They stonewalled parents with semantics. Parents use the term Critical Race Theory to refer to a whole range of objectionable, identitarian ideas (exemplified by the likes of Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X Kendi), while their opponents insist that CRT can only refer to a very specific academic pursuit (such as the legal scholarship of Derrick Bell). But while the term Critical Race Theory might be clumsy, parents can see with their own eyes that a new racial ideology is being pushed on their kids.

And it’s not just about race. Some parents have been staging protests at school-board meetings about Covid restrictions like masks for children and vaccine mandates. A case in Virginia’s Loudoun County has opened up a new battleground over trans issues in schools – a case which Youngkin also sought to capitalise on.

Whatever the issue being protested against, parents have been met with the same dismissal and derision. Such is the animosity against parents that the National School Boards Association (NSBA) wrote a letter to President Biden calling for the growing unrest at school-board meetings to be treated as ‘domestic terrorism’ and for unruly parents to be investigated under the Patriot Act (the NSBA has since apologised and has withdrawn the letter).