The misleadingly named “Civics Secures Democracy Act” (CSDA) — just now reintroduced in Congress — will allow the Biden administration to push Critical Race Theory (CRT) on every public school in the country. Over a six-year period, this $6 billion pot of competitive grant money will create a de facto national curriculum — just like Common Core. States desperate to tap into the federal gravy train will have to tailor their civics and history grant proposals to the Biden administration’s liking. And abundant evidence shows that Biden’s Education Department is pushing CRT. So why are some Republican senators eager to help Biden spread CRT? I can’t think of a quicker way to devastate Republican enthusiasm just before the midterms.

It doesn’t matter that federal law and the bill itself disclaim the authority to formally impose a curriculum on the states. The strings that Biden’s bureaucrats will attach to these massive federal grants will suffice to lure states into adopting CRT. The left-leaning bureaucrats who staff education departments even in red states already favor CRT (those bureaucrats will write the grant applications and divvy up the money). And Biden long ago signaled his intention to prioritize applications that promise CRT.

If CSDA passes this summer, as its sponsors hope, a Republican victory in the midterms will come too late to prevent the federal imposition of CRT. But what will happen when voters discover just months before the midterms that Republicans have betrayed them by using federal power to push CRT on the states? The Civics Secures Democracy Act is education madness and political suicide all wrapped up in one.