The Insidious Influence of Moms for Liberty

Moms For Liberty sucks. I’m not going to even try to soften that statement, because it’s true: they’re an ideologically regressive organization that is wielding the idea of “parental rights” to censor books, teachers, and instructional materials. They make it much, much harder for educators to do their jobs — and many of the people most involved don’t even have kids in public schools.

But to defeat them, you have to understand what they’re doing — and how they’re doing it. Which is why I wanted to have journalist Laura Pappano come on the show to talk about her extensive reporting on “school moms” and the place of Moms for Liberty within the “battle” for public schools. We talk about where the money comes from, how other parents are effectively organizing against them, the history of parent-led school activism, and most importantly, what uniform you wear to a conservative mom conference.

Show Notes:

• Find Laura’s book, School Moms: Partisan Politics, and the Battle for Public Education here

• Laura on the “Brief History of the Grand Old American Tradition of Banning Books”

• Her report from the Moms for Liberty gathering from last summer)

• Laura’s excellent piece on the effort to take back control of the school board from far-right extremists in West Bonner County, North Idaho

• A few of the pieces I mention re: my reporting on extremism in North Idaho: Here’s What Happens When Republicans Have No One To Fight and The Fight to Bear Arms

• Find Laura’s website — with links to her other reporting and work — here!

We’re currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:

• The force and vector shifts and general dynamics of getting very mad at a celebrity

• What’s the deal with JEANS right now (alternate title = Jeans: Help)

• For our continuing series on romance novels: QUEER ROMANCE and ROMANCE BOOKSTORES

• The future of reality TV

• How we talk about the royals today (especially looking for some questions from people outside of the U.S. here!)

• The Contemporary Jennifer Lopez

• Online shopping culture, including but not limited to people’s reliance on reviews and/or compulsion to leave reviews

• The cultural force that is nostalgia (especially interested in how it functions in different generations)

• Anything you need advice on!

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (and here’s the subscriber-only priority form)

For today’s discussion: How have you seen Moms for Liberty or a group like it work in your community? What, if anything, has proven effective in combatting these groups?

• Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world.
• Got a question to submit, a prompt for Ask Anne Anything, or an idea for a future episode? Tell us here.
• Catch up on everything else happening in the Culture Study universe here.
• Transcripts will be available here within 24 hours of publishing.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.