Education Wars update

First, a quick recap. In communities across the state, voters headed to the polls to weigh in on an array of local offices, including school board. And the message they sent was loud and clear. Michelle Davis, author of the must-read Lone Star Left newsletter, sums it up this way: “[W]e’re done with your culture wars, your book bans, and your crusade against public schools. Voters chose community over chaos, educators over agitators, and progress over extremism.” Conservative school board candidates suffered sweeping defeats across the state. The same communities that have been consumed by school culture wars in recent years— Keller, Grapevine-Colleyville, Mansfield—gave GOP-backed candidates the boot. And in one particularly satisfying development, every single candidate supported by Patriot Mobile, the far-right Christian nationalist group that has been trying to take over local school boards, was rejected.

For a full rundown of the results, check out Frank Strong’s exhaustive district-by-district review. I’ll skip straight to Strong’s conclusion: “This was a statement election.”

Bad news for MAGA

The sweeping rebuke of education extremism isn’t just about school board politics though. Voters were also sending a loud signal regarding their exhaustion with MAGA. And I’m not just speculating here. In Tarrant County, described as the single largest ‘red’ county in all the land, GOP officials have been relentless in their efforts to MAGA-fy local elections. In the lead-up to the vote, they parachuted in far-right luminaries, including Steve Bannon and Pizza Gate conspiracist Jack Posobiec, for a Make America Great Again Gala intended to whip up grassroots enthusiasm. In an unhinged speech to MAGA faithful back in March, Bannon reminded the crowd that nothing less than the fate of the world rested on the results of the Tarrant County vote.

“As Tarrant County goes, so goes Texas, right? As Texas goes, so goes MAGA, and as MAGA goes, so goes the United States of America, and as the United States of America goes, so goes the world.”

So how did things shake out? As veteran news columnist Bud Kennedy pointed out, every single one of the candidates endorsed by the Tarrant County GOP lost, a stunning 0-11 rejection by voters. That included, by the way, all seven school board candidates running with the backing of the party. “We want all gas and no brake,” Bannon told the crowd. To which voters seem to have responded, “No thanks - we’d rather walk.”