However, does anyone really know what “critical race theory” actually is?

Does anybody care? The three words have become the brand for identitarian anti-Whiteness, which the Republican Party has had no trouble hanging on the Democrats because the latter party's leaders won't denounce it (identity politics and wokeness), just as Republicans won't denounce Trump.

The Progressives are totalitarians; for them, "if you're not part of the solution, you are part of the problem." Now, the attack on Whiteness is proceeding, and progressives are saying nothing. What goes around comes around.