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The TAKE with Rick Klein

It takes less than ever to find partisan grooves these days -- and the fact that they've been etched deeper out of the fallout from Jan. 6 serves as a case in point.

That's the reality that confronts President Joe Biden with this next uncertain phase of combatting the pandemic. New federal guidance on mask mandates and the consideration of a vaccine requirement for federal workers run into longstanding political arguments about individual liberties and personal accountability.

The push for vaccinations has become less partisan of late, with prominent Republicans adding new emphasis -- and giving special credit to the previous administration -- to make the case.

Families protest any potential mask mandates before the Hillsborough County Schools Board meeting held at the district office on July 27, 2021 in Tampa, Florida.

Yet mask-wearing and vaccine requirements have long since taken on cultural as well as political significance, and the fallout of Biden's latest comments offer just a taste. Former President Donald Trump is offering strong pushback to mandates, and consider as well how readily some Republicans are using Dr. Anthony Fauci as a foil -- raising money off the mention of his name, and even threatening legal action against him.

Biden indicated that he will outline next steps in the push to vaccinate the country on Thursday, as some statistics showing rates going up of late. The president on Tuesday also served up a reminder that as a candidate he "promised to be straight with you about COVID -- good news or bad."

Another reminder: 11 months ago, Biden said he wouldn't hesitate to order another shutdown if that's what his advisers recommended.

"I would shut it down; I would listen to the scientists," he told ABC "World News Tonight" Anchor David Muir last August.

The campaign was quick to clarify that comment at the time. Biden's statement Tuesday about masks and vaccines framed them as a way "to avoid the kind of lockdowns, shutdowns, school closures and disruptions we faced in 2020."

"We are not going back to that," the president said.

The RUNDOWN with Averi Harper

The testimony of Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn underscored the additional layer of trauma Black law enforcement officers experienced on Jan. 6.

Dunn's heartbreaking testimony chronicled the racial slurs he endured as he tried to defend the seat of our nation's democracy.

U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn becomes emotional as he testifies before the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., July 27, 2021.

Among the insurrectionists were attackers who carried Confederate flags, donned shirts with anti-Semitic messages and freely hurled the n-word at Black officers.

"No one had ever, ever called me a n***** while wearing the uniform of a Capitol Police officer," said Dunn.

He also brought with him the stories of other Black officers, later adding, "Another Black officer later told me he had been confronted by insurrectionists in the Capitol who told him, put your gun down and we'll show you what kind of n***** you really are."

For many, listening to Dunn recount the epithets stung as they were broadcast uncensored. The attack at the Capitol is often referred to as one of our nation's darkest days, it's particularly poignant that racism crept its way into the ugliness of it all, too.

It's a vile reminder that racism in America, even in its most blatant forms, still exists.

The TIP with Alisa Wiersema

Republicans in Washington have one more representative joining their ranks -- but the victory serves as an upset to Trump, despite his looming influence over the Republican Party on a national scale.

Nearly three months after the May 1 special election, State Rep. Jake Ellzey came out on top in Tuesday's runoff election for Texas' 6th Congressional District. Ellzey faced off with fellow Republican, Susan Wright, who had Trump's backing going into the contest due to the political legacy of her late husband, Rep. Ron Wright, who died in February from COVID and complications with cancer.

Jake Ellzey, center, campaigns for congress with other Texas Republican politicians.

The conclusion of the race is the latest indicator of the former president's looming influence over his party in a state that is increasingly becoming ground zero for intraparty battles.

On Monday, Trump waded into another high-profile Texan battle by endorsing incumbent Attorney General Ken Paxton for another term. The move served a devastating -- and complicated -- blow to Land Commissioner George P. Bush, who was the only member of his storied political family to publicly back Trump, despite the former president launching repeated attacks against his father, Jeb Bush.

THE PLAYLIST

ABC News' "Start Here" podcast. Wednesday morning's episode features former acting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Richard Besser, who breaks down the new CDC guidance around mask wearing for vaccinated people. ABC News congressional correspondent Rachel Scott recaps the testimony from police officers during a Jan. 6 House committee hearing. And ESPN Senior Writer Alyssa Roegnik explains why Simone Biles pulled out of the team all-around finals in Tokyo. http://apple.co/2HPocUL

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Download the ABC News app and select "The Note" as an item of interest to receive the day's sharpest political analysis.

The Note is a daily ABC News feature that highlights the key political moments of the day ahead. Please check back tomorrow for the latest.

Excerpt from:
Culture wars threaten to overtake war on COVID: The Note - ABC News

Kimberl Crenshaw is tucked in her UCLA office with ceiling-high shelves. Behind her, two men enter the frame of our video call and bend and lift, packing stacks of books. Im moving offices, she explains. To one with a view of the lawn. Crenshaw triaged her packed schedule to speak with me; shes been in even higher demand than usual. Shes receiving, and declining, media hits left and right, mostly because shes working on three books, all set to be released by May 2022. Shes a law professor at Columbia University and UCLA. She finds time to run the African American Policy Forum, the social justice think tank she cofounded 25 years ago, and to host a podcast on a term she coined in 1989: intersectionality. All this as Conservatives from Fox Newss Tucker Carlson to Texas senator Ted Cruz melt down over another academic framework she helped mint more than 30 years agocritical race theorylanding her at the roiling center of the culture wars.

Shes felt grumpy and annoyed watching the right bastardize her decades of work, which includes a pivotal 2001 paper on race and gender discrimination for the United Nations, a foundational book on the mistreatment of Black girls by police, and articles in various law reviews and news outlets. But dogs dont bark at parked cars. Shes traversing the moment with humility, watching misinformation steer the country astray. Friends reach out, up in arms about Republican efforts to bar her teachings from schools. She asks them, Are you worried about how deep this disaffection with our democracy is when playing by the rules creates outcomes that many white people are unhappy with? Because if the overblown bans are whats drawing focus, then were all being recruited as actors in a misinformation campaign changing the rules we live by.

This recent campaign began roughly last September, when Christopher Rufo, a right-wing think tank fellow, went on air with Carlson to warn viewers about critical race theory. Saying hed spent months researching how the theory had infiltrated American systems, Rufo called on then president Donald Trump to take action. Trump, an avid Fox viewer, ordered federally funded agencies to stop teaching critical race theory and white privilege because the concepts lead people to believeincorrectly, he saidthat America is inherently racist. With months left in his presidency, Trump launched the 1776 commissiona rebuttal of warped and distorted social justice teaching concepts like the New York Times magazines 1619 Project, spearheaded by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, which aims to reexamine Americas history through the lens of slavery.

President Joe Biden rescinded both ban and commission on his first day. By that point, though, the issue had become a live wire. Following Bidens reversals, many Republicans pushed bills to outlaw Crenshaws academic framework in schools. In April, Idaho became the first state to pass such a bill; Governor Brad Little said it would prevent teachers from indoctrinating students to hate America. A month later, Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt followed suit. Since then, several more red states have introduced similar measures.

I ask Crenshaw what shed say to her critics. I dont think this is about a real difference in opinion, nor is it a debate that is winnable, she says. This is about a weapon theyre using to hold on to power.

Most frustrating for Crenshaw has been watching the GOP reduce critical race theory to a cudgel to attack progress in the guise of protecting democracy. In the same way that anti-racism is framed as racism, anti-indoctrination is framed as indoctrination, Crenshaw says. Conservatives have long embraced the idea that America is a color-blind, equitable society where hard work explains who succeeds. What could be more indoctrinating than that? As an example of the systemic nature of racism, she points to the history behind traditionally white and Black neighborhoods: how federal money went toward developing segregated suburbs while Black people were denied those opportunities. And how that denial extends to todays economic disparities.

I dont think this is about a REAL DIFFERENCE in opinion.... This is about A WEAPON theyre using to hold on to POWER.

Crenshaw breaks it down. Critical race theory is based on the premise that race is socially constructed, yet it is real through social constructions. In other words, ask yourself, what is a Black neighborhood? Why do we call the hood the hood? Labels like these were strategically produced by American policy. Critical race theory says the idea of a Black personwho I am in this countryis a legal concept. Our enslavability was a marker of our degradation, Crenshaw explains. And our degradation was a marker of the fact that we could never be part of this country. Our Supreme Court said thisin the Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling of 1857and it wasnt a close decision.

Critical race theory pays attention to the ripple effects of such decisions. It asks us to scrutinize how and why society looks the way it does. These are the kinds of questions the other side doesnt want us to ask because it wants us to be happy with the contemporary distribution of opportunity, Crenshaw says.

Critical race theory grew from what Crenshaw calls the post-civil rights generation: those who watched the movement play out, learning from demonstrations that forced the government to pass laws intended to protect the rights of African Americans but that failed to address the root of the problem. In 1989, during her third year as a law professor, Crenshawalongside four thought leaders, two white allies, and three organizersintroduced the term at a workshop. The label was happenstance. We were critically engaging law but with a focus on race, she says, recalling a brainstorm session. So we wanted critical to be in it, race to be in it. And we put theory in to signify that we werent just looking at civil rights practice. It was how to think, how to see, how to read, how to grapple with how law has created and sustained raceour particular kind of race and racismin American society.

What those on the right describe as a threat to democracy in fact promotes equity. Its how weve become, historically, who weve beenhow the fiction of race is made real. Crenshaw bets none of the Republicans fighting to maintain the status quo have taken the time to understand her work, because it was never about understanding. (When an Alabama lawmaker who filed a bill to outlaw critical race theory in schools was asked by a reporter to define the term, he couldnt.) You cannot fix a problem you cannot name, Crenshaw says. You cannot address a history that youre unwilling to learn.

Crenshaw, who grew up in the industrial town of Canton, Ohio, was eight when her father started calling her a lawyer, warning people not to let her get a word in edgewise. I would argue my way out of punishment by presenting the contradiction in the rules, she says. But it was when her older brother, who died when she was 12, discovered the dashikia West African shirt made popular in America during the Black Power Movement of the 60s and 70sthat she got her first glimpse into how assertions of Black pride and culture did not always go over well in white America. A week after donning the shirt, her brother came home with it torn up, Crenshaw says. He said he had gotten into a fight with some white people who called him the N-word and tried to take it off, she recalls. This was in the 70s. I remember seeing that and asking, how could it be such a problem that my brother wore this dashiki? What is it about this that seems to be in such an affront to the sensibilities of those who had to encounter my brother in that outfit? When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, her dad was a first-year law student, but he died before he could finish school. We couldnt bring Martin Luther King back to life, but we could speak about his legacy, Crenshaw says. I couldnt bring my dad back to life, but I could go on and be a lawyer like he was trying to be.

So, it was no accident she wound up practicing law. Her big break came when she clerked for Justice Shirley Abrahamson, the first female chief justice of Wisconsins Supreme Court. Abrahamson was also on a shortlist for the U.S. Supreme Courta seat that went to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That woman gave me my career, Crenshaw says. She took a chance on me. I was a Black graduate from Harvard Law School. Hadnt been on Law Review, was writing stuff that was kind of, What is this intersectionality stuff? And she saw my potential. That led to her meeting Joel F. Handler, then a professor at the University of Wisconsin, which led to her faculty position at UCLA. That kind of network, that kind of credential is what gets you looked at, she says.

Crenshaws days are never identical. Before our chat, she had three meetings, one discussing an ongoing book project. Afterward, she plans to write a chapter for her memoir-manifesto Backtalker, which chronicles the development of some of her ideas that have shaped the discourse around gender, race, and social justice. I see my work as talking back against those who would normalize and neutralize intolerable conditions in our lives, she says of the title, which she may change as the chapters build. Social justice writing, scholarship, activism is not talking into a vacuum; its talking back against the systems of thought, against the assumptions, against the power that has lined up throughout history to tell us that some of us are not worthy of being full citizens, some of our dreams are not worthy of being realized, and some of our lives are not worthy of improvement through collective commitments to change the terms upon which we live.

Continued here:
How Critical Race Theory Mastermind Kimberl Crenshaw Is Weathering the Culture Wars - Vanity Fair

Idahos education culture wars will come full circle Thursday.

Thats when Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachins education task force meets again, focusing this time on higher education.

Where Idahos debate began, two years ago.

Theres no disputing that the controversy over critical race theory and school indoctrination has consumed a lot of education policy oxygen in 2021 fueled nationally by Fox News and other conservative networks, and stoked locally by the Idaho Freedom Foundation and its hardline legislative allies.

This year, Freedom Foundation-aligned lawmakers killed a three-year, $18 million federal early education grant and held a $1.1 billion teacher salary budget hostage. But the battle lines over higher education politics were drawn into the map in 2019.

And the debate hasnt changed much since then.

On Marlene Tromps ninth day as president at Boise State University, she received a pointed greeting from more than a third of the Idaho House of Representatives.

I dont view the current direction of Boise State to be in the tradition of what higher education has been, or should be, in Idaho, wrote state Rep. Barbara Ehardt, R-Idaho Falls, in a letter co-signed by 27 Republican colleagues. As legislators, we will seek and support academic excellence that does not pursue social or political agendas or incur additional costs.

Interestingly, Ehardts letter did not address critical race theory or indoctrination, the terms that dominate the education debate in 2021. Instead, the lawmakers criticized a menu of diversity and inclusion programs that predated Tromps arrival, including multicultural events such as Rainbow Graduation and Black Graduation, a graduate school preparation course geared toward underrepresented student groups and graduate fellowships for underrepresented minority students.

The letter foreshadowed the controversy that has followed Tromp through her 25 months at Boise State. And it signaled that a cadre of House conservatives were ready to start voting down education budgets.

Only23 of those 28 co-signers are still in the House. But if anything, the chamber is more conservative than it was in 2019, after hardliners captured additional seats in the 2020 elections.

The culture wars began to play out on the House floor in March 2020. Even as the coronavirus pandemic began to reach Idaho, and as some lawmakers fled the Statehouse over health concerns, the higher education budget became a major impediment to closing the session. The House voted down two budget bills before finally agreeing on a third version with 20 of the 26 no votes coming from co-signers of the letter to Tromp, including Ehardt herself.

The same budget later passed the Senate 31-0.

If anything, 2020 only hinted at what would follow in 2021. The House rejected the early education money, leaving a grant from the Trump administration on the table. The House voted down the first versions of the higher education and teacher salary budgets. It wasnt necessarily about the dollars. In the end, the House actually approved a larger teacher salary budget, after lawmakers passed a separate bill calling out critical race theory.

The growing uproar over critical race theory once an obscure academic concept certainly factored into the battles that marked the 2021 session. But the backlash against higher education, beginning with the letter to Tromp and growing through the 2020 Idaho elections, provided a template for a more far-reaching campaign against education.

The emotions from the 2021 session, including frustrations and fears, come through in some emails to the State Board of Education.

Using the state public records law, Idaho Education News requested all emails to the State Board containing the word indoctrination or the phrase critical race theory, written since Jan. 1. (Idaho Education News filed similar requests with McGeachin, Gov. Brad Little and the State Department of Education.)

The State Board released 38 emails, with 30 voicing opposition to critical race theory or indoctrination. And 17 of these began with boilerplate wording, replicated in full or sometimes changed slightly.

The template: Please weed out any and all political, medical, and religious indoctrination in our public schools before it gains an even stronger foothold in ldaho. While it may not yet be happening in every classroom in every school, it lS happening in many classrooms, schools, districts, and universities in ldaho.

One emailer acknowledged the obvious, saying the emails were part of a coordinated campaign while refusing to divulge the source of the wording. Its unclear whether the Freedom Foundation was that source. The group, which routinely ignores media requests, did not respond to an inquiry from Idaho Education News.

Regardless of the root source, the form emails illustrate one point. Two years into this debate, the Freedom Foundations assertion of widespread classroom indoctrination have been accepted as fact by a number of Idahoans despite a lack of specifics, and despite the State Boards categorical denials.

The State Board also released eight emails commenting on a new proposed policy on diversity and inclusion at Idahos four-year campuses. Under this policy, Each institution shall strive to create environments in which diversity and inclusion are valued, promoted, and embraced, in alignment with the goal of achieving educational equity.

Several comments came from current or retired teachers. Six commenters urged the State Board to approve the policy or strengthen it by covering LGBT students. Two commenters opposed the proposal.

A diversity and inclusion policy is not a critical race theory policy, although all of these terms tend to be thrown about as if they are interchangeable. But diversity and inclusion programs prompted lawmakers to write their letter to Tromp two years ago. And diversity and inclusion initiatives are unlikely to win support from McGeachins hand-picked indoctrination task force. The group is slated to spend 30 minutes at Thursdays meeting discussing the State Board proposal.

The State Board is scheduled to vote on its diversity and inclusion proposal at its Aug. 25-26 meeting. That same week, the McGeachin task force is expected to hold its final meeting and issue its own recommendations.

The debate has gone full circle. Now, a showdown looms.

Each week, Kevin Richert writes an analysis on education policy and education politics.In the interest of timeliness, this weeks analysis was published on Wednesday, July 28.

Coming Thursday: Look to Idaho Education News for full coverage and live blogging from the education task force meeting.

Senior reporter and blogger Kevin Richert specializes in education politics and education policy. He has more than 30 years of experience in Idaho journalism. He is a frequent guest on KIVI 6 On Your Side; "Idaho Reports" on Idaho Public Television; and "Idaho Matters" on Boise State Public Radio. Follow Kevin on Twitter: @KevinRichert. He can be reached at [emailprotected]

Excerpt from:
Analysis: The education culture wars go full circle, and head for a showdown - Idaho EdNews

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GovExec Daily: The Culture Wars, Return to Offices and Management - GovExec.com

4 min read28 July

In dousing the flames of the culture wars, our leaders would do well to look to the push for gay equality and to learn from it how to better live up to the publics expectations about navigating cultural change in Britain today.

A staunch conservative who enjoys Ru Pauls Drag Race. A 70 year old Brexiteer who admires Englands footballers for taking the knee. A liberal NHS worker who worries that everyone is becoming afraid of losing their job for saying the wrong thing.

This is the real face of modern Britain. As a new report from More in Common yesterday shows, far from being divided into two starkly opposed sides on culture war issues, most Britons look for balance. They have their views, but they blame politicians, campaigners, and cultural arsonists for turning disagreements into flaming rows, instead of showing leadership and building on the lessons of widely accepted cultural changes such as the countrys embrace of gay rights.

People think our ability to talk freely is under threat, creating resentment and resistance towards cultural change

More in Commons research has identified seven different segments of the population based on their values and beliefs. In conversations with all of them in the last month, we kept hearing how the tone of current debates is exhausting and leaves the public increasingly worried about saying the wrong thing. That feeling is leading people to think our ability to talk freely is under threat, creating resentment and resistance towards cultural change.

But despite this frustration, what came through strongly from our conversations was that Britons accept, and are proud, that Britains culture evolves and changes over time. And the public has a strong sense of how this evolution should be managed: in a way that builds on our traditions, rather than tears them down.

That helps to explain why time and time again when we asked people to name an example of how Britains culture has changed for the better, the answer that came back was how we now treat gay people and their families.

That acceptance of same-sex relationships might seem normal to us now - but at a time when the Pet Shop Boys topped the charts in 1987 with Its A Sin, three-quarters of Britons believed that same sex relations were almost always wrong. Now only 17% do. Same-sex marriage has gone from deeply contentious to widely accepted in 20 years. Attitudes have been transformed, and with that the experiences of gay people across Britain.

What lessons can our leaders take from the way attitudes on gay rights have changed to diffuse todays culture wars?

A key lesson is that campaigners for equality didnt talk about tearing things down. Recognising that Britons overwhelmingly say they are proud of our history, the case for gay equality was made in terms of fairness and equal marriage was presented as chance to strengthen the institution, not overhaul it.

A second lesson is that politicians advocating gay equality avoided an all or nothing approach. Instead, they took an incremental tack, that allowed them to bring people along and to show that changes didnt see the sky falling in.

Third, advocates of gay equality sought to build a big tent on the right and left. Rather than polarising the debate into us-versus-them or prosecuting debates along party lines, they engaged with the Conservative Party, with faith groups, with centre-right think tanks that had previously been hostile to gay marriage. And so, it was a Conservative PM who finally oversaw that introduction of equal marriage.

Fourth, campaigners also took time to make sure they communicated in everyday language and real stories that people understood. When Britons reflect on what has changed their attitudes, they often referencedcharactersin popular culture such as Eastenders in helping them to better understand the experiences of gay people.

Of course, there were moments of flashpoints and some polarising activists on both sides of the debate, but what is striking about the steady march towards gay equality is that it was done in a very British way - through dialogue and creating the space for people to ask questions.

In dousing the flames of the culture wars, our leaders would do well to look to the push for gay equality and to learn from it how to better live up to the publics expectations about navigating cultural change in Britain today.

Luke Tryl is the UK Director of More in Common.

More in Commons report Dousing the Flames: How Leaders can Better Navigate Cultural Change in 2020s Britain is being released today.

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To stop the culture wars, learn from gay rights - PoliticsHome - PoliticsHome