Over the past few months, the battle over Critical Race Theory being taught in schools has raged. Parents have spoken out and protested at school board meetings while states have moved to ban its inclusion in curriculums across the country.

As conservatives gained more and more ground, many would say unexpectedly, the narrative began to shift. CRT proponents started to gaslight publicly, claiming that they were not trying to teach their racist ideology in schools in the first place. In essence, their way of pushing back on CRT opponents was to insist there was no actual problem to combat. Joy Reid has spent almost every night of her low-rated MSNBC program pushing that angle, for example.

Yet, a move by the NEA, the nation’s largest teachers union just gave the entire game away.

BREAKING: The nation's largest teachers union has approved a plan to promote critical race theory in all 50 states and 14,000 local school districts.

The argument that "critical race theory isn't in K-12 schools" is officially dead. pic.twitter.com/BMRDoAK0sA

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) July 3, 2021

Everything in the above battle plan is either Critical Race Theory or some kind of other racial essentialism. As Rufo says, this puts to bed the false notion that CRT proponents have no intention of forcing their ideology on students. All the claims to the contrary over the last several months were simply meant as misdirection in an attempt to call off the assault.

In fact, I wrote on that very idea last month, noting that those on the left were losing the war over CRT and that their next tactic would be to attempt to get the right to disengage by pretending CRT was not a threat. That’s why the left has been so enraged lately over this topic. For once, conservatives got the jump on them, and they simply aren’t used to that. Now, CRT proponents are regrouping, and together with the far-left teachers unions, they are preparing their counter-attack.

This vindicates every move made at the state level to fight this. Some on the right insisted actions taken by governors like Ron DeSantis of Florida were overbearing and unnecessary. After all, CRT wasn’t being taught in schools yet, they claimed. Yet, any veteran of the culture wars can tell you that once CRT gets into schools, there will be no getting it out. Preemptively moving to quash this illiberal, racist ideology from infecting curriculums was the right call. That’s how you win these battles. Conversely, lose then by sitting back and waiting for CRT to become so pervasive that it can’t be pushed back on any longer.

That means the fight continues for the right. Parents must keep the pressure up locally, and Republican politicians must continue to use what tools they have at their disposal as well. CRT proponents are going to bring every resource they have to bear, including a biased, far-left news media. Conservatives must leave no stone unturned if they are to succeed in the end.