I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Friday, November 5th.

We spent a lot of time on the show yesterday and on Wednesday asking what just happened that the Democrats did as badly as

they did in Virginia, New Jersey, Long Island, and elsewhere, will begin today with a take from

New York Times columnist Jamel Bowie on how the Democrats might learn from the results to hold

the House and Senate in next year's election, but with an eye on Bill Clinton and the

90s, the moral price they might pay to get there. Jamel also wrote a column about one thing

that cannot be taken away, despite the racial moral panic campaign that seems to have carried

the day in the Virginia governor's race. And this is not a take from the New York Times

building in Times Square, we might say. Jamel Bowie lives in Charlottesville, is also with the

Center for Politics at the University of Virginia there. He's also a CBS News political analyst.

Jamel, we always learn a lot when you come on. Welcome back to WNYC. Oh, thank you for having

me. Let's start with what you call the moral panic against critical race theory promoted by

Republican candidate Glenn Yonkin, who is now the governor-elect of Virginia. Can you describe

why you use that term moral panic and why you conclude that Yonkin and his allies have already

lost that battle, even though they won the election? I call it a moral panic because there doesn't

seem to be a ton of actual content behind the complaints. And the complaints range, right?

Sort of on the most reasonable end you have complaints

about you know diversity trainings corporate diversity trainings maybe diversity trainings for teachers

and administration and then on the other end on the on the end of things that sounds to me

you know frankly incredible and I mean incredible in the literal

literal sense of the word, incredible, are claims like preschool teachers teaching, you know,

two or three-year-old white children to hate themselves, elementary school teachers,

...