 I've been talked about the Virginia gubernatorial race on this program, but it's really fascinating how somehow critical race theory was one of the key issues that was a deciding factor in this race. And even though the chud Republican, Glenn Yonkin, who was running against the corporate Democrat, Terry McAuliffe, ran a substance free campaign, he still managed to win all by working Virginia voters up into a frenzy over just nonsensical things. So it's really sad that there's all these issues in America that need to be fixed. And I'm sure there's many issues specific to Virginia that need to be addressed. But yet what it came down to was nonsense, like critical race theory and how it's bad. And that's depressing to me because I see that voters by and large, they do side with progressives. They grew with us on the policy substance, but they can very easily be manipulated by individuals who get them to think that these cultural issues are more salient than the issues that affect them directly. And it's not even like they have good reason to be against critical race theory, because a lot of them don't even know what it is case in point. What's the most important issue in the governor's race here in Virginia? Getting back to the basics of teaching children, not teaching them critical race theory. And what is critical race theory? Well, I'm not going to get into the specifics of it because I don't understand it that much, but it's something that I don't, what little bit that I know I don't care for. And what have you heard that you don't? Well, I'm not going to, you know, I don't I don't I don't have that much knowledge on it, but it's something that I'm not that I don't care for. Now, I get it. That's anecdotal evidence. But I think that that man represents a broader issue here. Republican voters, they don't necessarily know what critical race theory is. They just know it's really bad because Republicans told them it's bad. So the way that Republican media and Republican politicians are able to whip their voters into a frenzy, I mean, it's soul crashing, right? And that's not to say that Terry McCullough throughout the course of the campaign was promising voters anything, because I mean, this is someone who was already the governor. I was rooting for Lee Carter during the Democratic Party primary. And Terry McCullough offers voters nothing. But still, I mean, to just say critical race theory bad. And this is a bit reductionist, right? That's not the totality of Glenn Yonkin's campaign, but Republicans by and large, they're not offering any response to the problems. They're creating problems. They're manufacturing issues that don't exist. And they're actually effectively getting voters to focus on that more. Now, the good news, however, is that sometimes fear mongering about a critical race theory doesn't always go as planned. And I do want to share a clip from Fox News. So they talked to two voters on the day of the election, one McCullough voter, one Yonkin voter. And the issue of critical race theory came up. And what you're going to see is a voter just easily dismantle it effortlessly, dismantle that entire narrative. And the Fox News host very clearly didn't know how to respond to that. So enjoy, because this was a really great clip. Within a short period of time, we started hearing more about this thing called critical race theory, which I had never heard about. And after some investigation, some FOIA requests that I've started seeing on the news, a lot of taxpayer money, my taxpayer money, our taxpayer money had been invested in some teacher training and that would be enrolled or rolled into the student curriculum that I didn't agree with. A lot of it looked not only off, but it looked like it bothered me. It was controversial. There's aspects of it that look downright racist. And so I had a hard time with that. And the other aspect is I know Glenn Yonkin has campaigned all along to push the VDOE or the Department of Education to keep the higher standards because I mentioned when we were we saw the window into the children's education when they were home for so long, we did notice. We started seeing do your kids want a pass, fail option as opposed to a letter grade. Your child can't fail now this year because of COVID. And I did not see a lot of learning going on. And that greatly concerned me. I think there was a lot of learning loss over the past year and a half. We all saw with the kids at home and a lot of these options that you can get through the class with just a pass or a fail and some of the measures that have sort of watered down the standards in not just in Virginia, many places. But Mara and Brooke, thank you very much. Can I say one thing about I don't think people necessarily truly understand what critical race theory is. Younger children are not being taught critical race theory. They can't understand critical race theory. They're being taught history. So when somebody here in Lowndon County, I understand, was upset that his second grade child was taught that Christopher Columbus killed many Indigenous people. That's part of history. That is what Christopher Columbus did. So I have a hard time. I think kids have to learn history the good, the bad, the ugly so they can become critical. I don't think anybody's against that. I think we have to do a fact check on the Christopher Columbus story as well. But critical race theory, I think, sometimes is a little bit of a misnomer because what's happening is that there's sort of a reformed thinking and approach to history that teaches that the country was founded in racism. You can say critical race theory is like a legal theory that is found more in colleges. So maybe giving it that label has has thrown some people off. But it doesn't mean that there's not things being taught that are teaching kids that they're sort of inherently, you know, victims or oppressors. I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that. All right. I have a different thoughts and feelings. OK. So you heard that right. The Fox News host actually said, I think we have to do a fact check on the Christopher Columbus story as well. Well, I'll do that for you. I'll save you the time. It's true. Christopher Columbus slaughtered indigenous people. The fact that you need to fact check that shows how stupid you are. But this clip kind of gives me hope amid the numerism that I'm feeling because it's not very difficult to dismantle that right wing narrative. Now, they are more effective at broadcasting their message because they have money on their side. But when they're actually challenged even minimally by average voters, they don't know what to do. They have to fact check whether or not it's true that Christopher Columbus slaughtered indigenous people. So these people are not bright. They're good at one thing and that's marketing. So we're good at convincing people that the policies that we want them to support are ones that they should support. The issue that we are losing with regard to voters is we can't effectively change the salience of these issues. So while we might get voters to agree with us that Medicare for all is good and expanding, you know, the social safety net is good, they may they might agree with us, but they don't rank that very high on their list of priorities. Republicans can come in with some bogus narrative critical race theory, cancel culture and automatically they view that as more important. So I don't know what it is that we have to do. Maybe we need a more effective left wing media machine. Maybe we need to be more bombastic and hysterical in the way that we talk about politics. But at least we know what we're lacking and it's at getting people to agree with us that the issues we care about are more salient. Climate change is a more salient issue than fucking critical race theory or Mr. Potato Head getting canceled or becoming gender neutral. I don't know what the argument even is anymore. It's been too long, but that's what we have to work on. But having said that, though, at times when we see these propagandists fail and their propaganda fails, they don't know how to defend their point of view. And we have to use that to our advantage. And I'll leave that there.