The Poisoning of the American Mind ft. Christopher Rufo

Summary

Summary of "The Poisoning of the American Mind" Featuring Christopher Rufo

Podcast Information:

• Title: The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
• Host/Author: Premiere Networks
• Description: Hosted by national radio personality Ben Ferguson, The 47 Morning Update delves into the latest news and political headlines, emphasizing insights into the President's administration and policies. The show offers exclusive interviews and candid commentary, aiming to provide listeners with perspectives not commonly found in mainstream media. Episodes are released daily from Monday through Saturday.

Episode Details:

• Episode Title: The Poisoning of the American Mind ft. Christopher Rufo
• Release Date: July 1, 2021

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1. Introduction to Critical Race Theory (CRT)

The episode opens with Michael Knowles introducing the topic of Critical Race Theory (CRT) amidst growing parental concerns over its presence in school curricula. He highlights the polarized responses from the left—some defend CRT as an essential academic framework, while others deny its existence altogether.

Notable Quote:

"Critical race theory doesn't exist, but it's also terrific and wonderful and very important." – Michael Knowles [00:00]

2. Existence and Definition of CRT

Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, affirms the existence of CRT, challenging the leftist narrative that dismisses it as mythical. He emphasizes the substantial documentation and evidence supporting CRT's implementation beyond academic circles.

Notable Quote:

"Critical race theorists, unfortunately for them, left a very heavy paper trail...actual PDFs, videos, documents, and hard evidence of these really atrocious ideas." – Christopher Rufo [02:43]

3. CRT in K-12 Education

Rufo provides concrete examples of CRT's infiltration into K-12 education. He cites instances where young students are compelled to analyze their racial and sexual identities, rank themselves within racial hierarchies, and participate in activities like simulated Black Power rallies.

Notable Quote:

"They sent their white male executives to a three-day white male privilege re-education camp...forcing kids to hold a simulated black power rally." – Christopher Rufo [02:47]

4. Key Terminology and Concepts of CRT

Rufo breaks down essential CRT terms, explaining their meanings and implications within educational settings:

• Whiteness: Reducing individuals to racial essences.
• White Privilege: Societal advantages granted based on skin color.
• White Fragility: Emotional reactions from white individuals when their racial identity is challenged.
• Oppressor and Oppressed: A racial lens on Marxian conflict theory.
• Intersectionality: The interconnected nature of social categorizations.
• Equity vs. Equality: Distinguishing between individual protection under the law and group-based outcome adjustments.

Notable Quotes:

"Equity says you must discriminate." – Christopher Rufo [08:48]

"Systemic racism...the only solution is to tear down that system." – Christopher Rufo [11:35]

5. Spread of CRT into Institutional Frameworks

Rufo outlines how CRT has permeated various institutions, including graduate schools of education, federal agencies, corporate boardrooms, and the military. He attributes this expansion to deliberate strategies by CRT proponents aiming to embed these ideologies deeply within societal structures.

Notable Quote:

"They have created an economic ecosystem where they can attach themselves to public institutions like school districts and then push these ideas...into a kindergarten classroom." – Christopher Rufo [15:58]

6. Conservative Response and Opposition

The discussion shifts to the rising conservative backlash against CRT. Knowles and Rufo express optimism about grassroots movements mobilizing against CRT's pervasive influence, comparing the current resistance to historical political revolutions like the Tea Party.

Notable Quote:

"We're seeing a critical race theory revolt all over this country. That gives me an immense amount of hope." – Christopher Rufo [27:00]

7. CRT's Influence in Government and Military

Rufo provides alarming examples of CRT's reach into federal agencies and the military. He cites instances where white male executives undergo "privilege re-education" and highlights the adoption of CRT principles within institutions like Sandia National Laboratories and the Department of Defense.

Notable Quote:

"The only solution...is to tear down that system. So they try to put this systematic lens...on all of the various categories." – Christopher Rufo [13:19]

8. Grassroots Resistance and Future Outlook

Rufo emphasizes the significant public opposition to CRT, noting increased parental activism and legislative efforts at local and state levels to counteract its spread. He encourages listeners to engage with resources and participate in the movement against CRT.

Notable Quote:

"People are from all walks of life...saying, 'Wait a minute, I don't want this.'" – Christopher Rufo [26:31]

9. Conclusion and Resources

In wrapping up, Rufo directs listeners to his critical race theory briefing book, a comprehensive resource for understanding CRT and organizing opposition. He underscores the importance of informed activism in combating CRT's influence.

Notable Quote:

"I have definitions. I have key concepts and quotations...I encourage everyone to get involved." – Christopher Rufo [28:17]

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Key Takeaways:

• CRT's Pervasiveness: Critical Race Theory has expanded beyond its academic origins in law schools into K-12 education, government institutions, and corporate environments.
• Terminology as Tools: Terms like "equity," "systemic racism," and "white privilege" are pivotal in CRT's framework and are being integrated into educational and institutional curricula.
• Conservative Mobilization: There's a rising grassroots movement opposing CRT, driven by parental activism and legislative efforts aimed at restricting CRT's influence.
• Institutional Infiltration: CRT principles are being embedded in federal agencies and the military, raising concerns about their impact on policy and organizational culture.
• Resources for Action: Experts like Christopher Rufo provide tools and resources for individuals seeking to understand and oppose CRT's spread.

This episode serves as a comprehensive exploration of CRT's impact on American education and institutions, highlighting the urgent need for informed dialogue and action to address its pervasive influence.

Transcript

[Michael Knowles]

Parents across the country have been storming school board meetings to demand an end to critical race theory in the classroom. And prominent leftists have responded in one of two ways. Some of them have defended critical race theory as a good and important academic movement, and others have denied that critical race theory exists at all. And actually, many prominent leftists have done both at the same time. Critical race theory doesn't exist, but it's also terrific and wonderful and very important. Well, here to help us break it down, we have one of the nation's top experts on critical race theory. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I am Michael Knowles, and this week I am joined not only by the senator himself, but also by Christopher Ruffo, who is senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and who is largely responsible for for many people around the country waking up to critical race theory and the associated leftist ideological movements that are poisoning the minds of young America. All right, you understand my opinion of crt, but I wanna take a somewhat balanced perspective. Chris, thank you so much for being here.

[Christopher Ruffo]

It's great to be with you.

[Michael Knowles]

So, Senator, you and I were talking not so long ago about what CRT was like back when you were a student in law school. Because it did begin in the law schools, but it didn't end in the law schools.

[Ted Cruz]

Well, that's right. And Harvard Law School is really where it originated. And unfortunately, it has metastasized and spread. And Chris has done a terrific job of chronicling where and when it has spread and how it's manifesting. And so maybe one thing to start this conversation, Chris, tell us, does critical race theory exist? Because if I turn on msnbc, I see a lot of people screaming at me that there is no such thing.

[Christopher Ruffo]

Yeah, it definitely exists. And I've noticed a lot of folks on the left, especially in places like msnbc, equating critical race theory with Bigfoot with a Loch Ness monster. It seems to be impossible to find only in the fevered imaginations of conservatives. But critical race theorists, unfortunately for them, left a very heavy paper trail. If you look at the original academic writings in the late 80s and early 90s, all the way now to K through 12 schools where I've meticulously documented not just people's experiences and people's opinions, but actual PDFs, videos, documents, and hard evidence of these really atrocious ideas that are not just.

[Ted Cruz]

So. Give us an example of what's being taught to kids in schools. Sure.

[Christopher Ruffo]

I mean, in Cupertino, California, they forced third graders, kids that are about 8 years old to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities and then rank themselves according to a racial hierarchy. In fifth grade in Buffalo and Philadelphia, they were teaching that, quote, all white people contribute to systemic racism. They were forcing kids to hold a simulated black power rally in the auditorium, chanting for Angela Davis to be freed from prison in a public high school in New York. They sent out an email to white parents saying that they.

[Ted Cruz]

And hold on, Chris, let me stop you on that. Angela Davis, for someone who doesn't know who she is, who's Angela Davis?

[Christopher Ruffo]

You know, in many ways, Angela Davis was the kind of prototype of critical race theory. She was the doctoral student of the kind of founding American critical theorist named Herbert Marcuse, who advocated for revolution, who condoned even violence. Angela Davis was his student, steeped in Marxist ideology, who eventually was provided weapons for a hostage situation in a courtroom. She was a member of the Communist Party. She advocated for the overthrow of the United States, abolishing capitalism. And a lot of those ideas that during Davis's time were really on the radical left fringe have now moved not only into mainstream university discourse, but even into public K through 12 schools under this guise of critical race theory.

[Michael Knowles]

So, Chris, I want to have a good answer for the leftists who have now made it seems that they're speaking in unison after spending weeks defending crt, now they're denying it. And they are saying that almost by definition, critical race theory is only taught and discussed in law schools and that the things that are going on in K through 12, maybe they're anti white, maybe they're bigoted, maybe they're vicious and far left, but whatever it is, they're not the same thing as critical race theory. What do you say to people who are making that argument?

[Christopher Ruffo]

Yeah, I mean, it's important. Like all Marxist ideologies, you have theory and praxis or kind of the general ideas, and then the practical implementation of those ideas that's embedded within critical race theory. So what it looks like in a scholarly paper, obviously they're not teaching kindergartners how to read the Harvard Law Review, but what they are teaching kindergartners can be thought of as applied critical race theory. So I'm just going to lay out some key terms, and these are really kind of red flag terms that if they're teaching in A K through 12 school, it's almost undoubtedly informed by critical race theory and using the principles of critical race theory. So if you hear whiteness, white privilege, white fragility, oppressor, oppressed intersectionality, systemic racism, spirit, murder, equity, anti racism, collective guilt, or affinity spaces which are racially segregated. Training programs and educational lectures. All of those key terms which you hear in hundreds if not thousands of school districts across the country, even if they don't say under the heading critical race theory, those are all ideas that are derived from critical race theory and then applied in the classroom through critical pedagogy.

[Ted Cruz]

Okay, so Chris, back up a little bit and run through those terms. A lot of those terms we may or may not have heard of, but what do they mean? Go through them one at a time.

[Christopher Ruffo]

Yeah, so I'll first take the trio of terms related to whiteness. It's this idea that people of different racial categories can be reduced to a racial essence. This almost metaphysical property of whiteness, the condition of being white. And that includes by definition in their theories, white privilege. This idea that society is tilted towards you, you are embedded by simply existing. You have vested property, interests and advantages because of the color of your skin. And also white fragility. The idea that any reaction against something like critical race theory doesn't come from principled agreement or dissent. It comes from the kind of psychopathology of being white, that you are fragile, that you are going to react out of rage, out of other sorts of emotions, to any challenge to your identity. And then I think a second bucket you have to look at oppressor and oppressed. This is Marxian conflict theory derived in the 19th century. But now looking at that through a racial lens, the idea that the oppressors are not the capitalist landlords and ownership class, but actually a racial category of whites. The oppressed are black Americans and people of color. And then intersectionality basically takes this kind of shake them up approach to this oppressor and oppressed distinction, saying all the different racial categories, religion, language, disability, status, your body mass index even, are all vestiges of this capitalist white supremacist patriarchy that oppresses people. And then this is then the kind of antidote that they profess is something like equity or anti racism. And Ibram Kendi, who I think is the kind of critical race guru of our time, defines anti racism, defines equity in very simple terms. He says the cure for past discrimination is present discrimination. The idea that being we don't want to have equality under the law, we don't want to have colorblindness, we don't want to have meritocracy, we want to have a legal regime that favors people on the basis of race, that tips the scales to someone on the basis of race, and even in many cases in critical race theory, actually abolishes the system of capitalism, redistributes land and wealth on the basis of racial identity.

[Ted Cruz]

So let me break down, because there are a number of concepts in there, like you mentioned, equity. Now, equity sounds very similar to equality, and equality is a good thing. I mean, we are a nation that was built under the principle of equality under the law. But when you hear the critical race theorists talking about equity, they don't mean equality. What's the difference between the two?

[Christopher Ruffo]

It's a really key difference. And I think that they've adapted the term equity really to play a language game to trick most Americans to think it's just equality 2.0. It's just a better version of what we had before. But the philosophical premise of these ideas is quite different. Equality, as you said, seeks to provide equal protection under the law. It protects the individual's right to things like private property, to freedom of speech, to political participation and representation.

[Ted Cruz]

So equality says you can't discriminate. Equity says you must discriminate. Is that. Am I following this right?

[Christopher Ruffo]

That's right. And the key difference is that equality looks to you as an individual and says that the unit, the key unit of measurement, analysis, and policy is the individual human being who should be protected from discrimination. Equity says we don't want to look at society as a collection of individuals. We want to look at society as a collection of competing racial groups. And we need to achieve the equality of outcomes between those racial groups by whatever means necessary, including racial discrimination, which they call positive discrimination or affirmative action, which is so.

[Ted Cruz]

And Chris, let me stop you, because one thing you said there that I think is really important is you talk about the language games. And in the world of critical race theory, I mean, the left is very good and creative when it comes to language and the similarity between equity and equality. It's like, well, gosh, who could be against equality? Which I guess means everyone has to be for what they call equity, which is discriminate based on race, which is the exact opposite of what we should be doing. But they do a similar thing with systematic racism. And when you say so, systematic racism is different from racism. Nobody disputes racism is real. There are bigots in the world. There are bigots, There are white bigots, there are black bigots, There are bigots of every race and creed you can find. Now, that is a very different thing from the notion of systematic racism, which is that the system is fundamentally racist, whether it's the criminal justice system, whether it is the capitalist system, whether it is, whatever the systems we have in the country that they are built into their structure, racist. That's very different. But the problem is when someone's listening to it and they hear systematic racism, they think, well yeah, racism exists, so that must be right. And when they hear someone denying it, they say, well gosh, that guy's a loon because he says there's no racism. How much mileage do they get out of these language games trying to make something Nvidia sound like it's innocuous?

[Christopher Ruffo]

Yeah, I mean, they've been very successful with it. And I think that's why we have to be very vigorous in creating language and also subverting their language. So systemic racism is very interesting. It achieves really two objectives for them simultaneously. One, it assumes that any disparity in outcome through any kind of statistical measure where things aren't equal in the ways that they want them to be equal, kind of makes the case for racism as the original cause of everything. What it tries to do is basically say that all of these systems are racist because they produce unequal outcomes by whatever measure that they're measuring of the day. But the second thing that it does is it also implies a solution. If something is systematically racist, the only solution is to tear down that system. So they try to put this systematic lens, institutional lens, systemic lens on all of the various categories, whether it's the Constitution, whether it's law, whether it's private property, whether it's the Civil Rights act and non discrimination. And then they try to say basically the only solution, because we've tried civil rights, we've tried equality, we've tried everything that they said was going to lead to greater equality. It all has to go. And I think at heart, if you look at critical race theory, it is anti constitutional, it is explicitly anti 14th amendment, the idea of equal protection under the law, it's explicitly anti capitalist. So our economic system has to go. And if you go on down the line, you find that people that the critical race theorists don't want to reform the United States, they want to overturn the United States. They want to kind of fundamentally destroy the institutions in the hope that something better will emerge.

[Michael Knowles]

So the question that keeps striking me because I think absolutely you're right, Senator. I mean, you actually saw this ideology develop at the place where it developed in the years that it was developing. And Chris, you've traced that out very well. And I agree. I think the argument now that's being made on the left that actually when educators in high schools and middle schools repeat all of the various axioms of critical race theory, that that somehow is totally different from critical race theory. I think it's a kind of weak argum. It's actually a nominalist argument that basically just tries to run away from words having any meaning at all as general principles. But I am still left with this question. How did critical race theory developed in the 1980s at Harvard Law School? How did it go from this kooky fringe movement at one law school, a very disreputable law school as far as I'm concerned, by the way. But how did it go from there to every system of education in the country?

[Unknown]

Yeah, I mean, that's a big question. And I think you can look at a couple different methods of transmission. And I think probably the most important one is graduate schools of education. So there's a large body of academic research that they think of as the critical turn in education. So taking critical legal studies, taking critical theory, taking critical race theory, and then applying it to education, and the idea being that if you can shape a curriculum and shape a pedagogy to apply the ideas of critical race theory to kids, you're going to bring up a generation that can solve some of these problems, such as white privilege and white fragility, systemic racism, et cetera. And if you look at graduate schools of education, I mean, they are steeped in this stuff. The kind of foundational textbook in most graduate schools of education is the pedagogy of the oppressed by the critical pedagogist Paulo Freire. And then they take all of these ideas from critical theory and then do essentially critical race theory, the praxis portion, the practice, and then you have, I don't know, thousands or maybe tens of thousands of people who are graduating from these schools. This is really the only framework that they know. And they're being put into place in school districts around the country. And one thing that I've seen is that older teachers are not teaching this. Older teachers are in many cases the people who leak documents to me because they're saying this is tearing our institutions apart. But if you're under 35 and you're a new public school teacher or within the first five, 10 years of your career, this is the water that you swim in. This is what you're teaching, this is how you're designing your curricula.

[Christopher Ruffo]

And then you have a network of.

[Unknown]

Nonprofits of critical race theory based training programs and diversity lecturers and contractors that have created an economic ecosystem where they can attach themselves to public institutions like school districts and then push these ideas from that fringe all the way into, in some cases, a kindergarten classroom. And I think it, you know, in a way you have to give these folks respect. They've had a 30 year plan to get their ideas into the institutions. And in many ways they're just on the cusp of, of success unless we stop them.

[Ted Cruz]

So, Chris, one very useful thing I think you've laid out for folks listening or watching the pod, if you're a parent, if you have kids, Heidi and I, our girls are 10 and 13. If you're looking at their curriculum in school, there are buzzwords that you want to be looking for. Things like white privilege or whiteness or white fragility, which are weird concepts. Things like anti racism, which I have to say, by the way, I have to step back and marvel at the cleverness of the propaganda. Because anti racism, I think, well, absolutely, I'm anti racism. Racism is horrible and evil and bigotry. And so of course I'm against that. But anti racism is a code word that doesn't actually mean being against racism. It means being a racist explicitly and discriminating, number one, against white kids, discriminating, number two, viewing the system in a way that it is inherently biased and wanting to tear it down. And you know, we talked a minute ago about how all of this originated in Marxism. What's interesting is it didn't just originate in Marxism. The end point that this curriculum is designed to teach the kids to go to is Marxism itself. It is designed to tear down capitalism and replace it with communism, replace it with Marxism, with government power, although on racial lines. Is that a fair characterization?

[Christopher Ruffo]

Yeah, I think it is. And one of the things that I've noticed in my research, you look at critical race theory and you look at their literature, you look at their academic work, and they're always focused on pointing out problems. And I've always asked in the back of my mind, well, what do you want? What are you proposing? What kind of policy solution are you suggesting would solve these problems? In every case, it is active discrimination. This idea that equality of outcomes must be achieved through government action and government force. It's skepticism about private property, saying that private property actually is a form of whiteness, that actually private property and white identity are inextricably linked and in order to reduce whiteness and white privilege, you have to actually change property arrangements. And then it's someone like Ibram Kendi again who proposes a federal department of anti racism. That's Unaccountable to voters, unaccountable to Congress, unaccountable to the Executive.

[Ted Cruz]

And what would that department do?

[Christopher Ruffo]

It would have the power to veto, nullify or abolish any law at any level of government and silence political speech that's not deemed anti racist. So when you put all of these disparate parts together, you have again kind of the end of private property. You have redistribution of land and wealth along racial lines. And then you have an omnipotent federal bureaucracy with the power to suppress speech and the power to invalidate law outside of the confines of our federalist system. It starts looking a lot like a Marxist 20th century style state. And you should keep in mind.

[Ted Cruz]

Look, I gotta say that as you describe the federal Department of Anti Racism, that is terrifying. And it's not just Marxist, it's profoundly anti democratic to have some government bureaucrat with the ability to set aside any law he or she doesn't like and to silence and censor speech. But this nonsense is not just being taught in the schools, although being taught in the schools is dangerous. It's also being taught in corporate America. It's also being taught in the federal government. It's also being taught in the military. Is that right?

[Christopher Ruffo]

Yeah, that's right. I've reported on all of those domains. I mean started last year with a series of reports I did on the federal government.

[Ted Cruz]

So give us some examples.

[Christopher Ruffo]

Yeah, so I'll give you some examples. The example that I like to tell is Sandia National Laboratories, which is a federally affiliated laboratory that designs America's nuclear arsenal. So the actual nuclear weapons that we have to keep our country safe. They sent their white male executives to a three day white male privilege re education camp. They sent them to a resort down in New Mexico and they had them deconstruct their white male identities. They had them read and recite white male privilege statements, then they had them write letters of apology to fictitious women and people of color. The idea is that breaking down their identity in order for them to be kind of softer and more open to absorbing this ideology. And some of these things, if you look at them, you say, well, this is one crazy training. This is, this is something that was probably well intentioned, but it went awry. But then I started doing reporting at I think now more than a dozen federal agencies. I'm sure it's now almost every federal agency, including very important places like the Treasury Department, like Homeland Security, like the FBI, like West Point Military Academy. All of these institutions that most Americans had faith in have been really infected with this ideology and really have started to adopt it as their own. And I think over the short term it makes for a splashy headline, but over the long term it's something that is very dangerous for our country.

[Ted Cruz]

So, Chris, let me play devil's advocate for a second here. This past week, General Mark Milley, who's the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was testifying in Congress and made a lot of news. And I know General Milley well. I like him. He's a Princeton grad. He actually is the only general officer in the military that is a Princeton grad. And I got to know him when he was the commanding officer of Fort Hood in Texas, when he was a three star general before he had gone up to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs. But General Milley kind of vented and he was under questioning in the House and he said he was offended that people were criticizing the military as woke. And the argument he gave is I've read Karl Marx, but that doesn't make me a communist. So what's the response to. Well, what's wrong with reading some of this stuff?

[Christopher Ruffo]

Yeah, I mean there's a really important distinction, right? It's like I read a lot of critical race theory. I think it's important to read. I think it's totally fine to read in the context of a college classroom. But there's two different ways you can approach it. You can approach it as one perspective among many where you have a reasoned debate, where you look at its flaws, you look at its benefits, and then you try to come to a better understanding of the world by comparing a variety of subjects. The other way is to really use it as a form of indoctrination, to compelling people to believe, to forcing them to believe in this, to presenting it not as one perspective among many, but as the truth as dogma.

[Ted Cruz]

So there's a difference between say West Point having a survey class of different views of race in America and including this among many different views, and also reading Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass, and in that context a survey class, this could be reasonably included as among the views there are. That's very different from say a training program that you're forcing young 18, 19, 20 year old soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines to complete this training program in order to be able to serve in the military.

[Christopher Ruffo]

Yeah, that's right. And I think from some of the documents that I've seen from within the United States military, it's not presenting it as a survey. It's not presenting it as one perspective of many. It's saying this is the ideology of the U.S. army or the Marine Corps or West Point Military Academy. These are the books you need to read. It's Robin Diangelo, it's Ibram Kendi, it's this new gospel of critical race theory that they're presenting as this kind of thing that you need to believe. Not again, a competing perspective. I think it's also very different from when you're talking about kids, when you're talking about A K through 12 education, where again, it's different. It's presented not as an academic subject, but it's presented as a kind of method of indoctrination. And I think that's why you're seeing millions of parents rise up to say, hey, look, we want to have a discussion about these issues, we want to work on these issues. But what we don't want is a one sided, manipulative kind of Marxism based curriculum that is being forced down our children's throats, despite the fact that the parents, the people who actually are invested in these schools and pay for these schools disagree with this stuff and it violates their conscience.

[Michael Knowles]

And it's worth pointing out a third grade classroom is not exactly a free marketplace of ideas. Whatever you might have in a graduate seminar or even undergraduate, really what you're teaching to 8 year olds is this is true and this is false. You're giving them rudimentary education so that they can think later on in more complex ways. I think you're absolutely right, Chris. This is not though there are many defenders of CRT who are trying to pretend that this is just one idea among many in a free marketplace of ideas. It's not how it's being taught. And as you also point out, Senator, the fact that this has made it into the US military, the fact that officers are being told to imbibe this stuff and are being encouraged to treat it as the gospel truth rather than just as some crazy idea among many. The fact that this has infiltrated corporate boardrooms, that this has infiltrated so many institutions in our country, it does make you almost lose hope. And I wonder, is there any glimmer of hope here? It's very strange that I think probably the majority of Americans disagree with this kind of stuff. You see a lot of parents rushing to their school boards and yet all of the powerful institutions seem uniformly to be pushing it.

[Unknown]

Yeah, I'm an optimist. I'm very hopeful about this. And I think that what I'm seeing On the ground, what I'm seeing in hundreds of emails every day is people are people from all walks of life, people from a variety of racial backgrounds, people from all over the country that are starting to rise up to say.

[Christopher Ruffo]

Wait a minute, I don't want this.

[Unknown]

In my kids school, I don't want this in my church, I don't want this in my local government. I don't want this being pushed by the US Congress. And what I think we're seeing every day is a new video of hundreds of parents showing up at a school board meeting, getting activated, really pushing on this issue. And I talk with a lot of local and state legislators and they're telling me that when they're out there in their districts, this is the number one issue that they get when they're doorbelling or going door to door or speaking at events.

[Christopher Ruffo]

People really care about this.

[Unknown]

I know that some people are saying this has the same kind of energy as the 94 congressional revolution or 2010, the tea party revolution. There's something happening in the grassroots of this country that people are being energized by this. They're being focused, they're being engaged in many cases for the first time in politics. And I don't think the institutional responses have been frankly, very strong. You see all of the media running cover, you see they're playing language games, you see them retreating from critical race theory, none of those strategies are gonna hold because people know what's being taught to their kids. People have a visceral and intuitive understanding of what this ideology is trying to accomplish. And we're seeing a critical race theory revolt all over this country. That gives me an immense amount of hope. And I think that, look, if Brooklyn and Berkeley want to do critical race theory in their K12 schools, that's fine, that's their right. But I think we're looking at somewhere between 70 and 80% of Americans that we could rally into opposition on this issue. And I think that's a starting point for incredible success.

[Ted Cruz]

So, Chris, if someone wants to learn more, where do we go? Where can someone go to learn more about what this is, where it's being taught and what to do about it?

[Unknown]

Yeah, I put together a critical race theory briefing book. So if you just search Google, Christopher Ruffo Critical race theory briefing book or CRT briefing book, I've provided anything that you'll need to get started to engage on this issue, whether you're a parent, whether you're a local legislator, whether you care about this in the workplace. So I have definitions. I have key concepts and quotations. I have stories about where it's being taught schools. I also have suggestions for language that's successful in winning on this issue as well as some model legislation. So that's where I'd recommend you go. You can always reach out to me. I'm happy to help put you in connection with other people that are working on this issue. I think it's just a tremendously important thing right now, and I encourage everyone to get involved.

[Michael Knowles]

Certainly is. Chris, we have got to get to the mailbag now. So I will not have you sit around and answer the difficult, impossible questions from our listeners, though I'm sure you could do it because you really have done such a service with your writing over at City Journal and your work on really making this issue come into stark relief. Christopher Ruffo, thank you for being on the show.

[Unknown]

Thank you.

[Michael Knowles]

Before we get to the mailbag, I am so pleased to announce that we are now finalizing the dates for Verdict Live. We are taking verdicts with Ted Cruz on the road in partnership with the Young Americas Foundation. We will be coming to a school near you or maybe even to your school, but you will need to request that so you can go to yafy.org verdict and apply to have your school be one of the spots. Deadline to apply is August 18th. Senator, we're taking this thing live. We're gonna go meet people in real life.

[Ted Cruz]

We're headed out on the road to college campuses. We'll have an auditorium. We'll film it live. We will have hopefully some friendly questions, some hostile questions, and it's really up to the listeners a verdict. Where we should go? Should we go to places that are oases of truth and have people that are used to hearing about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or do we go to places of communist indoctrination, where we're going behind the iron curtain, and we might have to have a subversive effort to come in. I don't know. We're asking you, the reader, let us know where you think Verdict should be filmed. And we're gonna have fun regardless.

[Michael Knowles]

We absolutely are. We could even head to the University of East Berlin, also known as Berkeley in California. There are a lot of schools we could go to, and hopefully we'll be able to do a combination so you can apply to host us at your school. That will be yaf.org verdict get those applications in by August 18th. That is the deadline, and we're gonna be looking forward to it. And now, before we See you live. We will answer your questions in the mailbag. All right, this question completely out of left field, but it's from our colleague on this show who is sitting right behind you, Real Truth Cactus, who writes, what are some conservative arguments for environmental practices? We all hear the Sun Monster is going to kill us. But as conservatives, do we not also wish to conserve our planet? Where is the balance?

[Ted Cruz]

I think that's a great question. And I think a lot of conservatives are really timid when it comes to discussing environmental issues. All of us breathe, all of us drink water. All of us, presumably. And you're drinking, I think coffee or vodka, whatever you're drinking right now. Both actually, but there you go. But, you know, water is at its base. Look, all of us would like for our kids to be able to breathe and drink water. We'd like for our grandkids to be able to breathe and drink water. Protecting the environment. You know, you look at Teddy Roosevelt, who was one of the first great conservationists and environmentalists. We have a responsibility to protect the environment. What does that mean? That means fighting pollution. Fighting pollution is a good and noble role. It is an important governmental function. We don't want to see factories pour in a bunch of gunk into the rivers or into the air that make people sick. All of that is legitimate. It's not where today's environmentalist movement is. Today's environmentalist movement is focused on shutting down production. So it's not. If the test is, is the air cleaner and is the water cleaner, then you can actually tell an amazing story. Because as American ingenuity has moved forward, we have cleaned the air and cleaned the water dramatically. Last year, the year 2020, what country had the greatest reduction of carbon emissions of any country on Earth? Answer. The United States of America, by far. Not even close. And what caused that? What caused that primarily was the shale revolution and the incredible abundance of natural gas. We have. And we've seen a large scale shift from electricity production from coal to natural gas. Natural gas is a much cleaner way to produce electricity than coal. And so we've seen not just carbon emissions going down, but pollutants going down by dramatic numbers. Now, here's the weird thing about environmentalists on the left. You would think if the goal is a cleaner environment, you'd be celebrating that. You'd say that's a good thing. What the environmentalists on the left are trying to do is, is shut down natural gas. Shut down natural gas, destroy American production. And ironically, they also want to shut down US Oil, which then makes us more dependent on foreign oil, all of which is produced in a dirtier way. So you end up hurting the environment more. And today's environmental movement on the left is an ideology where actually clean air and clean water is really low on the priority list. Stopping human production, stopping new businesses, stopping new residential developments, stopping new economic, stopping jobs is their priority. And you've got zealots who view economic development inherently as an evil. Look, most of us think jobs are good. We'd like to have clean air and clean water, too, and have jobs. You can do both if you actually employ some common sense. The radical left on the environment is not interested in common sense.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, there does seem to be something a little misanthropic about it all. I don't want to read into our opponent's thought process here or anything, but it did sometimes seem, when I was living in California, as though the left valued the delta smelt more than they did working families who were trying to have jobs and people were trying to pay for energy prices. And ironically, so many of their policies actually were. Were harmful ultimately to the environment. Next question from Ben is for me. Ben writes, will your next book be titled Shameless because of your shameful plugs of Speechless? Yes, it will be. That is, if I ever write a book again. Senator, I know you've written multiple books with words. I frankly am sick of writing a book with words. It's much too hard. So I'll probably return to my former magnum opus. The final question is for you from E.M. taylor. Senator Cruz, can you explain standing and why does this not apply in the DOJ case against Georgia voting laws? So I bring up this question because I want. On the next episode, I want to get into some legal questions that are very much in the news right now. This one just came up. The DOJ is suing Georgia because of Georgia's voter integrity law. They're saying that this is discriminatory and the federal government's going to go in and stop Georgia from passing laws to protect their own vote. And because I know absolutely nothing about the law and did not go to law school. Senator, can you please explain it for us?

[Ted Cruz]

Sure. Two related concepts. One, in order for a court to be able to decide a case, it has to be what's called a case or controversy. It has to be a live dispute between real parties. It can't just be a request for judges to issue an advisory opinion on a question of law. An element of that. One element of that is that you've got to have a real Injury. But another element of that is that you've got to have a plaintiff with standing. And standing, put simply, is essentially someone with a beef in it, someone who's got something at stake. So listen, if your book publisher breaks it's contract with you and says, michael, we're tired of publishing books with no words, we're not gonna send you any royalty checks.

[Michael Knowles]

Fair enough?

[Ted Cruz]

Now I might look at that and say, that is ridiculous. Michael is. The poor guy is a starving Yalie. He depends upon these royalty checks to buy his skinny jeans and the outfits he wears on Verdict. And so I'm really upset they're not paying him. Well, as upset as I might be, I don't have standing to sue over breach of contract. I'm not a party to the contract. You have standing to sue. If they breach a contract with you, you have standing to sue because you've suffered an injury and you're actually a party to the, in this case, the contract. So the question is, why does the United States have standing to sue Georgia? In this instance, they sued Georgia under Section 2 of the Voting Rights act. And that is a statute that Congress passed to protect voting rights. And it actually gives the attorney General the authority to bring suits to enforce the law. And so in the role as the chief lawyer for the United States of America, the Attorney General has the authority under the Voting Rights act to bring suits. Now, I think the suit is not meritorious, and I think we're going to discuss that on a subsequent verdict. But in terms of standing, the way the Voting Rights act is written, the Department of Justice has standing to bring a case to enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

[Michael Knowles]

All right, that's just a little teaser for something talking about. Yes, that's the argument from the federal government. And we will knock down why it's a very bad idea to go in and upend this voting rights law in Georgia, but not this time. We run out of time. Senator, thank you as always. And by the way, I think all of the listeners of Verdict would have standing if I could no longer afford my skinny jeans. I think that would greatly injure all of the viewers out there, but we'll discuss it coming up. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

[Unknown]

This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security pac, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations and candidates across the country. In 2022, jobs, freedom and Security PAC plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.