“Republicans in at least nine states are moving to limit students’ exposure to critical race theory – a concept that links racial discrimination to the nation’s foundations and legal system. Why it matters: A year after George Floyd’s killing, how systemic racism is – or is not – taught in public schools has become a new fault line in the culture wars, with implications for how the next generation of Americans understands U.S. history. Conservative activists are pressing for less talk about racism and more talk about patriotism. Civil rights advocates and some educators say banning critical race theory from schools constrains academic freedom and suppresses the experiences of people of color” Axios reports, before rattling off a long list of efforts to ban any sort of racial education.

Sure looks like the right wing are giving up on trying to blame the Democrats of 2021 for the policies of Democrats from 1825 through 1965 or so. Never really made a lot of sense in the first place, unless Republicans were committed to keeping Confederate imagery from being associated with their fanbase, which they aren’t. Not even close actually, since – for example – Trump vetoed (later overridden by Congress) the 2021 defense budget which mandated that US military bases named for Confederate officers be renamed, signed an executive order forcing ten year sentence minimums for any person convicted of damaging a monument on federal property, and said there were “good people of both sides” of the brutal 2017 riot over a rebel statue in Charlottesville.

These instances, among many others, make it perfectly clear that – aside from the occasional MAGA troll comment and hillbilly dipshit Louie Gohmert’s “#CancelDemocrats” bill – Republicans believe they’re better off working to make it appear that modern and historical systemic racism is non-existent than they are putting in a sustained effort to make the case that modern day Democrats are responsible for it by association with their political forebears. MAGA Nation are practiced and effective hypocrites, but it’d take a Simone Biles-caliber mental gymnast to pull that trick off. Better to go with the easier lie than the harder one.