America is over the ‘Moms For Liberty’ culture wars

Any way you look at it, the big Moms for Liberty event in Washington, D.C. on Labor Day weekend was a flop. 

The “March for Kids” they advertised for the National Mall never happened. Inside the auditorium the group used, reporters noted that the event kicked off with about 300 attendees in a space that could seat over 3,700.

Donald Trump gave a rambling, low-energy talk in which he falsely claimed kids were being given gender-transitioning surgery by schools. And apart from Trump, the only other headliners at the event were Glenn Beck and Tulsi Gabbard.

There are other signs that Moms for Liberty’s star is fading, including poor showings in recent Florida school board races.

All this as the group makes a hard pivot from its origins as opponents of COVID-masking and advocates of removing books from schools to all-out war against transgender Americans, as their D.C. program made clear. 

This seems like a good time to take a look at the lessons we can learn from this, because there are a few. First, Moms for Liberty is failing because it deserves to. Its early “success” was unsustainable and, frankly, unearned. The group took advantage of a catchy name and a scary moment for parents who didn’t know where to turn as COVID shuttered schools.  

When COVID waned, the group switched to banning books in schools. They used their newfound clout to boost opportunistic politicians such as Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) who thought they had caught a wave they could ride all the way to the White House. They couldn’t, and we found out that Moms for Liberty never had an enduring political coalition or a winning strategy. 

They might have thought that attacking books meant picking a fight with American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and teachers’ unions. But they quickly found out they were picking one with the vast majority of Americans who hate book bans.  

So now their target is the transgender community. Why? Because all that’s left of Moms for Liberty are extremists obsessed with who gets to use which bathroom.  

And that brings us to another lesson, which is that Moms for Liberty’s identity crisis and demise prove that advocacy works. Book bans are still a problem, but the intense grassroots pushback against them has Moms for Liberty in retreat.    

Next lesson: If we got them on the run once, we can do it again. And we will use love, not fear.  

Case in point: Just down the street in D.C. on the same Saturday as the Moms for Liberty convention, it was a very different scene at the Celebration of Reading that took over the fifth floor of the MLK Library.

Hundreds of kids and families were dancing, playing, making art and hearing stories about every community: Black, brown, Native American, LGBTQ. Speakers read aloud from “banned” kids’ books like “And Tango Makes Three,” “The Lorax” and “We Are Water Protectors.”  

Nobody accused any group of “poisoning” our country. There was no gory painting of the vice president “kneeling over a bald eagle carcass, a communist symbol on her jacket and her mouth dripping with blood” on display, like at the Moms for Liberty event.

There was no hate. Just lots of joy and fun that made kids and families feel welcome, setting an example for how we fight bigotry and oppression.  

This matters in ways big and small. I’m as thrilled when it happens in my neighborhood as I am when I see high-profile examples: I think of my friend Jamie Lee Curtis (who really deserved the Emmy for “The Bear,” by the way) and her ferocious defense of and love for her transgender daughter, Ruby. I think of former NBA star Dwyane Wade advocating for transgender kids like his daughter Zaya.   

It matters, because politics is downstream of culture. I know that it’s just a matter of time before this inclusivity makes its way into politics and policymaking.  

So how do we accelerate the change? Organize, speak up and if you feel called to public service, run for office. Having done it myself, I can tell you that it’s easier than you think, it’s not as scary as you think and there’s more support out there than you think. 

And believe that taking care of people you love is always a better way to save the country than attacking those you dislike. When that becomes the norm, political movements like Moms for Liberty will die out. Let’s make it happen on our watch. 

Svante Myrick is president of People for the American Way.