MSNBC Warns, Parents Criticizing School Boards Are ‘Attacking Democracy’

You just can’t make this stuff up. MSNBC spent Wednesday night worrying that parents involved in their kids’ school educations were “attacking democracy.” 

The panicking started on Chris Hayes’ show, All In. After Hayes’ mockery of brazen crime within liberal cities, as well as the fictional Fox News story, Hayes trashed parents who were upset about Critical Race Theory propaganda at public schools.

Hayes was reacting to an Oklahoma state lawmaker’s suggestion that would fiscally punish schools for keeping offensive books on library shelves after parents demanded their removal. He mocked the bill as part of the right’s “moral panic” to his guest, former Democrat Congresswoman Donna Edwards.

She ridiculed the return to the “1990s” before getting serious, gravely warning how Democrats need to squash this movement real quick otherwise it’ll hurt them in the Midterms:

And indeed, I believe Republicans will use this quote unquote education, parental involvement and what’s taught at schools and libraries to attract their base voters for this election.” Her comments continued, adding that educators will have to convince parents to adopt a “counter narrative.”

But Tim Miller, writer at the anti-Trump outlet The Bulwark, bashed the idea that parents who have political beliefs different than his own could also have a say in their kids’ education.

He callously mocked a father who erupted at a school board meeting over administrators denying his daughter was raped by a male student wearing a skirt in the girls’ bathroom, as some “shirtless guy” “getting in fights with people,” adding, “[D]o you want that guy running your schools’ curriculum?”

“The crazy MAGA idea” He slammed, adding that dictating Loudoun County’s school system would be “I think it is going to give many parents, a majority of you know Republican Joe Biden cross-voters in Northern Virginia, a little more pause.” “However, it is clear that the MAGA voter who triggered to ban books won’t win. It’s also not winning for them to dictate your children’s curriculum.

Shortly afterwards, the rhetoric got more heated on MSNBC’s The 11th Hour. Guest host Chris Jansing panicked over parents criticizing school boards as an “attack” against “democracy.” 

You see, the government and public education system equals “democracy” to MSNBC, kind’ve like Fauci equals “science.” American citizens who exercise their rights to speech are also anti-democracy.

Jansing worried for her guests. Eugene Robinson The Washington Post and Bill Kristol editor of The Bulwark, parents standing up to leftist school boards was part of the right’s “slow motion insurrection:”

We are approaching the first anniversary of the failed coup attempt on the Capitol. The pivotal phase in the investigation into January 6, 2019, is now. Yet there are warning signs that efforts to subvert democracy in 2024 are already well underway….Outside experts on democracy and Democrats are sounding alarms, warning that the United States is witnessing a slow motion insurrection with a better chance of success than Trump’s failed power grab last year…Are there any new plans to subvert democracy in 2024 that should we be laser-focused on? 

She pathetically tied the anti-CRT movement to election security laws, before playing a soundbite of a “frightened” Nikole Hannah-Jones. Jansing asked her guests if more parental control was an “attack on democracy:”

The state legislatures, obviously something we’re seeing with the really fight against voting rights bill is very real and very concerning but there is this new trend with a lot of Republicans going hyper local, they’re targeting school boards in the coming year, looking to do things we’ve already seen, ban subjects that aren’t even being taught like Critical Race Theory, they’re calling for more parental control. Do you consider this a serious concern? Is that how you see these threats to democracy? 

Like in the previous segment, Jansing revealed the real reason why the left’s worried about parents involved in their school boards; it costs them in elections. 

Eugene’s school board not only addresses these kinds of concerns, but also creates a solid foundation for the future.People who win on school boards are eligible to run for the state legislature, and they can push similar ideas.” She was worried.

Robinson used the MSNBC race card as a way to close the segment. He claimed that this was about white racism afraid of being the minority.

 It does. That has to be fought at the local level. It really does. And that is something that Progressives and Democrats have to become more serious about. But it is, I think, no accident that all of this, the focus on imaginary critical race theory and all of that is happening at a time when, you know, most of the majority of public school students in this country now are nonwhite. And as the country becomes more diverse and as white Americans of many, obviously not all but some who are used to being in the majority are not easily getting used to the fact that they will soon not be an absolute majority in this country, you just can’t ignore that as an underlying mega trend that is helping to drive some of the unrest that you see.

Kayak and Mercedes-Benz sponsored All In, whom you can contact at the Conservatives Fight Back page linked.

Read the transcripts below:

MSNBC

All In With Chris Hayes

12/29/21

CHRIS HAYES: A Republican state lawmaker in Oklahoma recently proposed a new bill that would allow parents to nominate books in their child’s school library to be removed and if it wasn’t removed and the book remained on the shelves, the parents would receive $10,000 per day. Donna Edwards and Tim Miller are back with me to talk about this. 

Donna, this is obviously like–people propose crazy stuff in state legislatures all the time. But what struck me was, a, the sort of personal bounty system that was pioneered in the Texas abortion law being sort of used, copy and pasted out in other places. Also the kind of anti-critical-race-theory movement that started about a year ago is metastasizing in all kinds of ways that start to look very, very familiar to previous periods of American moral panics. 

DONNA EDWARDS: Yeah, it feels like the 1990s all over again. And indeed, I think Republicans are clearly going to use this, quote, unquote, education, parental involvement, and what’s taught in schools and what’s in libraries as a mechanism to draw their base voters out for this election. And I think it’s going to be really important to have a response to that is responsible, that is about, you know, local educators making decisions about what happens in classrooms, working in concert with parents, bringing resources into the classroom. And that is going to have to be a counternarrative to this what is really an underlying narrative about race in our schools and school system. 

HAYES:  Tim, what I liked about this bill is in some ways it’s the logical conclusion for the criticism leveled at Terry McAuliffe for that thing he said in that debate, where he said something like, I forget what the words were, parents aren’t in charge of what their children learn in school. People hated it, that was probably politically quite tone deaf. But it is also descriptively true. In the sense that the inverse of that is to give every single individual parent total veto control over every single thing that is taught in school. Which, credit where due, is what this bill does, basically. But you obviously cannot run a school system that way. 

TIM MILLER: Yeah look obviously that was politically poorly stated by McAuliffe but even at the time, you know, I was saying I think the Democrats could have used–maybe not McAuliffe himself but an outside group coming in to help McAuliffe and trying to turn this on its head. We’re in the midst of this CRT panic, and you were seeing these shirtless guys at the Loudoun County school board like getting in fights with people, and some of them their kids weren’t even in the district and the notion of, do you want that guy running your schools’ curriculum? The idea of parents running the curriculum everyone is for. The idea of the most crazy MAGA person dictating what the Loudoun County school system should be, I think is going to give a lot of parents, a lot of you know Republican Joe Biden crossover voters in Northern Virginia a little bit of pause. I just think that in general, you know, this is an area where, you know, the Democrats need to give as good as they get in the culture war side of this stuff because what is being proposed in Oklahoma, some of the stuff around CRT is very, very unpopular. I think it was getting mixed up with some other things that I think are more popular among swing voters. But, you know, the triggered MAGA voter trying to ban books is not a winner. And it’s not a winner either for them to be dictating your kids’ curriculum. 

HAYES: Yeah, and I think there’s two things here. One is there are real — I mean, there’s a reason that curriculum fights and banned book fights are perennial fights in politics because they are actually sites of real conflict, between different versions of what parents want their kids to learn in a public system where we have to, like, adjudicate that. When you said the 1990s, Donna. I was remembering, you know, I was a kid in New York City, there was the “Heather has two mommies” controversy, which was that the kids were getting children’s books about a lesbian couple, and this is an enormous moral panic at the time for sort of  some of the same reasons. 

MSNBC

The 11th Hour

12/29/21

CHRIS JANSING: As we approach the one-year anniversary of the attempted coup on the capitol the investigation into January 6th is reaching a pivotal phase. Yet there are warning signs that efforts to subvert democracy in 2024 are already well under way. 

The Associated Press with new reporting today writes, in battleground states and beyond Republicans are taking hold of the once overlooked machinery of elections. While the effort is incomplete and uneven, outside experts on democracy and Democrats are sounding alarms, warning that the United States is witnessing a slow motion insurrection with a better chance of success than Trump’s failed power grab last year. 

…

Is there a new blueprint to undermine democracy in 2024 something we should be laser focused on? 

…

JANSING: I want to play this from writer and thinker Nikole Hannah Jones. Take a listen. 

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES: We are a society that willfully does not want to deal with the anti blackness that is at the core of so many of our institutions and really our society itself and we’re seeing a backlash, we’re seeing efforts to me to subvert democracy, to make it harder for black people in particular but people of color, marginalized people in general to vote. I think that we are in a very frightening time. 

JANSING:  Eugene, are you equally frightened? 

EUGENE ROBINSON: Um, I am very worried. You know, I mean, frightened? Look. You got to fight back. Right? You have to — there are a lot of people in this country who are very concerned about the fact that for example one of our two major parties, the Republican party, is no longer so sure about the whole democracy thing. It is just no longer, it certainly is no longer a hundred percent committed to it. And it is actively exploring ways to get around it. I mean, that is alarming. We should be alarmed about it. But we have to call it out. 

We have to denounce it. We have to fight against it. In every way possible. I think the first thing is, and this is something Congress I think has to do, we have to secure the way electoral votes are counted. The way the people’s votes are counted. And not give that into the hands of partisan, coup-minded, Republican state legislators that want to reject the people’s decision on who is the next president and substitute their own decision. Who want Congress to be convinced to throw out — this is so unAmerican and unacceptable and that I think is a first order of business and then there are all these laws that are being passed in states to make it harder to vote.Those are also deeply concerning. 

JANSING: The state legislatures, obviously something we’re seeing with the really fight against voting rights bill is very real and very concerning but there is this new trend with a lot of Republicans going hyper local, they’re targeting school boards in the coming year, looking to do things we’ve already seen, ban subjects that aren’t even being taught like critical race theory, they’re calling for more parental control. How much of a concern do you think that is? Do you think that plays into what we are already seeing in these attacks on democracy? 

…

JANSING: Yeah not only does going to school boards, Eugene, you know obviously address those kinds of concerning issues but it also builds a bench right? Because people who then win at school boards can then start running for state legislature and push those same kinds of ideas. 

ROBINSON: That is the case. This must be tackled at the local level. This is the truth. Progressives as well as Democrats need to be more focused on this issue. It is not an accident, it seems, that the entire focus on imaginary critical racism theory, and all that, is occurring at a moment when most public school students are now non-white. The country is becoming more diverse. While many white Americans are becoming less dominant, some aren’t able to adjust to this fact. This megatrend is driving some of the unrest you see.