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If you were watching the Packers on Sunday you got a taste of just how weird the next 14 months are going to be.
That’s when an ad debuted featuring a Black man denouncing critical race theory as a threat to kids, his young daughter providing backup. Despite the fact that critical race theory isn’t taught in K-12 schools — it’s a body of academic work that seeks to explain structural discrimination — conservatives are using it to push the race button to mobilize their base.
In this case, the ad, called “Truth Wins,” was bankrolled by David Langdon, a religious zealot who has for years been on the front lines of America’s culture war.
According to a 2015 report from Politico, groups affiliated with Langdon or his Ohio law firm had injected $22 million in campaigns for state and federal office. A later report from the Center for Media and Democracy said one of his groups spent more than $400,000 to support former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Politico named Langdon the man “behind the right’s dark money machine.”
And now, as another election cycle heats up that will determine whether America will remain a democracy, Langdon’s going into overdrive.
This from a report this week on WORT:
“The ad is the work of Be Good To Kids, a limited liability company registered in Ohio six months ago. It’s one of seventy-one LLCs or nonprofits created this year by Langdon Law, a firm run by David Langdon.
“Other organizations formed by Langdon this year include: Working Ohioans Against Recreational Marijuana, Coalition to Restore American Values, Conservative Alliance of Republicans, Cambridge Digital Bible Research, and both an LLC and a PAC with the name Parents Against Stupid Stuff.”
Langdon is not the only kook out there willing to spend millions to warp the views of voters, but he’s one of the first out of the gate. There are other phantom issues conservatives will likely exploit like drag queens, climate change hoaxes, Hunter Biden, witch hunts, “leftists” and whatever other divisive issues they can dream up.
But it’s telling that the first big ad setting the tone for conservatives in 2024 is designed to inflame racial tensions.
Sadly, if the reelection of Ron Johnson over Mandela Barnes in the U.S. Senate race last year tells us anything, playing that race card can be a winning strategy.
