Christian and Bridget Ziegler, Moms For Liberty, Conservative Hypocrisy and the Ongoing, Rabid Dysfunction of Right Wing Politics!
The admonition “do as I say, not as I do,” seems to be the philosophy for many on the political, social and cultural right — the “family values” conservatives. Recent reports that Christian Ziegler, the husband of Moms for Liberty cofounder Bridget Ziegler, is under police investigation in Sarasota, Florida, following a rape allegation, sent shockwaves through the right-wing echo chamber and elicited howls of cynicism and reckless degrees of eye rolling and side-eyeing from many progressives and others on the cultural left.
Local reporters for the Florida Trident interviewed a woman who stated that she was involved in a “three-year consensual menage a trois sexual relationship.” They also reported that she had been alone with Christian Ziegler, chair of the Florida GOP, the night of the alleged rape. Both Zieglers have conceded that such a relationship took place.
Mr. Ziegler, whom police have not yet charged, is resisting growing bipartisan calls from Governor Ron DeSantis, state Democrats and many fellow Republicans to step down. “I don’t see how he can continue with that investigation ongoing given the gravity of those situations,” Mr. DeSantis said in comments. “He’s innocent till proven guilty, but we just can’t have a party chair that is under that type of scrutiny.”
Not surprisingly, the fact that the Zieglers, both high-level officials in Florida politics, were having group sex with a woman have led to accusations of hypocrisy from Democrats and LGBTQ groups. “As leaders in the Florida GOP and Moms for Liberty, the Zieglers have made a habit out of attacking anything they perceive as going against ‘family values’ — be it reproductive rights or the existence of LGBTQ+ Floridians,” Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried said in a statement. “The level of hypocrisy in this situation is stunning.”
Truth be told, we have seen similar narratives in prior situations from those men and women who wildly hurl stones while residing in fractured glass houses. Does anyone remember Jerry Falwell Jr.?
Groups like Moms for Liberty and their socially conservatives cohorts often target everyone from drag queens to school officials for either being sexual predators and similar deviants or sympathetic toward them. It’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black. In fact, just last month, a similar story exposed a Philadelphia organizer for Moms for Liberty for his 2012 conviction of sexual abuse of a 14-year-old boy.
In additon to Bridget Ziegler, Moms For Liberty, Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice were also co-founders of the organization in 2021. The organization originally focused on opposition to restrictions in schools following the COVID-19 pandemic, but eventually expanded its efforts to supporting parents’ rights to ban books it deems inappropriate from classrooms and school libraries. The group managed to emerge as a pivotal voice in Republican politics. Indeed, many Republican presidential candidates jockeyed to earn endorsements from the organization.
One major reason for DeSantis and other GOP politicians’ eagerness to cut their ties is that Moms for Liberty has ended up being bad news from a political standpoint. The group’s Orwellian agenda of banning books and bullying LGBTQ students and teachers turned out to be vehemently unpopular. Their public link to Moms for Liberty hurt Republicans in the midterms, most notably in school board races where Democrats won overwhelmingly in districts that the group had targeted for takeovers. It is clear for many on the right that Moms for Liberty is bad news — and the Republican Party is dropping the organization quicker than a bad habit.
The reality is that Moms for Liberty is hardly an aberration. In fact, such groups have deep roots in American history going back to the grassroots workers who maintained the system of racial segregation and Jim Crow. For decades in rural communities, university towns and New South cities, white women performed rudimentary duties that promoted whites over blacks: censoring textbooks, denying marriage certificates, choosing the racial identity of their neighbors, advocating school choice, perusing various communities for votes and persuading elected officials. They indoctrinated racial conscious values in their children, developed regional, state and national networks and experimented with race neutral political discourse.
Without these pedestrian, everyday acts, white supremacist politics could not have shaped local, regional and national politics as effectively as they did. With white women at the center of activity, the rise of postwar conservatism looks different from the largely male-focused narratives of the resistance to civil rights. Women like Nell Battle Lewis, Florence Sillers Ogden, Mary Dawson Cain andCornelia Dabney Tucker publicized threats to their Jim Crow world through political organizing, underground correspondence and advocacy journalism. Their efforts began before World War II, continued after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision and persisted past the 1964 Civil Rights Act and antibusing protests of the 1970s and early 80s. The segregationist politics of these women transformed themselves throughout the nation, overlapping with and influencing the rise of the New Right of the Reagan years up to the present day.
A segment of American society — primarily whites — has overtly or covertly harbored rabid levels of hostility and hatred toward individuals it views and perceives as “the other.” For much of our recent history, members of this segment reaffirmed their racist and bigoted viewpoints with like-minded individuals at secret conferences; in white supremacist communications, underground newsletters, obscure far-right magazines and radio programs; and in the darkest, racially sordid corners of the Web. With permission of the politically infected, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, nationalistic and acidic climate of the Trump years, thesepeople expressed themselves in the larger public domain and won the approval of those who identify with such a regressive value system.
Thus, it is incumbent upon us committed to the inclusion and fair treatment of all Americans to build an America where racial, political, gender, religious and cultural diversity can flourish freely without fear of harm or censorship. The future of our democracy depends on it.
Elwood Watson Ph.D. is a professor of history, Black Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies at East Tennessee State University. He is a cultural critic, syndicated columnist and author of the book, Keepin’ It Real: Essays on Race in Contemporary America. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/K/bo40060337.html (University of Chicago Press)