Catherine Truitt Goes Full Trump

by | Jun 16, 2021 | Politics

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt’s old boss Pat McCrory once admonished North Carolinians not to “put your stupid hat on.” Opinions may differ as to whether Truitt sported that particular variant of chapeau in her Trumpist rant before Orange County Republicans, but she clearly favors another piece of the nation’s political wardrobe. The speech she delivered to Orange County GOP was the rhetorical equivalent of a MAGA hat. She wants to establish herself as a fire breather in the mold of her NCGOP colleagues, not the pragmatist that swing voters thought they had elected.

State political observers had a certain measure of hope for Catherine Truitt. In a campaign against a strong progressive academic, the Republican demonstrated knowledge of the education issue and seemed even-tempered. Perhaps, many thought, she would prove to be a corrective for her feckless predecessor Mark Johnson. Though she took conservative stances on vouchers and “school choice,” she was a policy analyst by profession, and gave the impression of taking public service seriously as something more than an ideological crusade. That image began crumbling shortly after she took office.

Truitt has taken as her chief cause the national Republican Holy War against “critical race theory.” Interestingly, she seems committed to blocking the insights of actual race scholarship, not just the phantasmagorical monster-concept purveyed by the screamers on Fox News, et. al. But that means that she opposed the inclusion of words like “systemic racism” and “systemic discrimination” in state curricula documents. This places her to the right of even many American conservatives, who, while fearing critical race theory, nevertheless accept its insights into our racist social structures. She wants the curriculum 100% whitewashed.

Her commitment to a reactionary agenda came through in droves at the Orange County meeting. Declaring herself “a pro-life conservative who believes that the nine scariest words in the English language are; ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help,” she embraced the full spectrum of right-wing dogma. She lamented that state Senate Republicans haven’t brought the anti-CRT bill to the floor, allegedly out of fear that companies like Google and Apple would object to yet another attack on racial equity. Then she escalated. “The kind of cowardice that we saw during House Bill 2 with corporations boycotting us is the same cowardice we see in corporations today,” Truitt explained. Even most legislators won’t defend HB2 today–but then Truitt also objected to the words “gender identity” in the state curriculum.

After her disquisition on ultra-conservatism delivered before people in a county where there are very few conservatives, Truitt doubled down. Senate Republicans were not afraid to bring anti-CRT legislation to a vote, she tweeted. CRT must be “eradicated.” “Republicans in NC are united about this,” she added. Truitt seems to be auditioning for the role of conservative educational bomb thrower, Jesse Helms with a chalkboard, a great irony given that she replaced the politically ambitious scourge of educators in our state. This is a woman on a mission with a MAGA hat on her head.

0 Comments

Related Posts

GET UPDATES

Get the latest posts from PoliticsNC delivered right to your inbox!

You have Successfully Subscribed!