The year 2022 is finally here, and it’s about to go down. Being an election year, we can expect to see the political conversation ramp up and grow even more vitriolic and absurd. Being that it is the beginning of a new season, many are speculating about what the political landscape will look like as we inch closer to the midterm elections, which will likely be pivotal.

Several issues will be at the forefront, including the economy, education, COVID-19, and a plethora of others. But a closer overall look suggests there is one issue that will underlie many of the conversations the nation is currently having.

The issue will be race and will center largely on progressives’ attempts to use racial issues to smear their opponents and gain more power.

Yes, this seems like a “water is wet” assertion, but I assure you there is more to it, dear reader. In fact, this has already been the case since early in 2020.

Let’s start with the issue of “voting rights.” I put this term in quotations because when Democrats discuss the topic, they are often fond of pretending that states passing new election laws are actually restricting wide swaths of Americans from casting votes. They typically do not provide any compelling evidence of this claim because it is nothing more than hot bovine excrement on a wheat bun.

Nevertheless, I expect the left will be harping on this issue aggressively this year, as President Joe Biden and company attempt to ram through voting legislation ostensibly designed to stop states from preventing people from voting.

Biden indicated last Thursday that he would be willing to consider a limited “carveout” to the filibuster in order to pass various bills related to voting rights. During an interview with ABC News’ David Muir, the president indicated such a move would be a last resort, but that he is open to the idea.

“I don’t think we may have to go that far,” he told Muir, “but I would be if that’s, if it’s — the only thing standing between getting voting rights legislation passed and not getting passed is the filibuster, I support making the exception of voting rights for the filibuster.”

The president recently told reporters “there’s nothing domestically more important than voting rights,” which signaled that he would be focusing on the issue heavily in 2022.

As Fox News explained:

Getting rid of the filibuster rule would lower the typical 60-vote threshold for passage to 50. In the split 50-50 Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris can break a tie, allowing Democrats to push past Republicans.

In an op-ed written for The Hill, Antjuan Seawright employed the Jim Crow 2.0 narrative of which the left was exceedingly fond last year, noting how “[w]hen Reconstruction brought landmark enfranchisement for former slaves, Jim Crow laws met them at voter registration offices with poll taxes and literacy tests asking them to count jelly beans in jars or to predict how many bubbles might be in a piece of bubble gum.”

He continued, contending that in 2020, people dealt with “violent division,” and “increased intimidation” when trying to cast their votes. I don’t need to tell you he provided no evidence or sources to back up his claims, do I?

He continued:

But rather than praising them for their dedication to civic responsibility and patriotism, GOP leaders in states such as Georgia, Iowa, Kansas and Texas — and more — actually will make it more difficult for people to vote by targeting mail-in ballots, early voting and voter registration efforts — the very efforts that made 2020’s turnout possible.

The voting rights issue isn’t really a voting rights issue. It is just another topic Democrats are using to push a racial narrative. They are using black Americans and the disenfranchisement they received in the past as a way to smear anyone who disagrees with their opinions on the matter as racist.

Secondly, it might seem counterintuitive at this juncture, but I do not believe Democrats are done with the police brutality issue. For those who oppose police brutality and favor accountability for police officers who abuse their authority, 2021 wasn’t a bad year, especially with the conviction of Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd. Unfortunately, it was also a great year for race-hustlers and grifters alike who use the issue to push their usual “everyone is racist” narrative.

The death of the defund the police movement was significant, but it is still just a setback for the hard left which exploits the police brutality issue to advance the idea that America is still a fundamentally racist nation. In fact, the issue was back in the spotlight when Black Lives Matter activist Hawk Newsome seemed to threaten more riots in New York City when then Mayor-elect Eric Adams announced he would be reinstating a plainclothes police program to fight rising crime rates.

Adams was elected in large part because he pushed back against the anti-cop sentiment fomented by the hard left. However, the program he is reinstating did have some issues with corruption, but he has vowed he would also further a system in which officers would be held accountable if they exceeded their boundaries.

But, even though the Black Lives Matter global organization lost prominence late last year, it does not mean they are off the battlefield. All the hard left needs is one or two more high-profile and controversial police shootings to put the police brutality issue back on the stage, and we will all be debating over how racist America is once again.

Last, but most certainly not least, we have education, which became a hot-button issue in 2020 and 2021 when parents saw what their children were being taught up close and personal. Typically issues related to education have to do with the quality of the teaching in the classroom. But over the past year, this issue has focused more on race and how far-left progressive ideas are being infused into the curriculum.

When news stories detailing instances in which teachers were labeling students as “oppressor” and “oppressed” by the color of their skin, a tremendous backlash ensued. It was then that the battle over Critical Race Theory (CRT) concepts being taught in schools began. Revelations about teachers and administrators teaching children that the United States is fundamentally racist and that it was important to push back against “whiteness” prompted Republican politicians to pass legislation ostensibly designed to limit the teaching of these far-left tenets.

However, the left has responded to the backlash by either pretending CRT wasn’t present in the curriculum of many schools, or defending it by deceptively claiming the debate is only about teaching America’s true history and that if you oppose it, you are a racist. This particular conversation provides a perfect opportunity for progressives to race-bait, which is yet another reason why race will be the center of the national conversation in 2022.

This is not to say issues like immigration, the economy, and COVID-19 won’t still be a factor. The pandemic, in particular, will remain a close second — especially when Democrats continue seeking out new and creative ways to use the virus to enact more restrictions and mandates. But it is worth remembering that they are not done with race yet, and won’t be in the near future. It’s been their go-to topic for decades. Why would they back off now?