Olivia Little of MediaMatters for America investigated a rightwing group called “Moms for Liberty” and posted her findings online.
She writes:
Moms for Liberty, a nonprofit claiming to advocate for “parental rights,” appears to be using parents as pawns to advance a far-right agenda.
The group — which has quickly gained substantial media attention, becoming a right-wing sweetheart and mainstream spectacle — has attempted to paint itself as a grassroots entity driven entirely by passionate parents. But in reality, it benefits from right-wing funding and ties to traditional Republican political figures.
As issues related to parents, schools, and so-called “critical race theory” drive local organizing and elections, it is essential that media report on Moms for Liberty and similar groups with the appropriate context.
The Washington Post published a report on Moms for Liberty in October, framing the organization as “channeling a powerful frustration among conservative mothers.” In fact, these well-connected partisans are opportunistically manufacturing outrage and selling it to parents under the guise of empowerment.
The article not only wrongly portrays the group as a grassroots organization and suggests that it’s primarily member-funded, it also leaves out key details about the co-founders and the group’s right-wing affiliations. For example, after interviewing the vice chairman of the Florida Republican Party about his enthusiasm for the group, the Post notes that his wife is “loosely aligned with Moms for Liberty.” In reality, the group’s initial incorporation documents list her as a co-director.
Moms for Liberty has county-specific chapters across the country that target local school board meetings, school board members, administrators, and teachers. The group advocates to strip districts of protective COVID-19 measures and modify classroom curriculum to exclude the teaching of “critical race theory” (CRT) and sex education, all in the name of “parental rights.”
To learn who is funding and promoting this group, open the link. You will see some familiar names.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Tea Party Redux. What I don’t get is why progressive PACs aren’t producing media to shine the light of day on this grift. Surely someone in the Democratic Party establishment is smart enough to counter this narrative.
Because sadly, there are no progressive PACs for education. Both sides of the political spectrum sold off public education to corporate interests. Even the leaders of the Teacher’s Union sold out to corporate interests. We ALL know that how that has gone and where it is headed.
I think recall reading where Diane said she looked into this? Is a progressive PAC an opportunity to provide a dose of their own medicine?
Starting a PAC is expensive. The original idea behind NPE was to create a PAC to support pro-public school candidates. Then we found out that we had to apply to every state separately to get approval. Legal fees were beyond our means. So we started with the Network for Public Education, a nonprofit that does not engage in elections. Eventually we were able to start NPE Action, which endorses in political action. But we don’t have the big bucks needed to fund advertising and campaigns.
There’s an ocean of Democratic dark money out there, hard to believe there’s nothing to be tapped.
Please elaborate on this “ocean of Democratic dark money” and how it is being secretly used to gain influence.
False equivalency.
Given that democrats want to end dark money and republicans fight that with dark money, that seems like a rather misleading comment.
What organizations like Moms for Liberty are being generously financed by dark money that are progressive?
Both siderism: If the media learned that a grassroots opt out group of parents got a $100 donation from a local teachers’ union, every reference would be to the “union funded opt out movement”. Although since the media wasn’t influenced by a huge dark money PR campaign, it barely reported on opt out parents. No doubt if that dark money had unearthed a $100 union contribution, the media would have suddenly decided the “union funded movement to prevent schools from testing students” was a huge story.
SURELY SOMEONE IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY ESTABLISHMENT IS SMART ENOUGH TO COUNTER THIS NARRATIVE: What could have been said every year since NCLB was signed into law and started to attack and dismantle strong public schooling.
General note: if someone sees NYCPP ask me a question that they don’t think is a waste of time, then they should re-pose the question to me. I won’t respond substantively to her, but I probably will respond to someone else if I have the time.
OK, flerp, I’ll bite. Sure, there’s an ocean of Dem dark $$ out there. But dark $$ means they want give bunches of $$ to some cause without being identified by group or individual name. So you’re going to get DINOs/ neoliberals who want to look friendly to general Dem causes on the surface, so as to garner max votes, but whose true agenda is to “cut overhead” [public goods] to maximize corporate profits.
bethree5,
Disappointed in you. The reason the Republican party has grown even more destructive and more disgusting is because there have been no consequences for their most reprehensible actions. There was a time when the Republican party would condemn when one of their own crossed a line — now they celebrate those folks and make them heroes. The only people the Republicans condemn from their own party are those who criticize the ones who cross the line! It’s not “how dare you cross that line of civilized behavior?” but instead “how dare you criticize someone from our Republican party who crossed that line of civilized behavior?”
flerp has posted some truly nasty remarks, and there was nothing I wrote in my replies to him that warranted anything like the response flerp gave (feel free to go back and check)
I’m used to it. However, in this post he doubled down on his nastiness by writing an incredibly juvenile comment.
flerp should have been ignored. Juvenile and personally attacking posts like that should be ignored, if not condemned.
But instead not only did you condone it, but you signaled approval and normalized it by responding to it. Why wouldn’t flerp do it again? There are no consequences to his juvenile and nasty behavior. Every parent understands how it works.
I may write replies that are strongly worded, but I don’t call people nasty names. And I’m not juvenile enough that if someone makes a good point in a reply to my post and I don’t like that person but I really want to respond, I try to get someone else to do it while gratuitously throwing shade at the person I don’t like at the same time.
Sorry to see you enabling this behavior.
RE: the erroneous [slanted] article from WaPo: there were 8.2k comments, which is absolutely extraordinary for a WaPo education article [and– they close comments after 3 days]. I was happy to see that only the 10th one down proved readers smarter than author: “Just like the Tea Party this is all a well funded Right Wing Op bent on sowing chaos and destroying Democracy. These are not ‘concerned’ parents, they are Political Operatives. No different than the CIA going into a foreign Country and sowing chaos and dividing people to oust elected Officials. And BTW trying mentioning at least once in the articles you write about this where the money comes from…” This comment got 768 likes.
Exactly.
And it isn’t just that the Washington Post writes a single article about Moms for Liberty that leaves out critical information.
It is that the right wing propaganda infects all reporting period.
So even if the story is about two politicians debating, or parents who attend school basketball games, or a PTA bake sale – all passing mentions of Moms for Liberty are something like: “Jane Smith, the PTA member who is running the bake sale, is a part-time nurse and an active member of Moms for Liberty, the grassroots organization of dedicated parents who want their kids education to be the best it can be”. “Susan Brown, who is running for school board, is an avid runner who came in 3rd in last year’s Turkey Trot, and she is the recording secretary for Moms for Liberty, the group of dedicated parents who have been working so hard to improve public schools for all kids.”
It’s when the right wing mischaracterization of “Moms for Liberty” becomes accepted fact by all media that it is so difficult to counter.
It is out of the ed reform playbook, which has turned the mainstream media into a propaganda arm. NYT reporters reinforce the false narratives about charters by presenting propaganda as fact as a casual throwaway line in all stories. “Parents watching their kids playing in the park discussed the new indoor playground on Main Street and good restaurants to take kids and which elementary schools they liked. Mary Smith, with two toddlers, was intrigued with the high performing Happy Charter School, which has the best test scores in the state, and Cindy Lou liked a local private school, while their other friend was considering a parochial school”.
That’s how propaganda gets to be “fact”.
So right on, nycpsp. An all-in school choice booster message, without a word said about how publicly-supported privately-run ‘alternative’ schools are pulling enrollment $ out of the public schools, which provide the most support for SpEd, ESL, arts et al multiple programs, incl free meals & sometimes even wrap-around services that support the poor/ minorities—leaving them increasingly segregated, with 6-15% less budget [depending on area/ state] to try to do what they need to do.
These right wing/libertarian groups breed like hyper sexed up rats. Everyday, there’s a new right wing group advocating for some version of an Ayn Randian dystopia. Not to mention the plethora of right wing think tanks that take the think out of think tank. All funded by the libertarian millionaires and billionaires who are hell bent on privatizing the public school system and destroying the unions.
I was thinking the same thing. I suspect the idea is to proliferate like topsy, so as to give the impression of grassroots groups springing up all over the place, with the advantage that they’re that much harder to keep track of/ vet. If you had one giant anti-pubsch group they’d ve too visiblr & easy to shoot down.
“Moms for Liberty”
Astroturf, right wing ploy
Brainwashed parents, screaming noise.
The level of mendacity and false information that we are seeing, is in part driven by the transformation of information technology and the the sped at which false information is repeated and spread. But Ali Breland’s post yesterday (in “Mother Jones”) was about a report released by the Aspen Institute’s Commission on Information Disorder, which argued that disinformation is less a product of unregulated, brain-melting technologies than an effect of deep social issues that we still have to address.
**Disinformation Isn’t Just a Tech Problem. It’s a Social One, Too””. – Mother Jones https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/11/disinformation-isnt-just-a-tech-problem-its-a-social-one-too/?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-11-17-2021
Ali wrote that the report “departs from the conventional wisdom that information problems stem largely from tech and social media platforms.” Instead, it deemed disinformation “the product of long-standing social problems, including income inequality, racism, and corruption, which can be easily exploited to spread false information online.”
The commission did recommend taking some steps to regulate social media companies, including making the platforms liable for algorithmically boosted content and information. But it also recommended that the executive branch create a “comprehensive strategic approach to countering disinformation and the spread of misinformation, including a centralized national response strategy.”
Susan– good to hear from you again, it’s been too long.
Sounds to me like a distinction without a difference. Yes, unaddressed social problems give rise to these groups looking to vent publicly, and yes, tech and social media platforms have a $$ incentive to provide them platforms. Both recommendations by the commission have merit. Yet they will both run smack into 1st amendment issues…
I often think our only way forward is patience; give it time. Much of what happens on the internet is about people with fringe ideas connecting nationally, imagining that the national #s means hey, there are lots of others like me– when in fact a check with national polls proves that they’re still fringe. Meanwhile I’ve noticed that the younger generation– & the younger you go—the vaster the skepticism re: whatever is said online. My own 30-something sons seem to trust only what their personally-known associates say, & extend that very cautiously to supposed peers purporting to share their opinions—which they vet, & take with a large grain of salt.
Here’s some “science-based” education policy from Detroit public schools, which will close on Fridays to slow the spread of Covid. Covid is no match for the three-day-weekend!
https://detroit.chalkbeat.org/2021/11/17/22788007/detroit-public-schools-remote-learning-friday-december-covid-spread