The Amazing Racists

Mike Lee, whose name we can’t say without spitting, has a new target in his sights.

“We should be celebrating diversity in our schools,” he emailed us last week, “and to be clear, critical race theory doesn’t celebrate diversity — it weaponizes it.”

Yeah, that part’s in bold so you don’t miss it.

The blast followed a Fox News appearance Friday morning, and concluded with a pitch — of course — for $25 to $100, “so we can end the left’s attempt to push their agenda onto our children.”

Cynical as hell? Of course. And not even his bag, really. We’ve been on Mike Lee’s email list forever — there’s no avoiding Mike Lee, if you’re us — and we don’t recall Mike Lee ever giving a shit about stuff like this.

Because, well, he doesn’t. He didn’t write this. His regular campaign staff didn’t write this. He’s jumping on the Republican racist bandwagon, using what must be focus-group tested phrases to get his Fox hit and fearmongering pitch. He’s up for reelection next year, and there must be umpteen variations of this email among other candidates.

Normally we’d let the bullshit pass, as one does when reading anything from Mike Lee, but opening with a hollow paean to “diversity” gets our attention. Haven’t seen that one before in the Anti-CRT playbook. It’s a very old trick by now, the I’m Not Racist But gambit. It’s a signal that it’s okay to fear the truth about America’s historical and contemporary treatment of folks who aren’t part of the dominant demographic, without, y’know, feeling bad about it.

And we’re not even sure what “weaponizing” diversity means, but it sounds frightening.

Beyond the immediate cynicism of it — you can’t think of Mike Lee without being cynical — what strikes us is how easily language is co-opted when you have no regard for truth or meaning. Opening a racist fundraising pitch with a nod to diversity is shameless, but there it is, and a vengeful, just god is doing nothing to stop it. All you have to do is put it there while snickering like a cartoon villain, and folks like us are gonna waste countless hours prying it loose.

As if Mike Lee doesn’t already waste enough of our time.

But it also shows why spirited civic debate is impossible when one side is devoted to manipulative bullshitting. You can’t argue with liars. You can only crush them.