‘Moms for Liberty’ Are Neo-Nazis With Wigs and Lipstick
The ‘moms‘ have been co-opted and infiltrated by hate groups using them as a front to whitewash a homophobic and racist agenda
The American people, and Republican voters in particular, have been sold a lie. The lie is that “Moms for Liberty” is just a grassroots organization (lie) of concerned mothers with kids in school (often a lie) who simply want to have a voice in the education of their children. All false.
The truth: They have become a front group for militant and violent hate groups who realize that skinheads doing their Rambo cosplay schtick tends to put people off, so better to hide behind wigs and lipstick.
Origin and Evolution
It is true that Moms for Liberty started out as a garden-variety well-funded branch of the usual suspects in white male conservative Republican circles — you know, Koch, Heritage Foundation, etc. Not unusual for rich white Republican guys to hide behind grassroots-appearing women. One of the founders of Moms for Liberty, in fact, is Bridget Ziegler, wife of Christian Ziegler, chairman of the Florida Republican Party.
Moms for Liberty has been infiltrated
It was founded on January 1, 2021, with the usual Republican dark money bankrolling an immediate and explosive rise. However, about six months later, according to Kristofer Goldsmith, extremism and disinformation analyst for Task Force Butler, Moms for Liberty got infiltrated by Proud Boys, Neo-Nazis, and the worst of the worst in the sewers of the radical homophobic and racist underground of America.
In just two years of existence with 275 chapters in 45 states with nearly 115,000 members, I doubt all of the “moms” are aware of this infiltration. I doubt they are aware of how they are being used and manipulated within their own organization. I doubt they are aware of the Neo-Nazi indoctrination being funneled to them.
History is filled, as the photo above shows, with people who thought they were doing good, protecting children from “filth.” They felt that burning books was doing the right thing, just as Moms for Liberty think they are fighting the good fight in banning books from schools.
Nothing is more dangerous than people who think they are doing good and get militant about it. Literally militant, using intimidation tactics.
We can’t give them a pass
The media largely gives Moms a pass. Hey, it is just ladies getting active in politics, right? Isn’t that nice? Just some enthusiastic moms fighting for their kids. Oh, look, Republican presidential candidates speaking to their gathering. Yawn.
No! We cannot give Moms for Liberty a free pass just because of the wigs and lipstick affording them a patina of innocence.
Moms for Liberty is mushrooming into one of the single most powerful — and dangerous — homophobic and racist forces in America.
Oops, a Moms for Liberty Newsletter Quotes Hitler
Don’t you just hate those “oops” moments? You know, when the wig slips to show the skinhead underneath and the lipstick doesn’t quite conceal that iconic mustache?
I will get to the extreme actions and anti-LGBTQ agenda of the Moms shortly, but first, I just wanted to make clear that this is not one of those hyperventilating over-exaggerations where somebody sees something they don’t like and cries “Nazi!” That is getting old and very overused.
However, when a group quotes Hitler, well, it clearly invites the Nazi accusation, doesn’t it?
In Indiana, the Hamilton County chapter of Moms for Liberty had the following quote from Hitler (with the attribution to Hitler!) at the very top of their newsletter page. Note that the all-caps words were the doing of Moms, as Hitler didn’t need all caps (since everything he said was always shouted anyway):
“He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future.”
After complaints, they didn’t immediately remove it. They just added a “context” note to it. Eventually, finally, they realized the “oops,” it not being good for public relations to quote Hitler for any purpose, and took it off the page.
To be fair (I always strive to be fair) this is not proof they espouse Nazi ideology. They actually were trying — very clumsily — to claim that Biden and Democrats and teacher unions are Nazis. Whatever. My point is that you don’t find a quote like that out of the blue. Where did they dig that gem up? What were they reading and looking at online?
Who were they reading and looking at online?
I say this is evidence of Neo-Nazi groups sliding tentacles into Moms for Liberty, planting stuff like this as part of Neo-Nazi catfishing efforts to manipulate them.
Let’s move on now to the facts about what this organization is really up to. Just moms showing up at school board meetings to express their opinions? Nope. This is a hate group that uses harassment, threats, and intimidation. Nazis have always persecuted LGBTQ people, and neo-Nazis today develop new rhetoric and plans of attack.
If You Can’t Win an Argument, Shout…and Harass and Intimidate
Tina Descovich co-founded Moms for Liberty after losing reelection to the school board in Brevard County, Florida. She lost to Jennifer Jenkins. Someone at the time joked the group should have been called “Moms against Jennifer Jenkins.”
Descovich posted on her Facebook page the school district’s LGBTQ guideline document— which was nothing new and had been around for over a year — and claimed it to be new and the work of Democrat Jenkins.
Moms for Liberty took off, in an eruption of venomous outrage and harassment, in particular of Jenkins. From a Vice article:
“At board meetings Moms for Liberty members would shout and intimidate Jenkins as she walked to and from her car, to the point where she had to be escorted by security … The Moms for Liberty group denied being involved in the protests at Jenkins’ house, but Jenkins said she saw members of the group standing outside her home. At one protest in September 2021, Jenkins said one protester shouted: ‘Be careful, your mommy hurts little kids!’ to her daughter. Others chanted ‘You’re going to jail.’ Her neighbors informed Jenkins they had seen protesters brandishing weapons in the church parking lot behind her house.”
Someone even made a false claim against Jenkins that she was abusing her daughter, prompting a visit from Florida Department of Children and Families to investigate her for child abuse.
Moms for Liberty grows exponentially (well-funded by dark money) and they make use of harassment tactics elsewhere. For example, in Livingston County, Michigan:
“During a September 2021 board meeting … the chapter chair of the local Moms for Liberty group sent the school board a chilling message: ‘We are coming for you. Take that as a threat. Call the FBI. I don’t care.’”
This is not just happening in red states. Their tentacles reach everywhere. In the Bay Area of California, Dianne Jones, running for school board against a Moms-for-Liberty-backed candidate, said:
“During the campaign, I was called a tyrant, an extremist, a Marxist, a ‘groomer,’ and a danger to children. My family had to take extra security precautions.”
It gets worse.
Melissa Bosch, the group’s head of communications in Lonoke, Arkansas, was heard in leaked audio saying of school district librarians:
“I’m telling you, if I was — any mental issues, they would all be plowed down with a freaking gun by now.”
Oh yeah, one more thing about those Moms for Liberty protestors who showed up at the home of Brevard County School Board member Jenkins.
“In Jenkins’ recollection, the protesters shouted: ‘We’re coming for you. We’re coming at you like a freight train! We are going to make you beg for mercy. If you thought January 6 was bad, wait until you see what we have for you!’”
Proud Boys in wigs and lipstick.
They Don’t Just Shout and Intimidate, They Get Laws Passed
In Arkansas, eight anti-trans bills have passed. Seven of the eight had co-sponsors who were members of Moms for Liberty.
In Florida, members of Moms for Liberty regularly meet with members of the legislature to discuss their legislative agenda.
In Iowa, the Gazette in Cedar Rapids published an editorial titled “Moms for Liberty is now in charge at the Iowa Statehouse.” They testified before the legislature to advocate for book bans and they “cherry-picked the most explicit passages from a list of books, most written by LGBTQ authors and people of color.” Iowa passed three anti-trans bills too, after Moms for Liberty testified in favor of all three.
In Indiana, they backed the passage of three anti-trans bills in 2023, including a bill that bans discussion of LGBTQ people in schools and forces teachers to out students who request to be referred to by a different name or pronoun.
In Kentucky, Moms for Liberty included in their newsletter a segment about the death by suicide of Kentucky Sen. Karen Berg’s son, Henry. Moms for Liberty misgendered Henry, calling him Berg’s “daughter” and claiming that the senator used her son’s death to “push her agenda for trans rights.” These “Moms” — who insult the very meaning of the term — successfully passed anti-trans bills in Kentucky.
In South Dakota, a bill passed to prohibit gender-affirming medical care for minors. Three of the co-sponsors of the bill — Sen. Julie Frye-Mueller, Rep. Aaron Alyward, and Rep. John Sjaarda — took the Moms for Liberty’s parent pledge.
Heil Hitler. By all means, sign a “pledge.”
How about a pledge to the Constitution of the United States of America?! You know, a pledge to things like prohibiting the establishment of religion and guaranteeing free speech, not to mention the equal protection of the laws?
I could go on with this list of legislation, but I am tired. I am tired body, mind, and soul. However, I also take seriously the responsibility I have — that we all have — to call out threats to democracy and human rights and to raise awareness.
So, I will continue to call out these wolves in sheep’s clothing, these Nazis in crappy wigs and ugly-ass lipstick.
Wake-Up Call
The Southern Poverty Law Center has named Moms for Liberty an “extremist” group. Why? Among other things, because they
“target teachers and school officials, advocate for the abolition of the Department of Education, advance a conspiracy propaganda, and spread hateful imagery and rhetoric against the LGBTQ community.”
The SPLC warns that while the official website claims it is an organization that seeks to “unify, educate, and empower parents to defend and protect their parental rights,” their real-world activities reflect something entirely different.
This is the greatest danger, to my mind. Neo-Nazis, Proud Boys and others are catfishing on a grand scale. They have found easy targets.
Think of January 6th. In addition to the militants and the violent assholes, there were so many other people there, lingering outside or wandering around “along for the ride.” They were wide-eyed and grinning and taking selfies and videos … seemingly oblivious that they were participants in a crime, the most despicable assault on democracy this country has seen since the Civil War.
I have no doubt that many good-hearted, well-meaning moms out there are signing up and buying Moms for Liberty T-shirts. They have no idea what they are getting sucked into. They are not world-wise enough to recognize (let alone filter out) the Nazi propaganda and talking points that will be spoon-fed to them, radicalizing them. Moms for Liberty is a gateway drug to a horrible addiction, an addiction to hate and misinformation, and, ultimately, to violence sooner or later. All the red flags are there, just as they were before the violence of January 6th. You could see it coming.
I can see it coming again.
We have to figure out how to wake people up.
We also have to stand up against Moms for Liberty at every opportunity, call out the media whenever it gives them a free pass, and call out any politicians who suck up to Nazis in wigs and lipstick.
That Donald Trump and Darth Santis showed up at a Moms for Liberty event is to be expected, but what about Nikki Haley? I would have thought she would be smarter and wiser than that. Or is she just angling to be the Vice President to a fascist?
Wake up.
We all have to wake up.
