRT notion of “intersectionality,” many individuals “experience multiple forms of oppression” involving not just race but “sex, class, national origin, and sexual orientation” (pp. 58-59). Hence the CRT analysis of and remedies for “systemic racism” must be applied to an analysis of and extirpation of these other alleged forms of oppression as well.
Here I have been quoting from just a single representative text, for purposes of illustration. As the reader of All One in Christ will discover, other CRT writers have other, even more extreme things to say. Whatever one thinks of these ideas, they give the lie to the claim that CRT is merely about teaching the history of racism. It is about promoting a sweeping, revolutionary social and political ideology that even many liberals and Democratic voters would find disturbing if they knew about it.
Kendi, DiAngelo, and CRT
The books by Kendi and DiAngelo mentioned above are by far the most influential works promoting the ideas of CRT. Yet some have claimed that their work has nothing to do with Critical Race Theory. This claim too is easily refuted. Kendi himself has acknowledged the influence of CRT on his work:
I’ve certainly been inspired by critical race theory and critical race theorists. The ways in which I’ve formulated definitions of racism and racist and anti-racism and anti-racist have not only been based on historical evidence, but also Kimberlé Crenshaw’s intersectional theory. She’s one of the founding and pioneering critical race theorists who in the late 1980s and early 1990s said, “You know what? Black women aren’t just facing racism, they’re not just facing sexism, they’re facing the intersection of racism and sexism.” It’s important for us to understand that and that’s foundational to my work.
To be sure, in another context, Kendi has said:
I admire critical race theory, but I don’t identify as a critical race theorist. I’m not a legal scholar. So I wasn’t trained on critical race theory. I’m a historian… I didn’t attend law school, which is where critical race theory is taught.
But there are two problems with this. First, what matters is whether Kendi is promoting ideas derived from CRT, not whether he is himself a “critical race theorist” in the narrow sense of a legal scholar of a certain kind. And again, he himself has admitted that his work is “inspired” by CRT, indeed that one brand of CRT is “foundational” to his work. Second, as we have seen, CRT writers like Harris, Delgado, and Stefancic admit that CRT is not confined to legal scholarship but has extended far into other parts of the academy, including history, Kendi’s field. So it is disingenuous for him to pretend that the fact that he didn’t go to law school shows that he can’t count as a critical race theorist. If you go just by the actual content of his books and compare it to what is said in works that everyone acknowledges to be works of CRT, it is obvious that he is a critical race theorist.
The same thing goes for DiAngelo. Her academic field is education rather than law, but Delgado and Stefancic themselves put special emphasis on education as a field on which CRT has had dramatic influence. So it would be quite silly to pretend that the fact that she, like Kendi, is not a law professor somehow suffices to show that she is not a critical race theorist. More importantly, she is manifestly a promoter of ideas drawn from CRT, whether or not one wants to classify her as a “critical race theorist” in some narrow sense. The central ideas of White Fragility are the CRT themes of “systemic racism,” “white privilege,” the analysis and critique of “whiteness,” and the insufficiently radical nature of liberalism. In her book Nice Racism, DiAngelo explicitly cites the prominent critical race theorists Kimberlé Crenshaw, Derrick Bell, and Cheryl Harris as among the influences on her work.
Some may nevertheless object that, even if it is admitted that Kendi and DiAngelo are promoters of CRT, it is inappropriate to put as much emphasis on their work as critics of CRT have, since their books are popularizations. But there are two problems with this objection. First, Kendi and DiAngelo are not mere popularizers, but academics in their own right. They can be presumed to know what they are talking about. Second, though some CRT adepts might wish that it was Derrick Bell’s or Kimberlé Crenshaw’s books rather than How to Be an Antiracist and White Fragility that became bestsellers, that is not what has happened. It is Kendi’s and DiAngelo’s books that have in fact had the widest readership and influence, and thus their presentation of CRT ideas that has molded public perception of the movement. It is only natural, then, for critics of CRT to give them a proportionate amount of attention in response.
As readers of my book All One in Christ will find, the content of CRT is even more disturbing than this brief summary indicates – and it is also riddled with blatant logical fallacies, crude social scientific errors, and assumptions and policy recommendations that are utterly contrary to the natural moral law and the Catholic faith. It is unsurprising that advocates of CRT would like to disguise its true nature, but also imperative that they not be allowed to do so.
(Editor’s note: This essay originally appeared on Dr. Feser’s blog in a slightly different form and is reprinted here with the author’s kind permission.)
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I’m waiting for CRT to tackle the Eastern slave trade to the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf and beyond. Its estimated to have been at least twice as large as the Atlantic trade and was only officially banned in the 20th Century. Right up through the 1960’s in Saudi Arabia.
They won’t bc Arabs aren’t evil because they are not white or suffer from whiteness. Trust me, I point this and the fact that the first link in both slave trades was other Africans, they simply get mad.
CRT in all its absurdity is basically the latest move to perpetuate wlg – white liberal guilt.
(In less than 50 years this country went from Bull Connor to Barack Obama.)
There is a certain very foul word used to describe those of African-American descent which is ONLY used by those of African-American descent, and if a white person should dare to speak the word – the excrement immediately hits the air circulator, followed by consternation at the highest level. And the absurdity goes on and on
and on.
Enough is enough
Its not white liberal guilt that is driving this but the implementation of the first part of Gramsci’s two-part Marxist revolution.
What if we think about CRT as critical class theory, which was the inspiration for most of the bloody revolutions going back at least to the French Revolution. All these revolutions were short and even the longest-lasting one in recent times, the political and social policies and practices of the USSR, failed completely to produce a classless utopia. If ordinary people locked inevitably in their class are arming themselves for class warfare against the goal of CRT social classlessness, we are in for much more violent clashes than the Jan 6 riot.
The 2020 “Summer of Love” riots preceded Jan 6. The book is being thrown at the Jan 6 rioters. VP Kamala Harris was involved in arraigning bail for the 2020 “Summer of Love” rioters. The 2020 “Summer of Love” riots were far worse than the Jan 6 riot.
Dr. Feser’s prose is always as clear and cogent as his thinking.
I am thrilled to find out that he has a new book exposing this destructive new delusion that seeks to foster a new kind of racism and destroy more generations of lives.
The children who manage to avoid abortion can now be fed this eye-bulging, demonic CRT hate and be consumed from within.
And, still, half of Catholics continue to vote for Democrats?
The reek of death is overpowering these days.
I greatly appreciate Dr. Feser’s review of this issue. In the context of recent history, I see CRT and related phenomena such as Black Lives Matter, Antifa and prosecutors allowing criminals to go free as products of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and related legislation. The time has come for us to rethink all these issues. The promises of the 1960’s have not materialized, the problems have grown worse.
Mr. George, to be honest I wasn’t raised in a culture that appreciated the Civil Rights movement a whole lot. My parents’ generation were not on board. But seriously what part of the movement would you reassess?
Even though most voting rights accusations these days are bogus, it was a real problem before the 1960’s. So were deep biases against interracial marriage & integration & there was a general devaluing of folks based solely upon their skin colour.
I think we’ve made good progress on those issues since the ’60’s & some promises have materialized.
I agree with you about letting violent criminals go back into society too early. That’s never a good plan but I don’t know that it’s based on civil rights. Often, it’s more about plea bargaining deals & clueless parole boards.
The big picture equation is clear:
Anti-CRT = Anti-anti-racism = Racism.
That is, the perpetuation and preservation of racism,
especially in its structural dimension!
The so-called equation you assert (I.e., opinion you state) may be clear in your thinking, and it is not clear in its own right. CRT is far from equivalent to anti-racism (both have multiple different tenants and assertions, some overlapping, some not). Seeking to illuminate, clarify, refute or oppose either CRT or A-R is not equal or equivalent to racism, in fact, despite your opinion.
Wrong
We (I) interrupt this learned discourse to recommend a break in the absurdity which surrounds us now.
‘Saving Grace’, a 1986 film starring Tom Conti as the Pope, and what happens to him. I’m not going to tell anything more, except that it is a nice, gentle break from the absurdity currently surrounding us, and the silly little men and women who claim to be leading us now.
It was given a ‘condescendingly insulting’ (excuse the big words) review by the NYT reviewer at the time, whose name I have thankfully forgotten, and to me that is the highest form of praise.
‘Saving Grace’ 1986 film starring Tom Conti – Hard to find but well worth the effort.
You can thank me later.
Afn&tt
UT
I’ll wait until Dr. Feser’s book becomes available in a week or so to see any new insights that Dr. Feser hopefully provides, but at first glance, it appears that chapters 4 through 7 of his book may be a shortened version of Dr. James Lindsay’s “Race Marxism” that was published in February of this year. Why do I propose this possibility? Almost everything that Dr. Feser sets forth in his article are things covered in detail in Dr. Lindsay’s book. Also note below the table of contents (first page of each chapter follows the chapter title) in Dr. Lindsay’s paperback book :
Chapter 1: Defining Critical Race Theory 1
Chapter 2: What Critical Race Theory Believes 31
Chapter 3: The Proximate Ideological Origins of Critical Race Theory 87
Chapter 4: The Deep Ideological Origins of Critical Race Theory 159
Chapter 5: Critical Race Praxis: How Critical Race Theory Operates 221
Chapter 6: What Can We Do About Critical Race Theory? 253
______________
Dr. Lindsay also makes it a point to quote extensively from the works of people like Kendi, Gramsci, Crenshaw, DiAngelo, Stefancic, Bell, and many others while Dr. Feser promotes the following in his book:… “chapter 4 is entirely expository, and quotes extensively from CRT writers themselves, so that there can be no mistake about how extreme and dangerous are the views that the subsequent chapters go on to criticize.”
As Dr. Feser is a Catholic philosopher, I do expect him to provide more insights and things to consider from a Catholic perspective in his book that Dr. Lindsay (an admitted agnostic but finding common cause, some camaraderie, and an unabashed willingness to stand strong alongside many Christians and other people of good will in the Culture War) does not provide in his book, but unless Dr. Feser really surprises, for anyone who wants to really dive into and unravel the pernicious doctrine and praxis of Critical Race Theory, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Dr. Lindsay’s “Race Marxism.” Also check out his “New Discourses” website for insightful articles, videos, and so on that cover a wide range of the “Woke Agenda”, and before I sign off, please note that I am not employed by or receiving any compensation from Dr. Lindsay for this promotion of his work. Also, Dr. Lindsay, as an agnostic, over-pushes and over-hypes the secular myths regarding the Enlightenment, so keep this in mind when reading or viewing any of his works that are otherwise quite good and insightful.
There is no such thing as structural or systemic racism. People are racists, systems, by definition, cannot be. Unless you’re a Marxist. Then you get to make up any definition you want so it supports your agenda.
Supporting CRT and being an “anti-racist” just means that someone is a racist with absolutely no self-awareness. It’s not complicated, but it’s definitely not something I would be proud of.
I like many Americans am very tired of hearing about racism in any form. In the last few decades tremendous strides had been made in this area here in the US. The culmination of which was a black American elected as President, TWICE, which could not have happened without majority WHITE votes. We moved ahead, until recently, when it became ok to destroy and distort our history, racially indoctrinate and pigeon-hole our children and foist “diversity training ” on many corporate workers in a way which would do Communist re-education camps proud. They attack white people across the board with “safe spaces on campuses from which they are barred, segregated graduation ceremonies, and most recently, a school contract signed with a teachers union which guaranteed white teachers would be fired first, regardless of seniority or tenure, if needed to reduce costs. Such things, it can be guaranteed, would NEVER be permitted if blacks were the object of the discrimination. It has been a disgusting spectacle, unworthy of the country. It is time for people to say “NO”, without regard to the consequences. Run for your school board, vote out radical leftists on EVERY level, change jobs, and boycott those corporations which support this insanity.Most of all, VOTE in this next election and every election thereafter.As for the attacks on our history , also being taught in schools and at historic sites, it must end. Yes, Jefferson and Madison owned slaves. This is something I was taught more than 50 years ago in school. It was never “hidden” from any of us. My question is ” so what”? To judge these notable and accomplished men on the basis of this one aspect of their lives is demonstrably the height of ignorance. Recent news stories reveal the house tours of these men now belittle who they were and stress the lives of the “enslaved people” who lived there. Well, the cook in Jefferson’s kitchen ( in whom I have zero interest) did not affect my life or my nation’s history in any way. Jefferson did.Make certain your children learn their nation’s history from YOU, and not the woke teachers and community activists with an agenda to push.
I’ve toured James Monroe’s home Ashlawn recently and thankfully they don’t beat you over the head about slavery.
I personally think the lives of servants can be more interesting than the important people they work for. Many of our ancestors even if not enslaved probably had similar living conditions and employment. Colonial Virginia and Maryland were originally a destination for thousands of unwanted British convicts to be sold for indentured servitude in the tobacco fields.
If actual chattel slavery isn’t our ancestors story, something not too dissimilar likely is.
They don’t beat you over the head about slavery??? Really? This recent newspaper article for a NYC newspaper begs to differ. It was one of two articles published in this paper on the subject. The board of directors at Madison’s home was taken over by leftists in return for a $10 million dollar donation from a left-leaning philanthropist billionaire. What is described in the article is outright disgusting. Here is the link:
https://nypost.com/2022/07/16/james-madison-sidelined-by-woke-history-in-his-own-home/
The current stress on slavery at these sites is a politically partisan view of Madison, and similar issues have raised their heads at Jeffersons home. No one expects the slaves to be “disappeared” from an historic home like this. Neither do I want the issue front and center, as it is irrelevant to who these men were and what they accomplished, not only for the nation, but the world. Nobody goes to these homes to learn about the slaves. Except activists. I would not spend a dime at either of these historic sites ( or their shops) until the distorted changes to the political slant are brought back into line. Yes, the lives of servants may indeed be “interesting” but in no world were they more important in an historic sense than the people they worked for.It is a slanted fallacy to pretend otherwise.
I understand that the basic premise of crt is that white folks are born inherently racist – there’s really nothing we can do about it, IOW – they’re (we’re, I’m) born guilty.
If one accepts that absurd premise, it leads to the unavoidable conclusion that it is impossible to have an intelligent, or logical, or balanced conversation with an African-American or Hispanic, or basically any non-white, because the white person (moi) is already guilty – through no fault of his own.
It seems that there is an unending supply of people who feel guilty enough because of their white skin to buy that nonsense. At the same time there are enough intelligent African-Americans who realize that fact and are not hesitant to take advantage of it, which is a bit racist in itself, but that’s a subject for another time.
And the beat goes on.
You hit the proverbial nail on the head, Terence, and the current situation in the highly influential field of education from elementary school through post-secondary education is dire, and this may be an understatement.
CRT and related bigotries against white people (includes those people like Asians, Nigerians, and so on who succeed by “acting white”) are being imposed upon school-aged children, and this involves things like making white children “acknowledge” their “privilege and inherent biases,” and that “whiteness” is a racist reality that they cannot escape unless they basically reject being white (part of how God created them), which is simply malevolent to say the least.
This kind of bigoted pedagogy is pushed even further in Junior and High School classes with students also acting in things like mini-plays wherein white students assume the roles of being oppressed by the “system” in order to give them a “better understanding” of “what it’s like for most blacks in America.” More despicable malevolence in action.
And when we get to the collegiate arena, the racist/Marxist ideology behind this destructive force is pumped repeatedly into the gullible students so that they become Borg-like “woke automatons” that cannot think beyond what the collective (anti-white, anti-Western Civilization, pro-Marxist ideologues) tells them to think.
To be sure, the evil of this malignant movement is spreading largely unabated in academia, and unless millions of good people come to recognize it for what it really is and rise up against it, the country cannot survive as a democratic republic. Sadly, it may already be too late despite some pushback against this bigotry here and there that is encouraging, but not nearly enough when every small “victory” in this aspect of the culture war is overwhelmed by the fact that more and more schools and even businesses, the military, and other institutions are foolishly adopting many aspects of this hellish “woke” agenda.
Nevertheless, on we must fight the good fight against these wicked principalities and powers, as always, by countering their lies with objective truth in faithful service to Truth Himself.
Thanks to Dr. Feser for his knowledgeable and articulate article. Also for the tip to Dr. James Lindsay’s book.
We read: “[CRT] tries not only to understand our social situation but to change it.” Straight from Feuerbach, academic influence on Marx and Engels. And, we also see the connection between CRT and “intersectionality.”
To see the connection on the ground, consider the cratering of Seattle during the enabling summer preceding the Jan. 6 event, that is, CHOP, the Capitol Hill Occupation Zone, the mob blockading and occupation of several city blocks, as well as a police precinct station, several shootings and two fatalities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Occupied_Protest
All followed by an ideological and very clumsy “defund the police” initiative at the hands of an amateur city council including one openly Marxist member. Even today, with crimes unchecked, the effort to restore the depopulated police department through financial incentives, flounders, drug exchange and crime pockets persist on the streets, the occupancy rate of business towers reportedly still lingers at 20 to 40 percent, and graffiti artists control the freeways from end to end.
The “intersectionality” thrives under the liberal agenda mentality. On Day-One of the “occupation,” the bleeding-liberal mayor was heard on live radio appealing to the mob (which she characterized as a “block party”): “we gave you free college education; what more do you want?” A reference to Seattle’s free junior college for all high school graduate (except those graduating from non-public high schools).
Without the liberal-city pre-occupation (so to speak) in the spring of 2020 in Washington State (Minneapolis, Portland OR, etc.), would the counter-occupation (?) of Jan. 6, 2021 in “the other Washington” have been less thinkable? We’ll never know, since Pelosi disallowed this more “inclusive” (!) view of cancel-culture and political disintegration in our former nation.
Monty Python famously said that “strange women lying at the bottom of ponds distributing swords is not the basis for a system of government.” Neither is self loathing.