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Boris Johnson and other top Tories were branded "total hypocrites" and "arsonists complaining about a fire" after England players were bombarded with a torrent of racist abuse in the wake of England's defeat.

Labour's Angela Rayner and Conservative peer Sayeeda Warsi hit out at the Prime Minister and Home Secretary Priti Patel, accusing ministers of stoking divisive culture wars over Gareth Southgate's players taking the knee to protest racial injustice.

The PM refused to condemn those who booed the gesture and Ms Patel defended those who booed, saying they had a right to express themselves over what she called "gesture politics".

After the nation's heartbreaking defeat to Italy at Wembley on Sunday, however, penalty-takers Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho were targeted with racist bile online.

Ms Patel took to Twitter to say she was "disgusted that England players who have given so much for our country this summer have been subject to vile racist abuse on social media".

Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner hit back, saying: "Let me be clear. The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary gave license to the racists who booed the England players and are now racially abusing England players.

"Boris Johnson and Priti Patel are like arsonists complaining about a fire they poured petrol on. Total hypocrites."

Baroness Warsi also tweeted in response to Ms Patel: "Priti -we as govt, as Conservatives need to think about our role in feeding this culture in our country If we 'whistle' & the 'dog' reacts we cant be shocked if it barks and bites.

"Its time to stop the culture wars that are feeding division. Dog whistles win votes but destroy nations.

"As a proud centre right politician, as a proud part of a diverse vibrant nation that produced a football team that spoke to and represented England in all its modern diverse glory -it shames me that in 2021 some in politics are still playing fast & loose with issues of race."

Football legend Gary Neville was also among those who accused Mr Johnson's administration of a failure of leadership over the players' stance against racism, saying signals should "come from the top".

He hit out at the Prime Minister's previous racism, including when, in article before he was PM, Mr Johnson compared Muslim women to "letterboxes".

"I'm just reading the breaking news, it says the PM condemns racist abuse of England players. Southgate and the players a few weeks ago, five days on the trot, told us they were taking the knee to promote equality and it was against racism," Mr Neville told Sky News.

"The Prime Minister said it was ok for the population of this country to boo those players who were promoting equality and fighting against racism."

Labour leader Keir Starmer added: "Its appalling. Its absolutely appalling and it has to be called out in the strongest possible terms and condemned.

This is about leadership, and Im afraid the Prime Minister has failed the test of leadership because whatever he says today about racism he had a simple choice at the beginning of this tournament in relation to the booing of those who were taking the knee.

The Prime Minister failed to call that out and the actions and inactions of leaders have consequences, so Im afraid the Prime Ministers words today ring hollow.

Shadow culture secretary Jo Stevens said if she was the prime minister or the home secretary she would be embarrassed and probably ashamed at the words they used and their conduct at the start of the Euro 2020 tournament surrounding players taking the knee.

When asked if she believed the Prime Minister was responsible for the action undertaken by some England fans on Sunday night, she told the BBCs World at One programme: I think that his words and his lack of action send a message to people who feel its okay to be racist.

You can argue about whether theres a direct causal link between the two but all of us in what we do, what we say, what we dont do, there are consequences to that, particularly if youre the prime minister and youre in a position of such responsibility and leadership in the country.

Downing Street rejected Gary Nevilles accusation that Boris Johnson promoted racism, however.

The Prime Ministers official spokesman said: I would utterly reject that claim. The Prime Minister set out this morning his response to some of the awful comments that weve seen.

Asked about the former England footballers allegation that Mr Johnson and other ministers suggested it was fine to boo players taking the knee, the spokesman said claimed it was "not accurate".

The spokesman said: The Prime Minister was clear that he wanted to see everyone getting behind the team to cheer them on. He made that clear on the 11th, before Englands first game.

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Boris Johnson and Priti Patel branded 'arsonists' whose culture wars gave nod to racism - The Mirror

Boris Johnson has summoned tech companies to Downing Street to order them to do more to tackle online abuse, amid mounting criticism of the government after black England players were deluged with racist posts in the aftermath of their Euro 2020 defeat.

The England footballer Tyrone Mings has criticised the home secretary, Priti Patel, for her condemnation of the racist abuse faced by his teammates, after she called players taking the knee gesture politics.

He said Patel did not get to stoke the fire ahead of the tournament and then pretend to be disgusted when the very thing were campaigning against, happens.

Sign up to TechScape, Alex Herns weekly tech newsletter, starting Wednesday 14 July.

Johnson will meet executives from the social media firms in person, and will ask them to hand over the details of those who posted racist content online to the police.

His official spokesperson said Johnson would reiterate the urgent need for action ahead of tougher laws coming into force in the online harms bill and that there was no question that abuse was upsetting, unfair and must be stamped out.

Asked whether No 10 agreed with a government source who said the perpetrators should have their details handed over so that they can be made an example of, they said: Yes, we expect social media companies to do everything they can to identify these people.

The police already have a range of powers to identify and pursue those who use anonymity to spread hatred, but we have committed to strengthening the criminal law in this area.

Concern is growing among some Conservative advisers and MPs that the strategy of pivoting towards the culture wars was backfiring.

One senior Tory called the situation embarrassing and highlighted the Conservative MP Lee Anderson who said he would not watch the team because they took the knee. It was absolutely tragic, its a laughing stock, they said.

I think there needs to be a serious realisation soon in government that people simply dont care about the culture war crap. They care about the cost of living, NHS and crime. They dont want to see us starting fights with Marcus Rashford.

The former Conservative minister, Johnny Mercer, tweeted of Mings: The painful truth is that this guy is completely right.

Mercer said more of his Conservative colleagues should speak out. We have some great colleagues in the party who reflect this I am in no way alone. But more must have the courage to speak up, instead of remaining silent in some weird attempt to curry favour.

Ged Grebby, the chief executive of Show Racism the Red Card, applauded Mings for highlighting the hypocrisy of some politicians and government ministers.

Tyrone hit the nail on the head, he said. When the players made a stand against racism by taking the knee at the beginning of the tournament, government ministers like Boris Johnson and Priti Patel did not support their stance and in fact they spoke against it, he added.

It is no good condemning racism after it has happened when you did not support the players at the beginning it is now a case of jumping on the bandwagon, he continued.

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Tech chiefs called in to No 10 over racist posts to England players - The Guardian

The Republican faithful flocked to Dallas for the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) over the weekend as the GOP strategizes ahead of the 2022 and 2024 election cycles.

The confab marked an opportunity for the grassroots to rub shoulders with leaders of the GOP, including former President TrumpDonald TrumpOvernight Defense: Top US commander in Afghanistan departs | US sends delegation to Haiti after request for troops | Senate Dems propose .3B for Pentagon in Capitol security bill Fauci and Birx warned Scott Atlas was 'dangerous' Report: RNC chief counsel called 2020 Trump legal efforts 'a joke' MORE, who are jockeying for position with activists and voters ahead of reelection bids next year as well as potential presidential campaigns three years from now.

The bash also highlighted the issues that are currently animating the party's base six months into the Biden administration, including gripes over the 2020 election, critical race theory and more.

Hereare five takeaways from the weekends conference.

Trumps popularity remains strong

Trumps popularity among the GOP base was proven again during CPACs straw poll taken of its attendees, underscoring his ongoing role as the de facto head of the party.

Trumpled the straw pollof potential 2024 contenders, with 70 percent of respondents saying they would vote for him in the Republican primary if it were held today. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantisRon DeSantisPompeo on 2024: 'I want to continue to have an impact' Five takeaways from the CPAC conference in Dallas Noem hits fellow GOP governors over COVID-19 mandates MORE (R) came in second with 21 percent, while no other candidate polled above 1 percent.

The showing marked a jump from the 55 percent support he enjoyed in the same type of straw poll at CPAC Orlando in late February.

"I want to personally thank each and every one of you for your incredible support," Trump said during a speech at the conference shortly after the results were announced.

The result was particularly promising for Trump after a straw poll at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver last month showed DeSantiswith a slight edge.

Last weekends survey was in line with several other public polls showing Trump with substantial sway among GOP voters.

The former president has forecast that he will use his influence to play the role of Republican kingmaker, doling out endorsements for candidates and campaigning across the country heading into the 2022 midterms, including in some instances against incumbent Republicans he views as insufficiently loyal to him and his agenda.

Conspiracy theories linger among the base

Conspiracy theories around the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 insurrection abounded at the conference, underscoring the depths to which the base has internalized Trumps unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Attendees chanted four more years while the former president was on stage, and Trump repeated the allegation that widespread fraud and other irregularities swayed the November contest away from him and toward President BidenJoe BidenPoll: Biden approval on coronavirus slips 2 percentage points Overnight Defense: Top US commander in Afghanistan departs | US sends delegation to Haiti after request for troops | Senate Dems propose .3B for Pentagon in Capitol security bill Protests escalate US-Cuba tensions MORE an assertion for which hes provided no substantive evidence.

This must never happen to another partys presidential candidate again, it can never happen. We are a laughingstock all over the world, a laughingstock, he said.

Trump also took aim at media outlets that point out that he has not presented evidence, claiming to applause the instances of fraud are out there for supporters to see.

Every time the media references the election hoax, they say the fraud is 'Unproven! And while there is no evidence ...' No evidence? No evidence? There's so much evidence, he said.

Elsewhere at CPAC, merchandise was being sold topromote the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory, which posits that Trump will oversee a military takeover to oust from power a cabal of satanic child sex traffickers.

Recent polls have shown the extent to which conspiracy theories surrounding the election and other issues have seeped into the Republican mainstream.

A Morning Consult-Politico poll released last month showed that a slim majority of Republican voters believe that state-level reviews of the 2020 presidential election will reveal new information and reverse the outcome of the contest.

Noem comes out swinging

While much of the attention centered around Trump at the weekend conference, South Dakota Gov. Kristi NoemKristi Lynn NoemLawyers group criticizes Noem, Abbot on National Guard to border Five takeaways from the CPAC conference in Dallas Noem hits fellow GOP governors over COVID-19 mandates MORE (R), another potential 2024 contender, also drew headlines over her remarks about other states restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic.

Noem specifically took aim at other Republican governors for putting in place what she suggested were overly harsh measures aimed at combating the spread of the virus.

We've got Republican governors across this country pretending they didn't shut down their states; that they didn't close their regions; that they didn't mandate masks. ... Now I'm not picking fights with Republican governors. All I'm saying is that we need leaders with grit. That their first instinct is the right instinct, she said during her speech.

Noem has leaned into her approach to handling the pandemic to bolster her conservative bona fides, repeatedly highlighting in recent months her refusal to impose a mask mandate in South Dakota, among other things.

The buzz around her policies has put her name in the conversation of potential 2024 contenders. However, she still faces headwinds in a potentially crowded field, netting only 1 percent support in CPACs straw poll.

Culture war issues dominate

The CPAC conference underscored just how animated the GOP base is by a handful of culture issues, including claims equating Democrats to socialists, immigration, the debate over critical race theory and so-called cancel culture.

Trump made sure to hit on several of those issues during his speech, ensuring they will remain front-of-mind for GOP voters moving forward.

This is a very, very special place and were going to keep it the way it is, he said. With the help of everyone here today, we will defeat the radical left, the socialist, Marxist and the critical race theorists.

We will secure our borders, we will stop left-wing cancel culture, we will restore free speech and fair elections, and we will make American great again, he said.

The remarks come as Republicans rail against Bidens decision to remove Trump-era immigration restrictions, claiming the presidents policies are leading to a spike in attempted border crossings, and ongoing recriminations over the 2020 race.

However, it is critical race theory, which posits that racism is deep-seated in the history of the United States and its current laws, that has become the leading front in the culture wars.

The issue has roiled school boards across the country and led Republican governors to sign laws banning the teaching of it in public schools, even though schools in those states were not teaching it.

COVID-19 plays outsized role

The conference also put partisan divides over the coronavirus pandemic and vaccination efforts into stark relief.

Surveys and research have already shown that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to get vaccinated and that counties that supported Trump in 2020 are lagging behind their Biden-backing counterparts in their vaccination efforts.

The refusal by swaths of the Republican base to get vaccinated was accentuated by applause at the conference in response to a comment about the governments headwinds toward expanding vaccinations among the public.

The government was hoping that they could sort of sucker 90 percent of the population into getting vaccinated. And it isnt happening, conservative author Alex Berenson said over the weekend, sparking applause from the audience.

The trend undercuts a key Democratic argument heading into the midterms, which is that voters will be grateful to the Biden administration for its efforts to put the pandemic in the rearview mirror and back Democrats in 2022.

But more than that, health officials warned, it could prolong the fight against the virus and lead to more infections, variants and deaths.

Its horrifying. I mean, they are cheering about someone saying that its a good thing for people not to try and save their lives. I mean, if you just unpack that for a second, Jake, its almost frightening to say, Hey, guess what, we dont want you to do something to save your life. Yay! Everybody starts screaming and clapping, Anthony FauciAnthony FauciFlorida county mayor asks residents to wear masks regardless of vaccination Fauci and Birx warned Scott Atlas was 'dangerous' Overnight Health Care: FDA adds new warning to J&J COVID-19 vaccine | WHO chief pushes back on Pfizer booster shot | Fauci defends Biden's support for recommending vaccines 'one on one' MORE, the governments leading infectious diseases expert, told CNN host Jake TapperJacob (Jake) Paul TapperFive takeaways from the CPAC conference in Dallas Eric Adams to meet with Biden on curbing gun violence Israel offering third Pfizer dose to adults with weak immune systems MORE over the weekend. I just dont get that, and I dont think that anybody whos thinking clearly can get that. What is that all about? I dont understand that, Jake.

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Five takeaways from the CPAC conference in Dallas | TheHill - The Hill

Ive spent the better part of a decade trying to elucidate why one of our major political parties went crazy and decided to worship Donald Trumpwith that knowledge in hand, we have the potential to begin healing both the party and America.

Trump was able to take over the Republican Party for many reasonsmost of which reflect Republican failings. But there is another perspective that is not widely understood or appreciated. According to Kevin Drum, the liberal journalist formerly with Washington Monthly and Mother Jones, It is not conservatives who have turned American politics into a culture war battle. It is liberals.

Its a counterintuitive observation. Arent Republicans the ones who are staking out extreme positions? Since roughly the year 2000, according to survey data, Drum writes, Democrats have moved significantly to the left on most hot button social issues [here, he cites immigration, guns, taxes, abortionand even religion] while Republicans have moved only slightly right. So, ask yourself this question: Was Trumps rise to power a product of a Republican backlash to Democratic provocation?

Democrats dont comprehend how it feels to stand athwart history, yelling Stop! All. The. Damn. Time. Its something akin to how it feels to be a soccer goalie. Conservatives are constantly on defense. Progressives are always coming for more. Betsy Rosss flag. Theodore Roosevelt statues. Goya foods. This constant barrage, to summarize Drums hypothesis, drives conservatives crazy. Thats whyin lieu of actually winning most policy battlesso many conservatives have radicalized.

For most people, losing something is far more painful than the pleasure of gaining something of equivalent value, Drum explains. And since conservatives are losing the customs and hierarchies that theyve long lived with, their reaction is far more intense than the liberal reaction toward winning the changes they desire. This produces more outrageous behavior from conservatives even though liberals are actually the ur-source of polarization.

Of course, one mans provocation is another mans progress. Should Democrats feel bad that they won the gay marriage debate? Today, most Republicans support it. But putting aside the deep substantive questions, we are still left with other, more technical, complications. Lets start with the survey data on which Drum premises his piece. Polling is always subject to criticism about things like margins of error and the way questions are framed, not to mention selection bias. But the most legitimate pushback concerns sample size. By starting his analysis in the year 2000, he conveniently ignores the Reagan and Gingrich revolutions. In this regard, Drums hypothesis feels consistent with criticism that Trumps more nationalistic supporters lodged at the conservative movementsaying we have conserved nothing.

A simple left-right analysis of shifts in public opinion from 2000 to 2021 also ignores the GOPs reordering from Bush compassionate conservatism to Rovian gay marriage bashing to Tea Party anti-bailout/anti-Obamacare revolt to cultish authoritarian Trumpism (mixed in with heightened focus on race/immigration/transgender issues but less focus on traditional fiscal conservatism). Still, despite all the messiness and the caveats, Drum is on to something.

Trumps presidency was preceded by an Obama era that many of us felt was relatively anodyne. While racial backlash likely contributed to some of the rights radicalization that occurred during that time, many religious conservatives saw the controversies involving Hobby Lobby (trying to force a Christian company to provide contraception) and Little Sisters of the Poor (trying to force a religious order to provide contraception) as a direct attack on religious liberty. Others resented Obamas executive order on DACA (which he previously said was unconstitutional) and his trolling of Trump during the 2016 presidential race (ostensibly to accelerate the GOPs looney lurch so they would lose the election). That did not work out as planned.

Democracy works best when we have two sane centrist parties. Right now, we have one half of one party that fits this description. Therefore, its in everyones best interest to encourage Democrats to reel it in a bit, to save themselves, and to help the GOP recover from the cancer that elected Trump.

That means avoiding crazy ideas like defund the police. That means avoiding rhetoric that essentially labels all white Americans as white supremacists. It means not imposing the kind of litmus test that would force even Joe Biden to flip-flop on taxpayer funding of abortion. It means fellow Democrats condemning rhetoric like we saw from Squad member Cori Bush over the Fourth of July. It means having Biden finally have his Malarkey Moment, where he defends America and calls out the left-wing of his party for such egregious rhetoric.

All this to say that Democrats would benefit from some introspection, adult leadership, and a bit of humilityjust acknowledging that they dont have a monopoly on virtue or good ideas. Sometimes liberals are right about big things (e.g., civil rights) and sometimes conservatives are right about big things (e.g., the Cold War). Democracy is messy, but we eventually hash things out and (usually) arrive at the right place. But it takes us all working (and sometimes fighting) together.

The crux of my message to Democrats is that you should resist the siren call of radicalism, which the GOP has not, but also the temptation to run up the score while youre in power. If the countrys well-being isnt an adequate motivator, maybe self-preservation is. Drum makes the pragmatic case that Democrats have stoked the culture wars by getting more extreme on social issues and Republicans have used this to successfully cleave away a segment of both the non-college white vote and, more recently, the non-college nonwhite vote.

Cards on the table: I am an American conservative because I believe that liberal democracy is precious and worth conserving. I believe in reformnot revolution. And it strikes me that in these crazy times, radical left-wing ideas are dangerous not just on their own merits, but also because they spur contentious right-wing backlash.

Now, you may assert that other peoples revanchist (over)reactions arent your problem. But if you care about thwarting Donald Trump and the next Donald Trumpand if you care about holding this country together and preserving this tenuous experimentI say they are.

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Dems Helped Give Us TrumpThey Shouldn't Repeat That Mistake - The Daily Beast

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., speaks at a news conference about banning federal funding for the teaching of critical race theory. Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect hide caption

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., speaks at a news conference about banning federal funding for the teaching of critical race theory.

Last month, Republican lawmakers decried critical race theory, an academic approach that examines how race and racism function in American institutions.

"Folks, we're in a cultural warfare today," Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said at a news conference alongside six other members of the all-Republican House Freedom Caucus. "Critical race theory asserts that people with white skin are inherently racist, not because of their actions, words or what they actually believe in their heart but by virtue of the color of their skin."

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., added: "Democrats want to teach our children to hate each other."

Republicans, who are fighting the teaching of critical race theory in schools, contend it divides Americans. Democrats and their allies maintain that progress is unlikely without examining the root causes of disparity in the country. The issue is shaping up to be a major cultural battle ahead of next year's midterm elections.

Academics, particularly legal scholars, have studied critical race theory for decades. But its main entry into the partisan fray came in 2020, when former President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning federal contractors from conducting certain racial sensitivity trainings. It was challenged in court, and President Biden rescinded the order the day he took office.

Since then, the issue has taken hold as a rallying cry among some Republican lawmakers who argue the approach unfairly forces students to consider race and racism.

"A stand-in for this larger anxiety"

Andrew Hartman, a history professor at Illinois State University, described the battle over critical race theory as typical of the culture wars, where "the issue itself is not always the thing driving the controversy."

"I'm not really sure that the conservatives right now know what it is or know its history," said Hartman, author of A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars.

He said critical race theory posits that racism is endemic to American society through history and that, consequently, Americans have to think about institutions like the justice system or schools through the perspective of race and racism.

However, he said, "conservatives, since the 1960s, have increasingly defined American society as a colorblind society, in the sense that maybe there were some problems in the past but American society corrected itself and now we have these laws and institutions that are meritocratic and anybody, regardless of race, can achieve the American dream."

Confronted by the Black Lives Matter protests of last summer, as well as the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 curriculum, which roots American history in its racist past, Hartman said many Americans want simple answers.

"And so critical race theory becomes a stand-in for this larger anxiety about people being upset about persistent racism," he said.

Legislative action

States such as Idaho and Oklahoma have adopted laws that limit how public school teachers can talk about race in the classroom, and Republican legislatures in nearly half a dozen states have advanced similar bills that target teachings that some educators say they don't teach anyway.

There's movement on the national level too.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., has introduced the Combating Racist Training in the Military Act, a bill that would prohibit the armed forces and academics at the Defense Department from promoting "anti-American and racist theories," which, according to the bill's text, includes critical race theory.

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., said critical race theory "brings division" and "advances hate" during a news conference on Capitol Hill on May 12. Jacquelyn Martin/AP hide caption

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., said critical race theory "brings division" and "advances hate" during a news conference on Capitol Hill on May 12.

Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., said he is co-sponsoring legislation that would prevent federal dollars from being spent on critical race theory in schools or government offices.

"The ideas behind critical race theory and [its] implementation is creating this oppressor-oppressed divide amongst our people," Donalds told NPR. "And so no matter how you feel about the history of our country as a Black man, I think our history has actually been quite awful, I mean, that's without question but you also have to take into account the progression of our country, especially over the last 60 to 70 years."

Donalds said the country's history, including its ills, should be taught, but that critical race theory causes more problems than solutions.

"It only causes more divisions, which doesn't help our union become the more perfect union," he said.

A post-racial country?

Nearly half of the speakers at the Republican news conference in May invoked Martin Luther King Jr., expressing their desire to be judged "by the content of their character, not the color of their skin."

But Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, a sociology professor at Duke University, said King's dream was about the future. "He didn't say, 'We are now in a colorblind society,' " he said.

Bonilla-Silva, whose book Racism Without Racists critiques the notion that America is now "colorblind," says he too shares King's dream, "but in order for us to get to the promised land of colorblindness, we have to go through race. It's the opposite of what these folks are arguing."

He says the idea that American society is post-racial is nonsense.

"We are not, because we watched the video of George Floyd, and we are not because we have the data on income inequality, on wealth inequality, on housing inequality," he said.

As an example, Bonilla-Silva noted the opposition of whites to affirmative action in the post-civil rights era.

"Many whites said things such as, 'I'm not a racist. I believe in equal opportunity, which is why I oppose affirmative action, because affirmative action is discrimination in reverse,' " he noted.

"That statement only works if one believes that discrimination has ended," he added. "But because it has not ended, claiming that you oppose affirmative action because it's presumably discrimination in reverse ends up justifying the racial status quo and the inequalities."

Motivator for the midterms?

The fight over critical race theory will likely continue to be a heated issue ahead of next year's midterm elections. Although November 2022 seems a long way away, Christine Matthews, president of Bellwether Research and a public opinion pollster, says pushback to anti-racism teaching is exactly the kind of issue that could maintain traction among certain voters.

"I think it's just one more addition to the culture war that the Republicans really want to fight and it's what they want to make the 2022 midterms about," she said.

Matthews noted that Biden's approval ratings, in the mid-50s, are significantly higher than Trump's were throughout his term in office, "so Republicans are wanting to make this about othering the Democrats and making them seem as extreme and threatening to white culture as possible."

"If Republicans can make [voters] feel threatened and their place in society threatened in terms of white culture and political correctness and cancel culture, that's a visceral and emotional issue, and I do think it could impact turnout."

These issues could be used to galvanize conservative voters and increase their numbers at the polls.

"We have seen evidence that the Republican base is responding much more to threats on cultural issues, even to some degree more than economic issues," Matthews said.

But Rep. Donalds said the Republican Party doesn't need to rally the base to get it to show up to vote.

"When it comes to the '22 elections, we don't need additional ammunition," he said, pointing to what he views as a list of failures from the Biden administration, from budget and taxes to shutting down the Keystone pipeline.

Doug Heye, the former communications director for the Republican National Committee, said in some ways, the attempts to mandate what schools can or can't teach highlights just how far the GOP under Trump has moved away from traditionally conservative principles like wanting less federal involvement in schools.

"A lot of what we might have described as conservative policy five years ago, 10 years ago, now just isn't that case," he said. "If we're pushing what is a current priority for the Trump base, that's defined as conservative, whether or not that's a federal top-down policy or not. So the old issues of federalism has really been upended under Donald Trump's reign as the leader of the party."

Heye said at this point, critical race theory is still politically a "niche issue" among conservative voters, but he expects it to play a larger role in state assemblies, governors races and school boards rather than in national politics.

He said he believes it's an issue some candidates will raise "to further rile up the base that is already pretty riled."

"So the question will be then for Republicans: What else are they really emphasizing?" he said.

From a strategy perspective, Matthews says she thinks it will all come down to messaging.

"The Republicans are trying to make it a bad thing," she said, "but I feel like if the Democrats got the messaging right, they could make it a good thing."

Both sides have a little more than a year to do that.

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The Brewing Political Battle Over Critical Race Theory - NPR