Signs of Pushback From Divisive Politics

Welcome rejection of Trump tactics, book bans, a state mask ban

Enough with the foolish, self-destructive propagandizing. That’s the welcome message of a building backlash against some undemocratic actions on federal, state and local levels.

Even as the Republican National Committee called the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection “legitimate political discourse,” there is growing restlessness against the Donald Trump revenge mission. The conservative National Review called that RNC statement and censure of two Republicans on the committee investigating the insurrection “morally repellent” and “politically self-destructive.”

In Virginia, school officials and educators are rebelling against a new governor who campaigned as a moderate but turned into an anti-mask zealot the day he took office. And students in even rural areas across the country are fighting back against book-banning efforts.

Whether these are signs of long-term change remain to be seen. But it is worth noting when people speak up for democracy, diversity and common sense.

More in GOP drawing lines

“President Trump was wrong.” That recent statement by former vice president Mike Pence about why he would not change the 2020 election results had impact. That he said so before The Federalist Society, which guided Trump on Supreme Court nominees, got the attention — if not the full embrace — of the party establishment.

It reinforced the governors, lawmakers and activists already pushing back against the conspiracy theorists and white supremacists infiltrating the party. Trump’s vow to pardon insurrectionists, if reelected, crossed the line even for some of supporters.

The Wall Street Journal, in a Feb. 7 editorial, praised Pence and, in a surprisingly forceful tone, criticized Trump, blaming him for GOP losses in the House, the presidency and two Georgia Senate seats.

“We wrote often during his Presidency that Democrats couldn’t defeat Donald Trump, but Mr. Trump could defeat himself. He did, and his post-election behavior compounded the harm to his party,” the editorial said.

Meanwhile, former White House staffers have provided House investigators disturbing details about Trump’s efforts to twist or break norms and laws to stay in office. Some former staffers are meeting to determine how to prevent him from being reelected.

While polls of Republicans show high support for Trump, they show considerably less interest in returning him to office. Trump may have hurt his chances by saying during his latest rally that he wanted to “overturn the election” after long insisting that he had actually won.

Former White House staffers have provided House investigators disturbing details about Trump’s efforts to twist or break norms and laws to stay in office.

That “big lie” led to voter restrictions and partisan power grabs in GOP-controlled states. That’s why it is encouraging that Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers recently killed a bill that would have been the most extreme legislation allowing lawmakers to accept or reject election results.

Bowers, a Republican, sent the bill to all 12 legislative committees, ensuring that it would never clear all to get a House vote. When it comes to elections, he told Capitol Media Services. “We gave the authority to the people.”

On upcoming elections, more Republicans are vowing to support Democrats against Trump supporters who win primaries. When the New York Times asked former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman if she wants the GOP to win congressional majorities, she said, “If we’re going to see the dominance of the far right, no.”

School systems flex in Virginia

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin campaigned as a moderate Republican. But on his first day in office last month, he ordered a ban on all mask mandates in public schools during the state’s rise in Covid-19 cases. Seven school districts, with a total of 350,000 students, recently won a temporary restraining order against the ban.

Youngkin also launched a tip line that allows parents to report any teachers or administrators teaching “divisive” subjects. It has been flooded with fake tips.

The Virginia constitution gives school boards the authority over their systems, the school systems argued. And a state law requires schools to follow federal health guidelines that now require masks indoors, regardless of vaccination status.

A group of Chesapeake parents also challenged the order in front of the Virginia Supreme Court, and parents of children with disabilities have filed a federal lawsuit against the ban.

Youngkin also launched a tip line for parents to report any teachers or school administrators teaching “divisive” subjects, like racism or sexual identity. The tip line has been flooded with fake tips.

Seven Virginia organizations representing educators have called on Youngkin to scrap the tip line. If parents have concerns about schools, the educators said, they can do what they always have done— talk with teachers and administrators.

Students reject book bans

Weaponizing race and gender identity is a big part of current right-wing activism, with some state officials insisting that nothing should be taught that would cause “discomfort” to a student or parent.

Banning books is part of the strategy to get conservative voters riled up. Yet some students are standing up against that.

Students at Central York High School, a predominantly white school in Pennsylvania, helped reverse a book ban targeting the work of Black authors. For about a month, the Panther Anti-Racist Union protested the challenge after an all-white school board banned diverse educational materials, including a book about Rosa Parks; “Hidden Figures,” a story about Black female mathematicians; and the documentary “I Am Not Your Negro,” about the author and cultural critic James Baldwin.

Dozens of students, parents and educators held brightly colored signs with slogans like “Education is not indoctrination” outside the school, wrote letters to the local newspaper and read excerpts of the banned books on Instagram.

Other student activism include:

• The Round Rock Black Students Book Club at Meridian World School in Round Rock, Texas created a virtual student-led community group in which students of color can read banned books.
• An eighth grader at Kutztown Middle School in Pennsylvania, hearing about books being banned in various states, started the Teen Banned Book Club, held at a local bookstore and attracting public donations.
• High school students in Granbury, Texas, chastised education officials during a public meeting about efforts to review and potentially ban hundreds of books from school libraries. “No government — and public school is an extension of government — has ever banned books and banned information from its public and been remembered in history as the good guys,” one student warned.

The students’ responses encourage optimism about the future. A generation open to diversity, in thought and action, could possibly lead to a country that refuses to get bogged down in conspiracies, racial conflict and anti-democratic politics.