Moms for Liberty (M4L) is now holding a national summit in Washington, D.C. through Sept. 1. Events include a “March for Kids.” The summit includes a “fireside chat” with Donald Trump.
MAURICE CUNNINGHAM; maurice.cunningham153@gmail.com
Cunningham is the author of Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization.
In a media advisory, Cunningham wrote that Trump’s fireside chat cements “the unholy troika of M4L, Trump, and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.” Cunningham said: “M4L is on the Project 2025 Advisory Board and has endorsed Heritage’s radical Project 2025, which would destroy public education in America. M4L’s positions overlap with Project 2025 education chapter and Trump’s 2024 GOP Platform: Make America Great Again.” M4L, Trump and Project 2025 all share key positions, including universal school choice and shredding the separation of church and state.
“M4L is a dependent of [the Heritage Foundation]. At an April 9 forum at Heritage, M4L co-founder Tiffany Justice gushed about how president Kevin Roberts and Heritage had been ‘amazing partners since we started Moms for Liberty.’”
Cunningham argues that “children deserve the freedom to find themselves, to understand others, and to fire their imaginations through reading. Moms for Liberty’s book ban program—targeted at LGBTQ-themed books or books dealing with race—robs this right from children. It steals the freedom to read away from children and gives it to a handful of puritanical right-wing activists. A 2023 Washington Post analysis revealed that of the 985 challenges it studied that were filed nationally in the 2021-2022 school year, 60% were filed by just 11 people.
“One of the ‘parents’ rights’ M4L stresses is the right to protect innocent children from sexual predators. Trump’s appearances in 2023 and this year make a mockery of that claim. Trump faces a court-ordered judgment to pay a $83.3 million judgment for defaming a woman he sexually assaulted.”
But M4L has begun to lose critical political support in the last two years. M4L has lost elections in Florida and some swing states, and lost in 2023 school board elections.
