Wallbuilders Live! With David Barton & Rick Green

A light holiday intro gives way to a sharp, evidence‑driven conversation with Dr. Carol Swain about a problem many didn’t want to see coming: how identity politics and race‑based preferences helped create the space for a “new white nationalism.” Not the hooded caricature of the past, but an online‑networked movement animated by grievance and the perception of unequal rules. Carol walks us through the policy arc—from the promise of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to the executive‑order birth of affirmative action and the campus rise of DEI—and shows how each step shifted incentives away from equal protection and toward category‑based treatment.We dig into the university experience many listeners will recognize: admissions schemes that mix a merit tranche with racial sorting, leaving students to infer stigma and fueling distrust across groups. Carol’s remedy is both principled and practical: race‑neutral, means‑tested support that targets real disadvantage without hardening racial lines, and a broader civic reset aro