Steve Corbin is Professor Emeritus of Marketing, University of Northern Iowa
I fondly recall my senior year in high school when Mary Beth Tinker, John Tinker and Christopher Eckhardt wore black armbands to their high school to protest the Vietnam War. Their suspension from school was cast around the thought that wearing armbands would disrupt learning. In a landmark Supreme Court case – Tinker v. Des Moines (1969) – justices agreed students’ rights should be protected plus they refuted the school’s stance by candidly stating, “Students don’t shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gates.”
Many of today’s GOP-oriented governors and legislators, far right-wing groups, conservative media and Republican presidential candidates have either passed or supported book banning, anti-LGBTQIA and anti-racist curriculum laws. It’s a blatant attack on the constitutional rights of students, parents, teachers, general public and book authors. Several organizations and politicians -- identified by a multitude of sources -- are named as a threat to Americans’ intellectual freedom and First Amendment rights.
Moms for Liberty (MFL) may be the most cited right-wing extremist group. Founded in 2021, MFL is referred by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as an anti-government and conspiracy propagandist group of 120,000 members in 285 chapters throughout 44 states who, among many beliefs, are anti-LGBTQIA, anti-gender identity and anti-inclusive educational curriculum, which includes school pedagogy, social emotional learning and books. MFL has been featured on the Rush Limbaugh Show, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight, Glenn Beck Program, Newsmax and Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly’s show. MFL is associated with several chapters of the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, 3 Percenters, Gays Against Groomers and GOP’s affiliated Heritage Foundation.
It’s quite ironic that MFL touts they are for liberty, yet are willing to strip others of their liberty to read books of interest. The American Library Association reveals of the 2,571 book titles banned for censorship in 2022, 58% were targeted for schools and 41% were aimed for adults in public libraries. Hence, the organization is not only attacking students’ First Amendment rights but also 78% of Americans who are adults. No Left Turn in Education (NLTIE) urges parents to ban LGBTQIA rights and books categorized as anti-racism, anti-police, critical race theory and comprehensive sexuality education since those concepts don’t align with their autocratic agenda. Nicole Neily, president of Parents Defending Education (PDE), has been described as a “veteran political operative affiliated with the Koch network.” PDE is a group of “corporate school privatizers going hard right to attack school boards, superintendents, principals and teachers” (Media Matters for America, Nov. 12, 2021).
According to the American Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Blog, “No Left Turn in Education, PDE and Moms for Liberty share inflammatory claims about `radical agendas’ to disguise their desire to engage in censorship and government control of intellectual freedom.” Book banning narrows students’ cultural understanding, world view and critical thinking capability.
Finally, there’s the Goldwater Institute (GI) who proudly states their aim is to control public school’s K-12 curriculum. Individuals who are cited by multiple sources to be in concert with MFL, NLTIE, PDE and GI include: former president Donald Trump (R-FL), former U.N. Ambassador and Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC), former Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR), Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA), Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA), Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy (OH).
America was founded on the value and importance of free expression. According to John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty (1859), free speech must be protected from political, economic and social tyranny. When our First Amendment rights are purposely being attacked by right-wing extremists, they are attempting to shackle the minds of children and adults plus America’s future. Bottom line: we are witnessing politicians and groups who want America to abandon its 1630’s New England Colonies democracy roots and become an authoritarian country like Russia, China and North Korea, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves” (Matthew 7:15).
References:
- Jacqui Higgins-Dailey, The stakeholders of status quo, Intellectual Freedom Blog of American Library Association, March 10, 2022
- Moms for Liberty, Southern Poverty Law Center, 2023
- Olivia Little, Unmasking Moms for Liberty, Media Matters for America, Nov. 12, 2021
- R.J. Praker, Better dead than read: Moms for Liberty and book banking in America, David Political Review, July 19, 2023
- Kristina Watrobski, Parents’ rights orgs labeled `hate’ and `extremist’ groups by Southern Poverty Law Center, CBS Austin, June 7, 2023
- Laura Barron-Lopez and Matt Loffman, GOP presidential candidates appear at far-right Moms for Liberty event, PBS News Hour, June 30, 2023
- Andrew Atterbury, DeSantis names Moms for Liberty co-founder to Florida ethics panel, Politico, Sept. 6, 2023
- Paul Steinhauser, Moms for Liberty takes center stage again in 2024 Republican presidential race, Fox News, Sept. 6, 2023
- US Republican candidates woo controversial Moms for Liberty group, Al Jazeera, June 29, 2023
- Juan Perez, Jr., The parents group Republicans are banking on to win the White House, Politico, June 30, 2023
- Gregory Krieg, How `Moms for Liberty’ grew into a 2024 Republican power player, CNN Politics, June 30, 2023
- Ali Swenson, Moms for Liberty rises as power player in GOP politics after attacking schools over gender, race, Associated Press, June 11, 2023
- Francesca Block, Gov. Kim Reynolds pushed `parental rights’ to Moms for Liberty crows. Protesters pushed back, Des Moines Register, Feb. 3, 2023
- Republican presidential candidates canoodle with Moms for Liberty, The Economist, July 6, 2023
- Reuters, From schools to statehouses, conservative Moms for Liberty push to grow influence, NBC News, April 6, 2022
- Tyler Kingkade, Moms for Liberty’s conservative activists are planning their next move: Taking over school boards, NBC News, July 17, 2022
- Wikipedia, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, https://www.en.m.wikipedia.org
- Goldwater Institute, https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org
- Moms for Liberty, https://www.momsforliberty.org
- Parents Defending Education, https://www.defendinged.org No Left Turn in Education, https://www.noleftturn.us
- Gays Against Groomers, https://www.gaysagainstgroomers.com
Disclosure: Steve is a non-paid freelance opinion editor and guest columnist contributor (circa 2013) to 172 newspapers in 32 states who receives no remuneration, funding or endorsement from any for-profit business, not-for-profit organization, political action committee or political party.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.