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One of the few questions that Democrats and Republicans can agree upon is the school board controversys outsized role in the Republican victory in Virginias recent gubernatorial election. Although much of the press coverage suggested that the protests involved a grassroots movement, they have actually included an elaborately orchestrated operation to exploit parents who are stressed by school disruption and Covid-19 fatigue. Virginia may have served as the laboratory for the project, but similar efforts it will be visible all over the electoral map in the period leading up to the 2022 midterms.

For many, the project first came to light last April, when a parent named Asra Nomani published a scathing critique of her childs school, the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, Virginia. The article was published in The Federalist (a right-wing platform that has been suspended from Twitter in the past for publishing harmful Covid disinformation). Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, directed her rage at a classroom screening of Ava du Vernays award-winning Netflix documentary, 13th, and the lessons caution, Racism is not a concept of the past. Two days later, Nomanis story made Fox News, where the reporter added that the Jefferson students were being indoctrinated with critical race theory.

The situation quickly mushroomed. In June, a Jefferson parent (name withheld for security concerns), told the Spectator, Our PTA is collapsing under pressure of having two internal, highly political groups trying to do a hostile takeover. The parents association in their formerly polite suburb was unprepared for the tactics employed by the two linked educational advocacy groups, Coalition for TJ, a group of Thomas Jefferson parents, and DefendingEd, a group with a national presence. They call parents employers and harass the employers and parents. There are incidents where people who seem to have been radicalized are doing bizarre things. In suburban Virginia, these actions include the vandalization of peoples homes and property.

But the activism of agitated parents has transcended the PTA boardroom. On November 5, Asra Nomani, billed as the vice president of strategy and investigations for DefendingEd, took credit in the Fairfax Times for her organizations role in Republican Glenn Youngkins victory in the Virginia governors race. Little did Youngkin know but the groundwork for his victory was actually laid on June 7, 2020, months before he even decided to run for office, with a mother who would become one of the many hopping mad parents in a mama and papa bear movement that would bring him to office.

This may have been an exaggerationbut given the 64,000-vote margin in the race, the PTA and school board battles in the Washington suburbs made a difference. Fairfax, with over a million residents, is the most populous county in Virginia, while adjacent Loudoun County, at 420,000, is the fourth-most populous. Not coincidentally, they are also the homes of many of the conservative political strategists and operatives involved in leveraging the campaign.

PTA and school board protests have erupted across the country. In Jefferson County, Colorado, longtime school board members are suddenly being called Nazis and child abusers. An Illinois school board member resigned after receiving death threats and deposits of dead rodents on her doorstep. The local events are publicized as protests against mask requirements and school curricula. But they also have a clear political agenda: They are playing an expanding role in electoral politics, leading into next years crucial midterm elections.

The website for DefendingEd (shorthand for Parents Defending Education) states, Through network and coalition building, investigative reporting, litigation, and engagement on local, state, and national policies, we are fighting indoctrination in the classroom. Despite DefendingEds self-description as a national grassroots organization, it is more accurately described as an astroturf operation, orchestrated and coordinated through a web of donors and strategists, many of them partners, via the religious right, in the Council for National Policy (see Nelson, Holding Democracy in the U. S. Hostage) and associated operations of the Koch brothers empire.

These efforts have been woven through the right-wing ecosphere. As noted, Asra Nomani generated the Federalist and Fox News stories, as well as the story claiming credit for the Youngkin victory. DefendingEds founding president, Nicole Neily, came to her office with a long career in Koch-funded operations, including the Cato Institute, the Independent Womens Forum, Speech First, and the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.

Many parents and educators have tried in vain to contest the premise of these attacks by pointing out that critical race theorya core complaint of the movementdoesnt even exist at the grade-school level; it has been used as a framework for discussions about structural racism in law school over the past four decades. But the attacks are often rooted in a time-worn playbook that the radical right has used to generate useful controversies for decades. The technique involves identifyingand in some cases, inventingan inflammatory term that touches a nerve among the target population, and provoking conflict through coordinated local organizing with media amplification.

The anti-abortion campaign offers one example of this. Abortion was not a particularly fraught topic among American Protestants in the 1970s, but a network of religious right organizations connected to the CNP discovered that coining and promoting misleading terms about abortion could activate their intended audiences. Partial-birth abortion and birth-day abortion on demand were manufactured terms that had no meaning in medicine or in law but became successful brands for persuasion and mobilization.

As they absorbed the loss of the 2020 elections, the leadership of the religious right saw signs they had begun to exhaust the available supply of new conservative evangelical voters in critical districts. Polls also indicated that a crucial bloc of swing voters, college-educated white suburban women, were increasingly disaffected with Trump and were often unmoved by the anti-abortion message. But polling also showed that as the Covid-19 epidemic wore on, these voters were increasingly anxious about their children, their public schools, and conflicting public health policies.

It was time for a new initiative. The question was, what triggering concept or term could channel these anxieties into a political response?

Parents Defending Education (or DefendingEd) was incorporated in Virginia on January 21, 2021. Unusual for a grassroots organization, it was born fully equipped with a Twitter account (December 2020) and a Facebook account (January 2020) and rapidly acquired a public relations firm and a polling firm.

Around the same time, a new offensive around critical race theory started to gain traction. On March 15, Christopher Rufo, a young political operative with the conservative Manhattan Institute, posted two tweets aligned with previous initiatives that explained the strategy to harness new votes through misleading terminology. Asra Nomanis Federalist and Fox News exposs followed a month later.

___

Christopher F. Rufo @realchrisrufo

Follow@realchrisrufo

We have successfully frozen their brandcritical race theoryinto the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category.

Christopher F. Rufo @realchrisrufo

Follow@realchrisrufo

Replying to@realchrisrufo@ConceptualJames

The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think critical race theory. We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.

12:17 PM 15 Mar 2021

___

By midsummer, the combined critical race theory and school board campaigns were not only underway, they were embraced by multiple leaders and media platforms throughout the CNP network. A June 15 investigation by NBC News described state-level school board initiatives, quoting Karen England, a member of the CNPs board of governors.

This is an opportunity for what I feel like Ive been screaming from the rooftops about, England told NBC, speaking as executive director for Nevada Family Alliance, known for its efforts to end Drag Queen Story Hour at local libraries; the group recently proposed placing body cameras on teachers suspected of teaching critical race theory.

On June 24, Pat Robertson, a past president of the CNP, followed suit on his Christian Broadcasting Networks 700 Club, describing critical race theory as a monstrous evil used by Communists to destroy children.

The short-term impact of these initiatives was easy to discern. They attacked the school boards, disrupting a foundation of local democratic practice, and they derailed educators efforts to address issues of inequality and racism that gained prominence in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.

But they also served to organize parents into a new political cohort, as evidenced on June 29 with the staging of a boot camp to train parents for school board takeovers, held by Family Research Council Action. The program was led by FRC president Tony Perkins, a standard-bearer of the religious right and longtime president of the CNP. The training session featured Elizabeth Schultza senior fellow for DefendingEd from Fairfax County who worked under Betsy DeVos, the former secretary of education in the Trump administration.

On June 30, the FRC website posted:

Yesterday, FRC Action hosted a very successful School Board Boot Camp. In response to the repeated requests of partners across the country, the four-hour training session provided information on what you need to know about running for school board or supporting people who answer the call to public service. At the end of the day, we learned that 97 percent of participants said they would definitely or probably recommend this event to others, and 66 percent said they would definitely be interested in one specifically for their state.

Links between the school board campaign and GOP party politics became clearer by the week. August 6 brought a mass email from the Leadership Institute, run by Morton Blackwell, a co-founder and executive committee member of the CNP. (His group claims to have trained and networked over 200,000 conservative candidates and election workers in the use of data and political communications. The Institutes senior director Bob Arnakis has claimed credit for popularizing the term partial-birth abortion.)

The Leadership Institutes email blast promoted a series of new training sessions, stating, Conservatives are preparing a school board takeover and you can get involved....The best way to fight critical race theory and leftist indoctrination in Americas schools is to elect more school boards across the country.

The institutes website added telling details:

Critical Race Theory really is the road to Hell....Rising numbers of Americans now realize the danger posed by this cultural revolution.

On August 9th, theLeadership Institute launched an 11-hour training program to prepare conservatives to run for local school board seats against the entrenched [fill in]

My team has put together a comprehensive program for these aspiring school board candidates. That includes nearly 11 hours-worth of highly-tailored campaign strategy lessons.

With the online trainings in full swing, my team will then offer this school in the traditional in-person format. Starting here in LIs Arlington, Virginia headquarters, then advancing to more locations around the country.

At these trainings, conservatives learn how to:

Contending against the vast resources of the teachers unions and special interests who pump the Critical Race Theory poison into our schools wont be easy.

So much money and influence is being poured into undermining Americas most basic institutions. Its tragic. And it doesnt make sense, does it? But I know you and I must fight back every way we can.

Armed with Leadership Institute training and inspiration, these conservative school board candidates will score powerful victories all over the country.

This has the makings of the biggest grassroots movement since the Tea Party.

Other CNP affiliates stepped in. In October, Judicial Watch, headed by Tom Fitton, another member of the CNP executive committee, posted an attack against a Rhode Island school districts teacher training materials. Judicial Watch objected to teaching the concepts of anti-racism and equity (while acknowledging that critical race theory doesnt appear in grade-school curricula).

As explained a gazillion times, you will not find a third-grade book called Critical Race Theory. Instead, you find the race-focused principles of CRT under other names, such as antiracism, equity, and culturally responsive learning.

The training course claims that there are unfortunate truths about the history of Rhode Island and the United States.

(Editors note: Rhode Island was a major center of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and dispatched some 2,000 voyages to enslave Africans.)

Yet another partner in the campaign is Turning Point USA, headed by CNP member Charlie Kirk. In partnership with the Leadership Institute, TPUSA has created a School Board Watchlist, a companion site to its McCarthyite Professor Watchlist. There it posts critiques of school boards linked to their support for LGBT-friendly policies and requirements for vaccines and masking. Notably, TPUSA posts the names and pictures of school board members in districts where threats and harassment are mounting. Fairfax County is prominently listed; so are Norman, Oklahoma; Lincoln, Nebraska; and scores of other communities. Like the Leadership Institute and the Family Research Council initiatives, TPUSAs school board campaign includes a fundraising function on its website.

Hardwired into the school board campaigns are the standard elements of the strategy: money, media, and a secret hub to coordinate efforts to disrupt American politics on both a national and a local level. To be sure, Parents Defending Education is only one of several major organizations in the field, and the CNP is only one of the coordinating bodies. Defining the broader field wont be easy; given the role of dark money and the snails pace of tax and federal election filings, the threads connecting their financing, data, and political engagement will take months, if not years, to trace. But all indications are that these efforts are directed at the 2022 midterms, and they are well underway now.

Anne Nelson is the author ofShadow Network: Money, Media, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right. Nelson is the recipient of the Livingston Award for journalism and a Guggenheim Fellowship for historical research.

More:
Religious Right Fuels National Attack On School Boards, Exploiting Parental Frustration Over Covid Restraints - The Washington Spectator

"White freedom" could bring the ultimate ruination of America. By that term, I do not simply mean "white privilege" or "racist" behavior that violates social norms and is considered unacceptable or aberrant. White freedomis much more powerful than that: it is acoreorganizingprinciple of American society.

In his recent book "White Freedom: The Racial History of an Idea,"Tyler Stovall explains this concept as "the belief (and practice) that freedom is central to white racial identity, and that only white people can or should be free."

Contrary to what many Americans would like to believe, the country's foundingwas not a project dedicated to universal human rights. Instead, America's "democratic" experiment was based on a racialized understanding of democracy and of who counts asfully human and who doesnot.

In the 18th century,full citizenship rights and "democracy" wereexclusive to white men who owned property.As Charles Mills, Edmund Morganand other scholars have documented, Black and other nonwhite peoplewere theboundary against which "democracy" and white freedom were to be demarcatedandbuilt upon. In his 1999 book "The Racial Contract,"Charles Mills summarizes this as:"Whiteness is not really a color at all, but a set of power relations."

White freedom is everywhere in America. Black and brown people (and some white people as well) condemn it as a manifestation of the lies which undercut any claims that America is an "exceptional" nation and the world's greatest democracy.

RELATED:How higher education can win the war against neoliberalism and white supremacy

Many or most white people, however, take white freedomfor granted and are likely todeny its very existence, even as they remainextremely protective of its power. This is but oneexample of thelies that are central to race itself, and the transhistorical project of making and remaking whiteness.

The trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, and his acquittal on all charges, offers one of the most recent high-profile examples of how white freedom functions in America.

Last August, Rittenhouse, who was then 17years old,traveled across state lines, armed himself with an AR-15 assault style rifle, joined forces with a local militia groupand put himself in the middle of the civil disturbances caused by the police shooting of a black man named Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rittenhouse shot three men, killing two of them, allegedly in self-defense. When he attempted to surrender to police they ignored him, and then he was cleared of all legal responsibility in a criminal trialwhosejudge was blatantly biased in his favor, and based ongun laws and definitions of self-defensethat advantage white defendants. He is alreadya right-wing media star, and will likely soon become awealthy celebrity.

Consider the fact thatRittenhouse was not shot dead by the police as he walked down the street with anassault rifle, immediately aftershooting three people in the street. That is an iconic illustration of white freedom'spower over life and death in America. White vigilantism is perhaps the ultimate expression of white freedom.

I asked Tyler Stovall to share his thoughts about the role of white freedom in the Rittenhouse saga. He responded by email:

The recent acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse by an essentially white jury for murdering two unarmed men simply underscores the widespread belief in the fragility of white privilege and the overwhelming need to preserve it.Rittenhouse's argument that he acted in self-defense proved compelling, even though it was not backed up by any substantial proof, and the jury simply ignored the facts that he chose to enter an area armed with a high-powered rifle and became the only person to kill another human being that night. Rittenhouse's trial became a textbook case of the need to preserve white freedom, to prevent a tearful young white man from going to jail even though he permanently deprived others not only of their liberty but of their lives. ...

One only need imagine what would have happened if Kyle Rittenhouse were a young Black man who claimed to have shot others in self-defense.Consider the case of Tamir Rice, shot by Cleveland police in 2014 at the age of 12 for holding a toy rifle. The claim of the police, upheld by the judicial system, was that his murder was justified because he presented a possible threat.If Rittenhouse were Black his victims would doubtlessly be seen as justified in attacking him, in self-defense, because he held a rifle (a real one), and Rittenhouse would most likely have been convicted of murder.But Rittenhouse is white, and self-defense works in his case because it is ultimately a defense of white power, white privilegeand white freedom.

Rittenhouse's actions were easily avoidable: If he had simply stayed home, no one would have died in Kenosha that night.That human tragedy also offers an example of the wayswhite freedom is central to alarger dynamic of escalating right-wing political violence and other threats to American democracy.

The ongoing Republican coup and Jim Crow 2.0assault on multiracial democracy is an act of white freedom, in which Black and brown people's civil rights are being usurped as part of a larger plan to create a new American apartheid system. Moreover, white freedom is so powerful that these fascisticattacks on multiracial democracy are largely legal or at least occur on the debatable margins of legality and cannot simply be corrected by enforcing existing laws.

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The coup attempt and attack on the Capitol lastJanuaryby Donald Trump's followerswas also an example of white freedom. The insurrectionists felt emboldened in their violence, overt racismand anti-democracy fervor because they believed, with good reason, that white freedom granted them the "right" to act with impunity.

Trump and the other plotterswho planned and executed the events of Jan.6 -- and many other aspects of the ongoing coup against American democracy -- have not been punished for their evident or likely crimes. For the most part, thefoot soldiers arrested in the wake of Jan. 6 havereceivedrelatively light sentences for their crimes against democracy and the rule of law.

All of these events are part of a much larger campaignagainst democracy, whichlaw enforcement and national security experts warnmaylead to a violent insurgency against the Biden administration, the Democratsand other groups targeted by the far-right"patriot" movement. This too is another example of white freedom.

Black and brown people (or "leftists" of any race, for that matter) would never be allowed to operate with such impunity, or withreasonable assurance that they would face no serious punishment. They certainly would not be described in empathetic detail by voices in the mainstream news media as people who were"angry," "upset," "confused" and likely"misunderstood."

White freedom is also exemplified by America's criminogenic politics which go back well beforethe Age of Trump in which the wealthiest individuals (nearly all white)and largest corporations (nearly all controlled by white men) can act with impunity, concealing their wealth and income to avoid taxes, destroyingthe environmentand evading virtually any responsibility for theirindividual and collective crimes against society.

White freedom also manifests through collective narcissism. The Republican death cult repeatedly emphasizes the language of "freedom" to encourage its followers not to wear masks and to refusevaccinationagainst COVID-19, not merely risking their own lives but endangering public health on a grand scale.

Across a range of public policies, today's Republican Party and the larger "conservative movement" have advocated and enacted laws that have increased human misery and loss of life among the American people,as well asaround the world. White freedom permits, encourages, enables, protectsand normalizes such antisocial and sadistic behavior.

Neofascism may representthe final form of white freedom in American democracy.Right-wing political violence and other forms of terrorism are becoming normalized. The Republican-fascist movement led by Trump isa political cult prefaced upon using white freedom to attack its "enemies" with impunity. Those who are deemed inferior, according to the ideologyofwhite freedom, are to be denied any fundamental human rights or liberties.

Loyalty to white freedom, and the retrograde reactionary values and politics it represents, empowers a wide range of antisocial and anti-human behavior against marginalized individuals and groups, not alwaysbased on race, color or ethnicity. White freedom by definition is exclusionary, and this form of"freedom" is defined by white people's abilityto define and limit the freedom of others

Leonce Gaiter, who has written extensively on questions of race, masculinityand violence, offered this additional contextfor understanding white freedom and American history, in an email to Salon:

When white supremacy is challenged, white reaction follows. Reconstruction brought reclamation. The '60s and '70s rights revolutions brought Reagan. Obama's election brought the tea party and Trump.

In this nation's 245 years, African Americans have enjoyed statutory equal rights for only 56 since the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Think about it. White supremacy and forms of apartheid have been the status quo in this nation for 77% of its history. The very ideas of black equal rights and full black citizenship are shockingly new. This is something we dare not forget. After Obama's election, the post-racial nonsense flew in all directions, flung by white pundits desperate to forget American history. Instead, we got Trumpism and a Republican Party cheering racist violence to maintain white supremacy.

To a large percentage of the white population, their "white identity" can be reduced to "white supremacy." There is no "white" American identity because there is no aspect of American "white" identity that Black and brown Americans have not overtly impacted (speech, art, letters, music, dance, morality, notions of freedom) save white supremacy. "White" is a null identity it was created in opposition to those it wished to exploit. It does not celebrate what you are. It insists on what you are not. Thus the identity is so fragile that any perceived threat requires the appearance of long guns.

Gaiter concluded:

The Rittenhouse trial and verdict a judge coddling the white man on trial for murdering white men seen as black allies an overwhelmingly white jury, white "self-defense" as an excuse for murdering men after overtly seeking violent confrontation it's all America's normal. We are not better than this. It is a large part of who we have always been. Supposed "moderates" and liberals have never had the stomach to sever the diseased limb of white race hatred from the body politic. Until they do, there will always be a Kyle Rittenhouse. His story is the bulk of America's.

Historianshave observed that America's founding rests upon two crimes against humanity: The genocide againstFirst Nations peoples and white-on-Black chattel slavery. White freedom was a partner inthose crimes against humanity, and was largelydefined by them.

America in the 21st century faces an existential struggle for the future of its democracy and society. Matters are becoming so dire that if seems conceivable the country could face a second Civil War. In this struggle for America's future, the neofascistsare carrying the banner of white freedom.

On the other side are those Americans who believe in a true "We the People" multiracial democracy. These two forces cannot logically be reconciled. Unfortunately, the Democrats and other Americans who hope to redeem and renew democracy are consistently on the defensive. To defeat white freedom, we can no longer downplay itor deny its existence. We must name it, recognize it and confront it directly, before it devours us all.

More from Salon on resurgent white supremacy in the Age of Trump:

Originally posted here:
After the Rittenhouse verdict: Will "white freedom" spell the ruin of America? - Salon

A somewhat haunted-looking, older man from Farmington Hills who came to the event by himself described how every Tuesday, at 7 Mile and Farmington Road in nearby Livonia, he and a group of friends assemble, to wave flags and show their support for the former president. But mostly to hang out and drink.

Theres probably about 25 or 30 of us, and then we go to the bar across the street after and its really fun, he said. When the people drive by, I cant believe how many people honk their horn and stuff.

Two middle-aged men, one from the nearby suburb Lake Orion and one Brandon native, huddled under a massive thin blue line flag on a preposterously tall flagpole. I approached them because the latter, who identified himself only as Sean, was wearing a cap with a message I couldnt help but strike up a conversation about: Everything woke turns to shit.

Sean described his concern over the issue as stemming from the newscast, seeing what was happening, and a lack of trust for the current administration. But when it came to his own kids schools, he was considerably more sanguine.

My son goes here, to Brandon [public schools]. Im really happy with Brandon schools, I couldnt be happier. I graduated from Brandon High School; I dont think its happening here in Brandon, he said. But Im still concerned with all the other communities where it is happening.

His kids were alright. But how could you pass up the opportunity to gather with like-minded individuals, and transmit your Brandon-ness into the ether for all those fighting the good fight in less comfortable environs?

Despite proclaiming my status as a hometown boy, or close enough to one, it wasnt easy to get the events wary attendees to warm up to the rare national political reporter coming through the area. (It didnt help that, realizing I had worn my normally tweedy attire, I attempted to ingratiate myself by slapping on a Detroit Tigers cap that happened to be in the back seat of my car which only had the effect of making me look like a sort of millennial-hipster Michael Moore.) So I was especially grateful when an intense-looking man who I had noticed observing me earlier complimented my sneakers as he walked by with his wife. He introduced himself to me as Mike Steger, a self-described activist and one-time Democratic House candidate who had moved to Kalamazoo just six weeks prior from California.

I soon learned that in addition to being a welcome conversational oasis of familiarity, these urbane, vaguely hip-seeming younger people were rare birds in the political world: honest-to-god LaRouche-ites, acolytes of the late, eccentric perennial candidate for president whose movement became conspiratorial and at times in its history, violent. The Stegers, however, couldnt be further from that; they were kind and engaging as they described their journey from Bush-era anti-war activists in California to true-blue Trump supporters in Michigan.

The first [Trump] rally we went to was in Phoenix, and what was most striking was the type of people who were there, and the sacrifice these people were making. They had this sense of something deeper, and they had a lot of conservative style and a sort of nihilistic tendency, but the stuff thats underneath it was really substantial, Steger said. Theres not a lot of ideology there, its a lot of single-issue stuff, or if its not, theyre actually concerned about: What are their grandchildren going to have for their way of life?

As unexpected as it was, encountering a pair of LaRouche-ites in the wild there felt appropriate. Steger and I discussed how Trump had scrambled traditional politics, coding what was once the lefts anti-imperialism as conservative, and state control over medical decisions as liberal. The Lets Go Brandon Fest attendees werent there out of an undying commitment to the Reagan Revolution, or their desire for a Vermuele-ian diktat of the common good. They picked their motivating causes a la carte: some wielded signs protesting critical race theory, some Covid lockdowns, some sheer cultural animus toward Democrats. They showed up because this was where their people were.

That made it jarring to consider that the actual purpose of the event was, in reality, as rigidly partisan as possible: to ensure that Republicans might never again lose a competitive election.

The Maddocks, who founded the MCC, led groups from Michigan to Washington on Jan. 6, as did current MCC President Rosanne Ponkowski, the vice chair of the Oakland County Republican Party. Former State Sen. Patrick Colbeck bragged onstage about his ban from PayPal, and playing a role in getting Lou Dobbs Fox News show cancelled for his aggressive peddling of 2020 election conspiracies. The apocalyptic rhetoric was all the more odd coming from a politician with his particular brand of awkward-dad anti-charm.

Ive been working for over the last year investigating what happened in the 2020 election, and all the evidence points to the fact that Brandon should not be occupying [the White House], Colbeck said to cheers and whoops. Our legislators should be doing a full forensic audit. Im tired of people putting on a good show during campaign season, and then not doing what they said they would do after they get into office. We cant afford that anymore. Too much is at stake.

Colbeck encouraged attendees to learn more about his Election Integrity Force, which has conducted a tireless effort to overturn Trumps loss in Michigan and earned legal threats from Dominion Voting Systems in doing so.

People seemed excited, but not enough to deter them from eagerly patronizing the hot dog stands, or the makeshift bazaar selling F--- Joe Biden hoodies. As the weather deteriorated, with light snow turning to sleet and then to a chilling rain, the crowd slowly diminished after Colbecks pep talk, especially as an eccentric radio host held forth interminably about conspiracies covering everything from the Kennedys to something inscrutable about the IRS and Quonset huts in Alaska. (Easily the warmest reception of the afternoon was for Ricky Bobby who, red-faced and giggly, mostly just expressed his dismay at leaving the sunny confines of Daytona Beach for mid-Michigan in November.)

With still an hour to go in the festival, the crowd dwindled, and the main park area was populated by only a handful of true believers, including two men in Proud Boys regalia presumably asserting their manliness by toughing out the inclement weather. I approached a mother and her teenage son who, like me, seemed to be lingering at the events fringes, surveying the crowd for an in.

I just kind of wandered over here from down the street, said the mother, who pulled the fur-lined hood of her coat to her face against the cold. Both requested anonymity to speak to a reporter. Im not really political, but you know, this is a conservative area, so Im not surprised. I didnt vote for Biden, but honestly, I feel like this is kind of embarrassing.

Against the backdrop of an ambulance that was emblazoned with the slogan Trump Save the USA, I could see where she was coming from. Her son described himself as a Trump supporter, but he seemed somewhat abashed by the festivals f--- your feelings espirit, even as he earnestly registered with me his concerns about mail-in ballots in the 2020 election.

With a few noisy outliers like a shaggy, wild-eyed man carrying a Gadsden flag, who punctuated Colbecks remarks with shouts of they should be in prison the overall atmosphere was more like a family cookout, or a local radio festival than the noxiousness of an official Trump event. Its difficult to imagine anyone like that teenage boy, or the Farmington Hills retiree, or the hometown-proud, anti-woke dad whom I spoke to, storming the Capitol, or the local vote-tallying center. But thats the nature of a mob: You gather the basically sympathetic, but otherwise not prone to action, and incite them toward the aims of the activist few.

The vast majority of the Lets Go Brandon Fest attendees were there because they were sympathetic to its central, humorous cultural conceit, or because they were fired up about a pet issue. Its organizers pitched the event because they thought it could help them grow their petition, or their mailing list. Even in the Tea Party era, that might have been aimed toward, for example, enforcing Grover Norquists anti-tax pledge, or pursuing the quixotic effort to uncover former President Barack Obamas birth certificate. Today, the goal is to elect Republicans at every level who appear overtly hostile to democracy.

I dont think people are angry, said Steger, the LaRouche-ite-turned-Trumpian. They just want to see politicians who will actually do something.

A binary political system demands that Americans sort themselves into one of two tribes, and their choice is based mostly on cultural affinity. I happen to know this community very well, and despite the Trump-era Republican Partys increasing extremism, the other side isnt going to win it over anytime soon. So while cultural appeal remains static, the something that the leaders of each tribe aim to do changes, tilting in ever more extreme, and in the case of some Republicans, anti-democratic, directions.

Its an unexpectedly ominous lesson from an event ostensibly based on a NASCAR-related joke slogan. But considering how even the people I spoke with who thought the event itself was a joke didnt vote for Biden, its one worth considering. Thank You, Brandon probably isnt going to cut it as a rebuttal.

As Thanksgiving approaches, the Brandon-ites assembly might offer a dark political lesson for Democrats thats been apparent to families for years, especially in our polarized era: deep, uncomfortable grievance can still be the catalyst for a pretty strong community bond. In the spirit of the event, and to quote an early anti-PC cultural touchstone: Happy Thanksgiving, and Merry F---ing Christmas.

Read more here:
The Bizarre Mildness of Lets Go Brandon Fest - POLITICO Magazine

The 4th floor of the GoggleWorks turned into a winter wonderland Sunday afternoon in the return of the Sugar Plum Fairy Tea Party. The festive tradition is hosted by Berks Ballet Theatre as a preview of the the annual holiday performance of The Nutcracker.

The event takes inspiration from The Nutcrackers Land of the Sweets, featuring an assortment of desserts, crafts, special performer meet & greet session, and story time with the guest of honor, the Sugar Plum Fairy herself, Ellie Folga.

We are very excited to be back live again performing The Nutcracker at the Scottish Rite Cathedral with the Reading Pops Orchestra said Director of Berks Ballet Theatre Conservatory of Dance, Nathan Bland. One of our company members and a student of our conservatory is performing as the Sugar Plum Fairy along with our guest Cavalier Jace Coronado of New York City.

The 90 minute event gave children time to make crafts, eating a box lunch, and watch a special preview performance of The Nutcracker.

We began rehearsals [for The Nutcracker] the last weekend of September, every Saturday and Sunday. We try every year to make the performance extra special, especially with this year being the 45th year said Kelly Barber, Artistic Director Berks Ballet Theatre, Principal Teacher/ BBT Conservatory of Dance.

Berks Ballet Theatre partnered with several local businesses, including Ady Cakes and Sweet Ride Ice Cream, who both provide sweet treats for guests.

Bland added We are just excited to bring the live arts back to Berks County after the hiatus of virtual performances and continue the tradition of ballet and music.

Berks Ballet Theatre will be performing the classic tale of Clara and her beloved Nutcracker on December 18th and 19th at the Scottish Rite Cathedral in West Reading.

Artculo en:Espaol (Spanish)

Read more:
Sugar Plum Fairy Tea Party opens holiday season with preview of The Nutcracker - Berks Weekly

Hu-Kou is a portable ceramic tea set that comes with its own carrying case, making it easier than ever to bring tea with you anywhere you go.

Tea drinking is sacred to put it simply. Every step of the brewing method matters. Different teas call for different brewing methods, making each step detail-oriented and specific. While there are tea sets that you can travel with, the available product designs in circulation typically prioritize portability over quality brewers. Designed by Xiong&Yang, the Hu-Kou is a portable tea set that returns to details for its design and creates a new way of bringing tea with you anywhere you go, without cutting any corners.

Comprised of a carrying case, tea bowl, and three teacups, Hu-Kou comes with everything you might need for an excellent cup of tea. Specifically molded to feel ergonomic by design, Hu-Kous tea bowl is shaped like a triangle with a built-in spout that allows users to pour tea directly from the bowl without having to remove the lid beforehand.

Fit within a silicone carrying case, Hu-Kous stylish case comes with a shoulder strap so its even easier to bring tea on the go. The carrying case keeps enough space to fit the main tea bowl in addition to three teacups. The teacups are also triangular in shape to complement the tea bowl, giving the set as a whole a more uniform feel.

Designed for the modern tea drinker, the team at Xiong&Yang hoped to create more of an experience through Hu-Kou. With this tea set, users can easily store and pour their tea from anywhere. Through innovative conceptualizing and artful craftwork, Hu-Kous built-in spout is designed to keep the tea from spilling when not turned to its pouring orientation.

Designers: Kurz Kurz Design and Xiong&Yang

Xiong&Yang hoped to create an ergonomic grip for Hu-Kou.

Crafted by hand, each tea set is unique by handmade design.

Every tea set comes with its own silicone carrying case that protects the ceramics and makes the tea set portable.

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A silicone carrying case keeps this handcrafted tea set safe for an impromptu tea party anywhere! - Yanko Design