New GOP Kingmaker? Moms For Liberty Courted by Republican 2024 Hopefuls
09:17 GMT 01.07.2023 (Updated: 09:32 GMT 01.07.2023)
© AP Photo / Matt Rourke
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Five GOP presidential candidates, including ex-POTUS Donald Trump and his main rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, were invited to attend the Philadelphia convention of Moms for Liberty, a parents-rights advocacy group that only emerged three years ago, but now appears to be bulking up its “political muscles.”
Moms for Liberty, a conservative social welfare non-profit, which actively opposes "woke" cancel culture and the teaching of Critical Race Theory in schools, is emerging as a force to be reckoned with ahead of the 2024 US presidential election.
Dubbed "culture warriors" by fans and decried as an "extremist organization" by critics, Moms for Liberty opened its four-day convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a critical swing state, on Thursday. The roster of speakers included a line-up of GOP presidential candidates comprising Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, and political activist Vivek Ramaswamy.
Demonstrators gather outside the Moms for Liberty meeting in Philadelphia, Friday, June 30, 2023.
© AP Photo / Nathan Howard
Culture Warriors
Established in January 2021 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic by three Florida women - all current and former school board members - Tina Descovich, Tiffany Justice, and Bridget Ziegler - Moms for Liberty currently boasts 285 chapters in 45 states, with around 120,000 members.
The group has specifically underscored that it does not plan to endorse a presidential candidate. However, Moms for Liberty spearheads an agenda that has the power to rally electors - parents of school-age children, particularly suburban women. These are the voters who are increasingly concerned about attempts to "redefine morals and values that are in opposition to what the families are teaching in their homes," according to Descovich. Accordingly, Republican hopefuls have been increasingly courting Moms for Liberty, which bills itself as a group of “joyful warriors” out to restore “parental rights” in education.
The GOP speaker lineup at the activist group's summit shows candidates “have recognized that the number one domestic policy right now is the concern over the threat to parental rights and the failure of public education,” said co-founder Tina Descovich.
Co-founder Tiffany Justice added that, “It means that, no matter who the nominee is, parents and students will be winning.”
People leaving the venue that hosted the Moms for Liberty meeting argue with demonstrators in Philadelphia, Friday, June 30, 2023.
© AP Photo / Nathan Howard
"You have proven beyond all doubt that there is no earthly force more powerful than the love of a mother for her children — that’s true. In school board races, PTA meetings and town halls across the nation, you have taught the radical left Marxists and communists a lesson they will never forget: don’t mess with America’s moms... The radical left is even slandering Moms for Liberty as a so-called ‘hate group.’ You’re not the threat to America... You’re the best thing that has ever happened to America,” Donald Trump told the gathering on Friday.
For its struggle to grant increasingly more parental input over what schools teach, with less "indoctrination" about issues such as gender, race, and sexuality, Moms for Liberty was slammed as a "threat to free speech," and proclaimed an “anti-government extremist” organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Nikki Haley, the only woman currently running in the GOP field, told the convention, "When they mentioned this was a terrorist organization, I said, ‘Well then count me a mom for liberty!’”
One Republican state education official from Oklahoma was heard saying that the gathering was the “most important conference to happen in Philadelphia since 1776,” in a reference to the adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence.
Among the keynote speakers was Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who has been actively engaging with the group. Pointing to the protests that the convention triggered in heavily Democratic Philadelphia, DeSantis quipped: “That is a sign that we are winning this fight.”
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"What we’ve seen across this country in recent years has awakened the most powerful political force in this country: mama bears... The time to act is now. And I believe if we do it right, 2024 is going to be the year when the parents across this country finally fight back,” DeSantis told the crowd on Friday.
DeSantis, running the closest to Trump in the crowded GOP field for nomination, denounced “woke ideology,” and the teaching of “critical race theory” in schools, touting some of the laws his state had adopted earlier. When he was reelected in the wake of November’s midterms in the US last year, DeSantis endorsed 30 candidates for school boards, often able to exert influence on policy and curriculum, saying at the time that, “Florida is where woke goes to die.”
Incidentally, Moms for Liberty, which rails against the over-the-top focus on a pro-LGBTQ agenda, and shared toilets and locker rooms for girls and boys in schools, threw its weight behind more than 270 school board candidates nationwide in 2022. In Florida, at least 61 of the 67 candidates supported by the "Moms" won, leaving the group "thrilled."
"Nationwide, over 50 percent of our candidates won, after the organization shifted its focus solely on school board elections, school board races and what was happening in education," Tina Descovich, co-founder of the Moms for Liberty, told Sputnik in 2022.
Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at the Moms for Liberty meeting in Philadelphia, Friday, June 30, 2023.
© AP Photo / Matt Rourke
