How Do You Solve A Problem Like Christopher Rufo?

In 1998, during the fifth and final season of the Chris Rock Show, Chris Rock released a sketch called, How To Not Get Your Ass Kicked By The Police.

We’ve all seen what happens when Chris Rock gets into a fight, so there were no flashy martial arts techniques or G.I Jane jokes. Instead, he offered simple, common sense advice like “obey the law”, “be polite,” and “stop when the police pull you over.” 

But believe it or not, this ended up being pretty controversial.

After all, as critics over the years have pointed out (and people like Philando Castile and Caron Nazario and Freddie Gray and Tamir Rice demonstrated), the police don’t always play by the rules when it comes to black people. 

A University of South Carolina study found that black people are nearly twice as likely to be subjected to traffic stops as white people and over twice as likely to be searched during that traffic stop. This, despite the fact that white drivers are more likely to have contraband. 

Research from Harvard shows that even in cases where black people are confirmed to be obeying the law, being polite, and doing nothing to resist, police officers are still 21% more likely to use force than against white people. 

Even Rock was famously pulled over three times in seven weeks for “driving while black.” 

But while it's easy to understand these objections, they don't change the fact that Rock was absolutely right. Whether you like it or not, whether you’re black or white, right or wrong, if you see flashing lights in your rear-view mirror, you should obey the law, be polite, and you shouldn’t resist. 

Because, and I really can’t stress this enough, that’s the best way to avoid getting your ass kicked. 

A few days ago, I wrote an article about Claudine Gay’s resignation from Harvard. 

And believe it or not, that was controversial too. Not because I’d made a factual error. Not because I wrote anything inaccurate or unfair, but because, critics argued, I spent more time criticising Gay than Christopher Rufo, the conservative culture warrior who orchestrated her downfall. 

Interestingly enough, almost nobody had even heard of Christopher Rufo until mid-2021, when he found himself at the centre of the controversy around Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools. Or more precisely, when he manufactured the controversy around critical race theory in schools.

Here he is in his own words:

We have successfully frozen their brand — “critical race theory” — into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category.

The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think “critical race theory.” We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.

To say he was successful at branding the various cultural insanities as Critical Race Theory would be an understatement. Articles about CRT flew back and forth across the internet, videos of enraged parents went viral on social media, and Rufo even caught the eye of then-president Donald Trump who issued an executive order targeting diversity initiatives.

But instead of addressing those insanities, instead of opposing the racial segregation and race essentialism that Rufo used to tarnish all racial initiatives, liberals got bogged down in a smug, tedious and largely dishonest argument about what CRT is. Virginia gubernatorial incumbent Terry McAuliffe even assured Virginia voters that CRT was not being taught in Virginia and had never been taught in Virginia, despite Virginia's Department of Education website embracing Critical Race Theory among its Culturally-Responsive Teaching and Learning Principles. 

And so, just as Rufo planned, most of the public ended up thinking "critical race theory when they read something crazy in the newspaper, public support for race-based education plummeted, oh, and McAuliffe lost his bid for reelection to his Republican opponent. 

In 2022, Rufo declared “moral war” on Disney after they publicly opposed Florida’s HB 1557, which required schools to inform parents of decisions related to their children’s mental, emotional, or physical well-being as well as imposing limits on discussions about sexuality in classrooms. This, in the context of widespread concerns about sexually explicit material finding its way into public school libraries and teachers handing out butt plugs and dildos to children as young as fourteen. 

But instead of speaking out against the sex toys and the graphic material being taught under the guise of LGBT education, left-wing activists dishonestly dubbed HB 1557 the “Don’t Say Gay Bill” (even though it doesn’t mention homosexuality even once), pushed harder to shut parents out of conversations about their children’s lives, and threw parents out of school board meetings for reading aloud the graphic content available in their children’s libraries (apparently the books were inappropriate for a meeting full of parents but fine for their children).

And so, just as Rufo planned, HB 1577 passed without a hitch. 

And most recently, there’s Claudine Gay. After a disastrous congressional hearing in which she refused to say whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated Harvard policy, Rufo published an article entitled, Is Claudine Gay A Plagiarist?, highlighting four instances of potential plagiarism (a number that would eventually snowball to around fifty). 

Once again, Rufo’s opponents chose to focus almost exclusively on attacking him with unproven and unprovable allegations of racism, missing the point that discovering the president of Harvard has committed numerous instances of plagiarism will undermine the average person's faith, not only in the president of Harvard, but Harvard itself. As well as amplify any doubts they might already have had about DEI. 

Rufo didn’t miss that point though:

I have a win-win. Whether she stays or goes is irrelevant to the fact that we scored a victory...

And here, even better than he planned, Rufo got rid of Gay and undermined public confidence in Harvard. 

Rufo is the poster boy for the post-truth era, which barely qualifies as a criticism in 2024. Political activism has been reality-optional for quite a while now. 

But, while I understand and agree with the arguments that Rufo is dishonest and manipulative, it doesn't change the fact that he's often absolutely right about the cultural insanities he attacks. 

Voters don't care about Christopher Rufo, they care about sexually explicit content and racial segregation in classrooms. They care about their children's well-being at school. They care about the idiots campaigning to abolish the police in their neighbourhoods. 

So if you want to beat Rufo, whether you like it or not, you admit that competence and integrity matter, especially for the president of Harvard. You recognise that shutting parents out of decisions about their children is not a winning strategy. You take away Rufo’s ability to paint fringe issues as mainstream left-wing policy by listening to what voters do want instead of trying to tell them what they should want. 

Because, and I can’t stress this enough, this is an election year. And that’s the best way to avoid getting your ass kicked.