In this paper, we explore white supremacy's "projection" of the "devil" by focusing on its construction and deployment of what Stanley Cohen (1972/2002) terms "folk devils" or those who are seen as deviant. We argue Critical Race Theory (CRT) and conjoining equity centered discourses and practices are situated as a folk devil. Understanding the significance of history to CRT analysis, this paper historicizes current attacks on CRT by looking to the evidentiary record of previous conservative efforts to ban "subversive knowledge" and to categorize it as a folk devil. We suggest these attacks are part of a larger political project of white epistemological capture, which is a tactic used to foreclose emancipatory thought and solidify violent white ways of knowing and being. Drawing on narratives from conservative politicians and thought leaders, this paper utilizes critical race theory's constructs of racial realism and whiteness as property to unpack white supremacy's efforts at preservation. In doing so, we argue that the folk devil is necessary for the cohering of normative innocent white identity, the (re)calibration of the state towards whiteness, and serves as a sacrifice to white anger and disgust. Such insidious moves recenter the patterned violence of whiteness that aims to dehumanize, exclude, repress, and suppress. This paper concludes with implications for practice.