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ABC News is under fire for its enthusiastic profile of Moms for Liberty, a designated extremist anti-government group that has focused its attacks on the LGBTQ community including children.
Moms for Liberty held a five-day convention in Philadelphia that ended this weekend. Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, and Nikki Haley were among the GOP presidential candidates who addressed the group, with Haley claiming they had been labeled a “terrorist” organization. Her response? “Well, then count me as a Mom for Liberty, because that’s what I am.”
ABC News put a more positive spin on the organization.
“The mom vote could be key to the 2024 presidential election,” wrote ABC’s Brittany Shepherd, who declared Moms for Liberty was “fired up in Philadelphia.”
“They call themselves joyful warriors — but this group of conservative moms are mad,” she writes. “They’re mad at their teachers, their principals, their president. And now they’re fighting back through school boards, local elections and — if they get their way — their next president.”
Shepherd reports the three main GOP presidential candidates “tried to woo nearly 700 attendees of the over 150,000-member group,” but does not state where those numbers came from.
Despite acknowledging and not denouncing that reporters were barred from several “key breakout sessions at the center of the group’s mission, such as ‘Protecting Kids from Gender Ideology’ and ‘Getting Flipped School Boards To Take Action’ [that] were kept behind closed doors,” ABC News reports, “the enthusiasm at open events was palpable, nearly bouncing off the ballroom walls.”
“Nearly all attendees jumped to their feet in raucous cheer as DeSantis decried puberty blockers while touting the various policies he’s enacted to empower Sunshine State parents,” said Shepherd.
ABC notes that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated Moms for Liberty as an “an anti-government group” – in reality the labels are “antigovernment” “far-right,” and “extremist.” It also notes that Moms for Liberty has strong ties to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
In response to the ABC News article, Equality Florida press secretary Brandon Wolf wrote, “Moms For Liberty is an astroturf collection of right wing foot soldiers who peddle transphobia, slap Hitler quotes on their newsletters, turn classrooms into political battlefields, and cram their regressive worldview down everyone’s throats.”
An Indiana chapter of Moms for Liberty did publish a Hitler quote at the top of its recent newsletter, which they ultimately were forced to apologize for – after they defended it.
Mark Lukasiewicz, Dean of Hofstra University’s Lawrence Herbert School of Communication and a former news executive wrote that ABC News “delivers a textbook how-not-to journalism lesson: ‘Parents Rights Warrior’ Desantis joins ‘fired up moms’ who are ‘fearful yet ready to fight’ and whose ‘palpable’ enthusiasm was ‘almost bouncing off the ballroom walls.’ Did any editor read this??”
Wajahat Ali, columnist for MSNBC and The Daily Beast, similarly slammed Moms for Liberty.
“If Black or Latino moms from the ‘urban’ inner cities aligned with extremist groups who participated in a violent insurrection, quoted Hitler, and tried to ban books, would @abcnews refer to them as ‘joyful warriors?’ That’s what they did with Moms For Liberty.”
Citing the ABC News piece, Dr. Joanne Freeman, Yale University Professor of American History and of American Studies lamented the “treacherous march of normalization goes on,” and said: “This is beyond ‘both sides.’”
Historian Kevin M. Kruse asked ABC, “Did Moms for Liberty write this puff piece themselves and send it to ABC for publication Christ, I’m embarrassed *for* you.”
Kruse also said, “If you’re a journalist writing about right wing cranks framing their activism as ‘concerned parents’ maybe you should first talk with a historian about the many many times this was tried before so you don’t sound completely naive.”
Writer Charlotte Clymer, a popular political commentator and former Human Rights Campaign rapid response press secretary, also blasted ABC News: “I think it’s pretty clear by now that this is intentional framing on the part of more established news outlets. Either they agree with the fascist principles of groups like Moms for Liberty or they wish to pander to them and their supporters, as ABC News is now clearly doing.”
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