US Far-right Groups are Shifting their Focus to Local Communities
This is supplemented by an excellent article that describes what has happened here locally.
UPDATE 1: I'm still waiting for someone to explain why the opposing side of this story makes sense for any human. We had an overwhelming majority of the state GOP legislature approve this, making it into law.
This story is from The Guardian in December 2021, but it turned out that what we have seen happening in the 3 years since has borne out to be very similar to what The Guardian described back at the time. They seemed to predict the future.
We have seen openly white supremacists, bigots, other blatantly extreme extremists, and extremists aligned with national PACs, applying to get onto many of the local area school boards. Their plan is to start at the ground level in local politics as mainstream conservatives. Then work up into the higher state positions from there. As The Guardian also explains, this is a plan for a “bloodless” civil war, where the planners are actively trying to take over and rule the functions of government and voting from the ground up within the MAGA (racist) framework.
Two areas deemed to be most important appear to be voting and education. The extremist positions espoused by TPUSA, Moms 4 Liberty, and others are all remarkably similar. And the main component that ties them all together? They are trying to control the class material and agenda. They want to cut racism, sexism, gender-affirming treatment of any kind, and other things they object to right out of our history. They have managed to get part of this goal started through the governor backed legislation that has already been enacted by the state GOP. Some of these are HF 68, SF 538 SF 482, These far-right extremists are themselves the one with the agendas which they project elsewhere.
They want teachers to praise the USA only for the good it’s done, and leave out anything bad. This is obviously trying to erase history in the minds of our youth. Wait, are these far-right groups trying to indoctrinate our students? And it's a curtailment of free speech in the classroom. Please ask yourself why anyone would want us to deny parts of our history to the next generation? Also ask why the state GOP would pass a bill that curtails the classroom free speech of those who know the most about education — the teachers themselves?
We have some ugliness, and have made some very bad mistakes at times in our past history. Nothing will change this. Native Americans were here before us and they were subjugated, slaughtered, had genocide committed against them, and the ones remaining finally put on small strips of land that are still present to this day.
We have a history of racism, slavery, and anti-immigrant bias. We still have components of this that have never been reconciled. We have institutional racism remaining. Why would we tell our children this is not true? Just look at one organization, the CBP Union for example. A read of one or two of their own X posts are great for examples of institutional racism. https://twitter.com/BPUnion.
We have to own up to our past. We have to understand fully what happened with slavery, Native Americans, and past human rights abuse, so nothing similar will ever repeat itself again. This is one of the great reasons to study (real) history.
If we go down the road that these far-right groups, TPUSA, Moms 4 Liberty, and others want us to, over the next generations our knowledge of slavery and the truth about our own country’s past could greatly diminish. This would allow all the past mistakes and human rights abuses to easily repeat themselves. This bigotry also includes misogyny. If anyone can tell me why this is the best move, please comment below. We are among the leaders on this issue now, thanks to Governor Reynolds.
We have already seen this happening at some schools in Iowa. Others have tried and failed. But this is why it is so important to look at everything about a candidate. Especially their past actions, past bills sponsored, and past voting record. Whatever the candidate talks about on a stump speech, face to face with voters and asking for votes before an election, their words should match their prior deeds. I am finding several times this is not what is happening in local elections. This also end up applying to the general elections this November.
Prediction. The extremist candidate will “slide in,” or pivot to the center to appear moderate, simply to get your vote for the next election. Then once they’re in the new position, they can start to enact the radical components of their agenda. For example, book banning. Yes, thanks to Governor Reynolds and GOP legislators, this is now a law, but likely will be overturned in court.
This is essentially lying by omission. And the GOP has come to the unavoidable truth. Because of demographics and many other trends, the GOP thinks they are unable to win by being honest. Now that they’re not trying to use honesty and convince voters of their position, their thoughts of getting enough votes becomes less important, and thoughts of autocracy creep in.
We have extremists speaking out at board meetings, and some sitting on the boards, who have been trying, and will continue to try to get books banned no matter what the state law says. Who we trust with our vote makes a big difference at all levels of the government.
Otherwise, please join me in doing everything we can to get national PACS, national alt-right movements, extremists, and all far-right organizations away from our elections. As far as possible. And also away from our school boards, schools, governments, and elections. This is my goal.
They should know, before even applying as candidates, that they will have no chance to win in Iowa. Because here, we are on to them and know what they are trying to do. This knowledge alone is half of the battle, as they hide amongst us as moderates. I and others are trying to keep track of the extremist groups’ activities in the state and which of them are aligned with our governor or other public figures.
In Iowa, I hope we want our children to learn real history as it happened. We want our children to be well educated and not learn myths and fairy tales. And we want strong public schools. Public schools have been a cornerstone of this country since its beginning.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/22/us-far-right-groups-local-impacts