Carson says he’s ‘glad’ Democrats are pushing critical race theory: ‘It is waking people up’

Ben Carson says there is a silver lining in Democrats’ push to make everything about race.

In an interview Monday on Fox News, the former HUD secretary and Republican presidential contender said the public may be finally “waking people up” to how radical the Democratic Party has become.

“This will sound funny, but I’m kind of glad they are doing it. They’re pushing it so hard, it is waking people up,” he said.

“We were sort of like the frog in the saucepan slowly being cooked and now they turned the burners up, and people are saying ouch and getting active. That is going to help us as a nation,” he said.

Mr. Carson was pushing back on claims by progressives and leftists, most prominently Ibram X. Kendi, that Republican attacks on critical race theory had “created an imaginary monster.”

But the former neurosurgeon said the push to redefine America as a racist hell and turn all relations into reflections of race is very far from imaginary and that campus progressives had been engaging in this indoctrination for years, even if it’s only becoming a major issue off-campus now.

“It was obviously the left that did this, and they are basing this on some of the things that were said by people like Vladimir Lenin and various Marxists. Lenin said give me your children to teach for four years and the seeds I plant will never be uprooted. What they are trying to do is actually indoctrinate the kids. This is not a new thing. This has been going on for a while,” he said.

The results are obvious and apparent, Mr. Carson told Fox News.

“I think we saw the fruits of it last summer in Portland and Seattle. These are people who are coming to age who have been taught to hate the United States of America and a lot of it is based on slavery. The 1619 Project, many of the things and critical race theory. Everything looking at race and going back to race and making the children think that that’s the primary indicator for success or failure in their life,” he said.