Over the past couple of years parents have made significant progress fighting back against the ideological idiocy being pushed by the education establishment. It has been a painful slog, but progress has been made.
But each inch of progress has only occurred in the very limited places where parents organized an effective opposition. The Left is not reassessing, not pulling back, and not conceding an inch. The territory has to be taken through a fight, and wherever the opposition is not organized the establishment pushes on with their agenda.
Libs of TikTok has been following these battles, and documenting the Left’s progress. Harassed on Twitter, Libs of TikTok’s author Chaya Raichik has endured withering attacks, doxxing by Taylor Lorenz of the Washington Post, threats to her life, and loss of a career. But she has retooled herself as an activist and an author with a successful Substack blog, to which I and thousands subscribe to support her work.
In today’s edition Chaya documents how one school board in Michigan has appointed a truly scary new “Trustee,” as they style their School Board members. The Dryden Community Schools decided to appoint a young man with a substantial TikTok following to their Board, putting him on several committees. The school board had a seat open due to the resignation of a member, and they tapped Austin Grondin.
The young man, Austin Grodin, “describes himself as “chaotic evil” and “unhinged” while posting pictures and videos filled with offensive language and sexually inappropriate attire.”
Chaotic evil and unhinged do not seem to be characteristics desirable in a school board member. Just sayin’.
In a recent article about the appointment, Grodin said, “I want to be the person I never saw growing up in Dryden as the only openly LGBT kid… A ton of the administrators like (Dryden Junior/Senior High School principal and district superintendent) Mary Finnigan were constantly encouraging me and were great, but my experience would have been even better if I saw someone like me to look up to.”
So this is the person who kids are supposed to look up to…?
The former student/now school board member is an advocate of using the term “homophobic” as a weapon even in cases where it does not apply. He admits as much in one of his TikTok videos. Clearly he is a role model for the ages and representative of the larger community.
Perhaps that is how he got the gig? Through a sort of blackmail of threatening the committee with slander should they not appoint him? Who knows? And does it matter in any case?
What I do know is that the ideological Left doesn’t hesitate a moment to pick these fights and dare parents to fight back. And fighting back is exhausting and time consuming. There will be acrimonious school board meetings, endless articles about the racistsexist homophobictransphobic parents fighting progress. Even if they win, parents will have to keep fighting these fights.
This is what happens when the Left gets control of institutions. They use the rules against us, and the time they have in power to change the rules to their advantage.
In a normal, reasonable world the institutions designed to shape our basic institutions such as public schools would reflect community standards. School libraries don’t carry every book in the world; by necessity the books are curated. Yet parents who want pornography out of the schools are book banners, and the librarians who insist that the most pornographic LGBT materials be included get the best press.
Bad parents/good librarians. That is the narrative. No matter who has the better of the argument.
The press, by the way, would never print the material from these books in their own publications. School boards have even banned readings from books included in their own libraries due to their being pornographic. You can be censored for quoting from a book the same school board provides freely to children.
Governors such as Glenn Youngkin and Ron DeSantis have shown that victories can be had–massive victories in some cases. But it takes tremendous effort and organization, including victories at the state level.
For conservatives who are down in the dumps right now because of the lack of progress in the midterm elections, take heart and gird your loins. Victories are possible.
Ed wrote about some earlier last week, for instance, and we can all see how important victories at the gubernatorial level can be.
We can’t give up. We can win. But we have to be in it for the long haul.
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