Greetings from Bitchslap 2023- Moms for Liberty gets a rude electoral awakening

Karma can be a real bitch, but it may be only a speed bump on the road to Hell

Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do?

• Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

For the past year or so, Moms for Liberty (M4L) has been terrorizing school districts in several states, and they’ve been pretty much able to do as they pleased. They’ve won control of school boards, installed new and far more Conservative curricula, and have descended upon libraries in search of “pornography.”

They could do all that because they were resolute, organized, and unwilling to compromise. Like any MAGA-adjacent group, they got what they wanted by steamrolling the opposition, which was rarely coherent and organized enough to fight back.

Then came Election Day 2023, and M4L got a heaping helping of karma shoved up their backside. It was a thing of beauty.

According to the American Federation of Teachers, “candidates publicly endorsed by conservative groups such as Moms for Liberty and the 1776 Project lost about 70% of their races nationally in elections this week.” 

Virginia’s Loudoun County “has become a poster child for the ongoing battle over the control of America’s public schools,” according to the Huffington Post. The district has seen “debates over so-called parental rights, what educators are allowed to teach, LGBTQ+ issues, and pandemic policies.” But on Tuesday, three out of the four candidates endorsed by Moms for Liberty lost. The fourth Moms for Liberty endorsed candidate, Deana Griffiths, won by only one percentage point. The school board is now controlled by a Democratic 6-3 majority.

In Iowa, Moms for Liberty chapters “endorsed 13 candidates in school board races across the state.” Of those 13, “[o]nly one was elected.” In the election for the West Des Moines School Board, candidate Teri Patrick, who “is listed as the Education Chair of the Moms for Liberty Chapter in Polk County,” was only successful in getting nine percent of the vote. In 2021, Patrick “signed a letter asking for criminal charges to be brought against the school district for allegedly ‘disseminating pornography to our children’ over the availability of two LGBTQ books in school libraries,” according to the Daily Beast.

Like any bully, M4L prefers to push around their adversaries, and they HATE being held accountable for their actions.

Take Jennifer Tarpley, an M4L activist in Santa Rosa County, Floriduh, who reported several librarians to law enforcement. She claimed that the librarians in question had committed “felonies” by distributing “pornography” to students. The “pornography” was suspect at best.

The "pornography" at issue was actually a popular young adult novel, Storm and Fury, that mostly involves gargoyles fighting demons. It is recommended for teens by the School Library Journal, a professional association of Florida librarians, and Barnes & Noble….

"The governor says this is child pornography. It's a serious crime," Jennifer Tapley, one of the Moms for Liberty activists, said. "It's just as serious as if I handed a playboy to [my child] right now, right here, in front of you. It's just as serious, according to the law." 

Tarpley, who’s also running for a school board seat, and another activist weren’t lone wolves freelancing of their own accord. The “pornography” was an agenda item at a recent M4L meeting.

Several million people have viewed the video of Tarpley’s encounter with the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Department. And Ms. Tarpley, like any bully, isn’t happy about being held accountable for her actions.

[The video] has also generated a flood of local, national, and international media coverage, including the New York Post, The Daily Beast, The Independent, The Tampa Bay Times, WMNF (Tampa public radio), and WEAR News (Pensacola's ABC affiliate). 

Tapley, who is also a candidate for school board, was not pleased that she was being held accountable for her actions. On Facebook, she accused Popular Information of "Antifa-style tactics." In another Facebook post, Tapley said she felt "sad for those who have fallen for the poorly-written tabloid hit piece vomited up by an activist lawyer with a name resembling a most unsavory vegetable." 

Tarpley also accused Popular Information of "distort[ing] and fabricat[ing] the 'facts.'" This claim was rejected by the New York Post, a right-wing publication that normally provides favorable coverage of Moms For Liberty. "[Tapley] even denied the incident in a Facebook post – despite the body camera footage," the New York Post reported.

So along comes Indecision 2023, and M4L took a severe shellacking. M4L school board candidates, who were also uniformly against transgender rights, got a wholly unexpected (but surprisingly satisfying) walloping.

M4L Candidates who ran on anti-transgender platforms suffered some particularly ignominious losses. Those defeats appear as if they may significantly dent the momentum M4L had enjoyed until now.

The rejection of measures aimed at transgender students was starkly evident in the defeat of school board candidates endorsed by Moms For Liberty and those who advocated for policies against transgender students. In Virginia, by Wednesday morning, five out of six school board candidates supported by Moms For Liberty were trailing in their races. In Loudoun County, a critical battleground in the debate over transgender policies, Democrats gained a 6-seat majority on the school board. This district had been at the center of national attention, spotlighted by conservative media following a sexual assault incident involving a purportedly transgender student—a claim for which there was no substantiated evidence.

Triumphs for school board candidates advocating for transgender rights extended beyond Loudoun County. In Albemarle County, Justice Scalia's daughter, Meg Scalia Bryce, was defeated in her bid for the local school district board. Her campaign was marked by opposition to transgender rights and anti-"CRT" rhetoric. Meanwhile, in Fairfax County, where the school board declared its refusal to enforce Governor Youngkin's policies directed at transgender students, right-leaning candidates in favor of Youngkin’s policies were unsuccessful as Democrats swept every seat. This election was deemed a critical indicator of the "parental rights" movement’s targeting of trans students. In the Livingston school district, the incumbent Kirk Twigg was unseated following his controversial proposal to burn LGBTQ+ books.

If one were to look at the 2023 election cycle as an indicator of the state of the “parental rights” movement’s targeting of transgender students, one would have to conclude that it took a severe blow. The good news is that M4L may have significantly overestimated transgender hatred, so much so that their efforts may have been set back several years.

M4L may have assumed that there was a deep well of hatred and bigotry out there waiting to be tapped. Most good and decent people are sick to death of being asked to hate others who mean them no harm. M4L may have arrogantly overestimated the righteousness of their cause and the degree to which Americans would hop on board their hate train.

It wasn’t for lack of trying, though.

The narrative of candidates aligned with Moms For Liberty suffering electoral defeats played out nationwide. In Bucks County, Pennsylvania, an electoral bellwether, Democrats clinched every seat on the Central Bucks School Board election results. This race became one of the costliest in U.S. history for a school board, with campaign spending reaching $600,000. The district was a battleground over book ban and anti-trans policies, with Republicans distributing flyers showcasing explicit images about books featuring trans characters to households throughout the district.

This pattern repeated itself across the nation. In Pennsylvania's Central York School District, Democrats overturned the previously Republican-held school board amidst controversies over book bans and anti-LGBTQ+ policies that led to packed school board meetings. A similar victory for Democrats unfolded in Perkiomen Valley School Board, which saw national attention over a trans bathroom ban in schools there; Democrats swept this race on Tuesday. Similarly, in Iowa's Linn-Mar School District, a focal point for national conservative media due to debates over transgender student policies, all three Moms For Liberty-endorsed candidates were defeated. This trend was echoed throughout Iowa, with 12 out of 13 such candidates facing losses. In Kansas, Johnson County voters rejected all candidates from the group in school board elections. And in Minnesota's Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan School District, all four contenders were unsuccessful.

So, what have we learned from all of this? Perhaps, as Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said in his victory speech Tuesday, it’s the importance of running on being FOR something instead of running AGAINST someone.

Maybe it’s about showing people you care about what’s important to them instead of trying to keep them scared and stupid. And perhaps compassion and kindness might be more important than being an angry, heartless bully.

Moms for Liberty are for liberty like I’m a Green Bay Packers fan.

Part of the problem, of course, is that M4L claims that they are the “parental rights” movement, but this is merely camouflage for their racist, homophobic, xenophobic, transphobic, and Chrisofascist agenda.

It’s about power.

M4L wants to control schools, school boards, curricula, and hiring decisions. They want control over all of it. They claim to oppose public schools “indoctrinating” children, but they want to be the ones in charge of the indoctrination.

Their plans and agenda suffered a severe blow on Tuesday, but to think that M4L will go away is naïve in the extreme. They’re not going anywhere; they’ll step back, evaluate what went wrong, and reassess their prospects. They may change plans and/or tactics, but their goals will likely remain unchanged.

Despite their name, Moms for Liberty isn’t interested in liberty. They want to create a public educational system geared toward creating an America designed for the benefit of White Conservative Christian Cisgender Heterosexuals. Period. All others need not apply…and are expected to fall into line.

Or else suffer the consequences.

Tuesday’s electoral setbacks were a victory for those who believe in equality and freedom, but we should rest assured that M4L isn’t going anywhere. They’ll regroup, retool, and resume trying to bully Americans into giving up their rights and freedoms. If we drop our guard, there’s every chance M4L, or a group with similar aims, may succeed in achieving their goals.

If that happens, America will have millions of White Conservative Christian Cisgender Heterosexuals who’ve been trained to obey orders and have no idea how to think critically or, worse, to think for themselves.

What we saw happen Tuesday could represent a step forward in the fight against tyranny and Christofascism…or it could merely be a delay in arriving at our inevitable destination.

What’s it going to be, America?

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