Ohio GOP senate candidate Josh Mandel told Breitbart News on Saturday that Critical Race Theory is “an infection” that “divides America,” and damages the hearts and minds of children, as well as members of the U.S. military.
“It saddens me to watch all this wokeness and critical race theory being pushed in our schools, and also in the military,” said Mandel, who previously served as an intelligence specialist in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.
Mandel spoke to Breitbart News at Trump’s first rally since leaving the White House. The event was held in Wellington, Ohio, just 40 miles outside Cleveland.
The senate candidate added that when he was in boot camp, the drill instructors had made it clear that “in the Marine Corps, all we care about is the guy to our right, the guy to our left, and are they a good Marine.”
“That’s what I’m teaching my kids as well,” Mandel continued. “I’m teaching them — you treat everyone like they’re VIP, with dignity and respect. And what this critical race theory is, it’s an infection.”
“It’s infecting our kids’ minds and hearts,” he affirmed. “It’s infecting the hearts and minds of servicemen and women, because it tears people apart. It divides America. We don’t need that — what we need is to put America first.”
Mandel added that “one of the people who put it best was Martin Luther King, when he said, judge people based on the content of their character, not the color of their skin.”
“And these crazy liberals in America today, they’re trying to make all everything about race and skin color,” he said. “And I’m going to be their worst nightmare.”
Mandel is one of the Republican primary senate candidates vying for the soon-to-be vacant seat of senator Rob Portman (R-OH), who announced earlier this year that he will not seek reelection in 2022, citing a “partisan gridlock.”
It was also reported late last year that analysts no longer consider Ohio to be a swing state, as its “blue wall” was breached in 2016 by then presidential candidate Donald Trump, as well as many other Republican candidates down-ballot, and has remained so in the 2020 election.
Mandel echoed these sentiments, telling Breitbart News on Saturday that “President Trump won Ohio twice by big margins,” and pointed out that “a Republican presidential candidate hasn’t won Lorain County since Reagan, ’84, but President Trump did.”
This reality likely has to do with the identity of the GOP having shifted in recent years, as the Party ditches corporate interests and embraces a more anti-establishment position.
“What we need,” Mandel said, “is pro-Trump, pro-life, pro-gun, constitutional, anti-establishment conservatives like myself.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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