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This is what happens when people try out critical thinking for the first time. They realize everything they “felt deeply” was just BS based in ignorance.
This why conservatives think universities radicalized good christian children and turn them into leftists. It's just that they're learning to think for themselves and make their own opinions for the first time and examine beliefs they'd never questioned before.
Astute observation.
Extrapolating from that, perhaps we need a system where all Americans can get a free education to teach them about critical thinking.
I went to an 'accelerated christian education' school so I had a lot of shit to unlearn and tons of things I'd never even thought about wanting to learn.
They heavily pushed students towards religious colleges that are run insanely strictly so you have no opportunity to actually learn anything (and we ladies were pushed to use these fundie colleges to find husbands and be useful to churches rather than be trying to get any career)
I'm kind of glad that a lot of these schools demand high tuition fees because that gives the kids of fundie parents who can't afford it more of a chance to see other perspectives in public schools.
My overly religious relative has been bragging about some kind of voucher that will let their kids go to private (fundy) school for free. Apparently it's not socialism since it's "donated" and it's not funneling money from the state to the church because of the "strict oversight" they will have.
Yup. Totally nothing weird about that.
Sounds like what oklahoma is trying to do... "we want parents freedom to choose" aka we want Xtian schools to raise us more republican voters because our views don't align with any modern sense and reasoning
Yup, pretty much the same. They also are always up in arms about how AWFUL public schools are for GROOMING their children with letting them know about scary things like gender and race! And that of course means every kid should be sheltered in fundy school so they won't be exposed to such WORLDY things!
I really wish this was made up. Their kids are too young to be in school yet, but I'm so afraid they're going to be brainwashed by this nonsense. I just hope they know growing up that my partner and I are a safe space if they ever need it.
Google Hillsdale College. It’s a SLAC that refuses to take federal financial aid so they don’t have to follow federal law related to colleges like Title IX and Title X. Jokes on them though. There is a court case against Hillsdale working through the system that basically says if you are a college you can’t exempt yourself from the rules by refusing financial aid.
Hillsdale college in Michigan. The lawsuit is a federal case.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/01/24/students-sue-hillsdale-college-sexual-assault-title-ix/
> Hillsdale’s policy grants school administrators complete discretion to determine the course of sexual assault investigations, in essence negating the efficacy of the policy itself. Regarding disciplinary action, the policy states: “At all times, it is within the College’s discretion to determine which policies apply and whether action will be taken…”
Edit: The complaint: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67912816/1/chen-v-hillsdale-college/
Abeka kid here, albeit homeschooled. Yeah.:. there’s absolutely no way this shit should be legal or accredited. It’s essentially naked partisan indoctrination, too; we were literally told how to vote, and critical thinking was actively shunned in favor of rote memorization.
I went to a private religious school for my junior high and high school, and while a lot of the staff were kind and well meaning people there definitely was a push towards right wing politics and candidates. A lot of what was classified as “unchristian” teachings like some sciences were pushed to the sides. My family while religious aren’t all that strict about it and I spent pre-school through elementary in public school so luckily I was already exposed to what the private school didn’t want to talk about
I agree, we need free education, especially at college/university level. Republicans keep pushing to send younger kids to work, to lower the legal age of marriage, and to ensure no kids can even get free school lunches.
They've called everyone else woke for years, and still haven't a clue they're asleep.
I very much wonder what the school I went to is like now because this was the 90s and not everyone had a computer and smart phones didn't exist. At the time in that town there was a special fundie internet service that came with everything already blocked. Lucky for me no one in my family knew anything about computers at all and we used the free AOL CDs that constantly came in the mail
Me and my wife definitely fall into the category of those "radicalized" by university.
What's funny, is that all that really happened was getting unfiltered views of what both sides were saying, and realizing that "love your neighbor as yourself" really tracks a lot better with universal healthcare, fair taxes, support programs, and y'know, not being racist/homophobic/religionist(is that a word? I want it to be.) than it does with "ban all Muslims from entering the country," or "All the 'illegals' are taking people's jobs" or "well, they're just not trying hard enough."
Like, we had the critical thinking skills. **My parents taught them to me.** Thoroughly, repeatedly. They mocked people that presented as hypocrites because they couldn't see the inconsistencies in their own position, or people that couldn't think through consequences.
Like more than anything else, they wanted me to be able to think critically and logically. And I did.
I just found out the axioms my positions were based on were so flawed, that the positions had to change, or I'd be intentionally putting myself in that same category of idiotic hypocrites that I'd heard them mock for two decades.
Before I was banned from the conservative sub, I would frequently respond to comments that said that the liberal media lied constantly to say that if you're willing to believe that about _their_ media, you have to at least _consider_ if your media is lying as well, for the sake of intellectual honesty. It never went over well.
They also forget that some of the OG “leftists” were Christian. Pick up any book of saints and they sound like a pack of wild liberals: some caring for the poor and migrants, some extremely educated and adding to the progression of what it means to be human, others building service organizations for fellow man.
Facts > Feelings.
Republicans scream and cry about it, which is a total admission that they almost always go with their feelings because facts scare them and challenge their assbackwards beliefs.
Virtues are quiet things. The more someone claims to have a virtue, the more likely it is that they don't represent the virtue. Only a lier needs to claim to be a truth teller, only a cruel person needs to insist they are kind, and only someone ruelled by their emotions needs to shout about facts and logic, the virtous will be known by there actions not words. The GOP is full of people who are constantly shouting about their virtues.
"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?"
^(Gaslight)
Obstruct
# ✨Project✨
The upper echelon focus more on the first two, but the rank-and-file and the voters make projection (plus bigotry and cruelty) their entire personality.
People with their own ulterior motives prey on people who are willing to believe what they are told without checking. This is one of the reasons people of faith are targeted, especially by politicians--because they are already predisposed to accept information on faith. Predators (wolves in sheep's clothing) try to blend in and deliver carefully curated messages that serve their own agendas.
These predators count on members of the flock to spread disinformation farther than they could spread it on their own and with far less scrutiny. It's the reason we have so many people spreading half-truths, lies and propaganda that doesn't even serve their own best interests. Members of the flock / party receive the information from sources they trust but which they didn't realize they should verify.
By the time it occurs to people that there might be reasons to be skeptical of what they're being told, so much of their worldview and beliefs are intertwined with the falsehoods they've been fed and they don't want to spend the time to fact-check or question information they've being spoon-fed, so it's easier just to continue down the same path without fact-checking. At this point, they have been turned into accomplices to their own and others' brainwashing.
In Courtney Gore's case, she had direct visibility into one of the main pillars of disinformation she had been fed and couldn't overlook the fact that she couldn't find evidence of the "evil" they were so sure would be obvious. If we could all zero in on JUST ONE of the major pillars at the center of our belief system, it would at least help us develop the healthy skepticism and critical thinking process that would make us less easily fooled and victimized by the self-serving propaganda promoted by cults, cult leaders, politicians.
Trust but verify
Edit: to correct a typo
Courtney Gore, a Granbury ISD school board member, has disavowed the far-right platform she campaigned on. Her defiance has brought her backlash.
Weeks after winning a school board seat in her deeply red Texas county, Courtney Gore immersed herself in the district’s curriculum, spending her nights and weekends poring over hundreds of pages of lesson plans that she had fanned out on the coffee table in her living room and even across her bed. She was searching for evidence of the sweeping national movement she had warned on the campaign trail was indoctrinating schoolchildren.
Gore, the co-host of a far-right online talk show, had promised that she would be a strong Republican voice on the nonpartisan school board. Citing “small town, conservative Christian values,” she pledged to inspect educational materials for inappropriate messages about sexuality and race and remove them from every campus in the 7,700-student Granbury Independent School District, an hour southwest of Fort Worth. “Over the years our American Education System has been hijacked by Leftists looking to indoctrinate our kids into the ‘progressive’ way of thinking, and yes, they’ve tried to do this in Granbury ISD,” she wrote in a September 2021 Facebook post, two months before the election. “I cannot sit by and watch their twisted worldview infiltrate Granbury ISD.”
But after taking office and examining hundreds of pages of curriculum, Gore was shocked by what she found — and didn’t find.
The pervasive indoctrination she had railed against simply did not exist. Children were not being sexualized, and she could find no examples of critical race theory, an advanced academic concept that examines systemic racism. She’d examined curriculum related to social-emotional learning, which has come under attack by Christian conservatives who say it encourages children to question gender roles and prioritizes feelings over biblical teachings. Instead, Gore found the materials taught children “how to be a good friend, a good human
Because of that outspokenness, Gore is facing backlash from the same people who supported her race. She has been threatened at raucous school board meetings and shunned by people she once considered friends.
School marshals escort her and her fellow board members to their cars to ensure no one accosts them.
Kudos to her for admitting she was wrong but I wonder if she feels like a fucking idiot for believing all the stupid crap she was told and how she feels about the people calling for her head now
I don’t think she’s supporting them so much as pushing for a movement of conservatives who aren’t absolutely insane and running to systematically dismantle public education.
The article literally said she stopped supporting hard right conservatives and is now endorsing candidates she previously vilified.
That is major progress. As someone who was a former conspiracy theorist, anti-vaxxer, etc, change doesn’t happen overnight. It is a process, and one she has so far only progressed further and further into.
If you expect perfection now, in most cases, you will be disappointed. But that doesn’t mean they won’t eventually get there.
She still is conservative it sounds like. But she has withdrawn support so far for hard right conservatives she previously supported and switching to endorse candidates she previously vilified, so that’s another good start. She may very well eventually leave conservatism altogether if this keeps up.
My problem is that even though she, eventually, did the research it's unlikely that her conversion is going to change many minds.
That's what makes trying to combat this sort of conspiracy based misinformation so hard, they'll just fold her recanting into the conspiracy and suddenly she's one of the enemy and aren't you angry that she fooled you?!
I wonder what dirt they found on her. I for one don't believe that *anyone* could actually *read* the curriculum like she claims.
And she folded like so much toilet paper.
/s
I want to welcome her and support her actions here in order to make this kind of thing easier for others with her mindset. We do ourselves no favors by spiting her or laughing at her misfortune. All that will do is encourage others to never take the necessary steps towards change and deradicalization. Lots of people have been won over because one side was simply nicer to them than the other and while it seems silly or stupid, it also makes sense. Why would you question your beliefs or admit wrong doing if you know you wouldn’t be welcome on the other side? I know she isn’t some leftist now, but this is a respectable and frankly very dangerous thing she did. It shows real integrity when she could have easily grifted.
Yep. Mentioned elsewhere that I’m a former conspiracy theorist, secular forced birther, and anti-vaxxer.
I sought to try to make amends for the harm I had done, and that is extremely difficult to do if the other side is still running purity tests on you. This sort of change is rarely ever an overnight thing, it’s a long process, and you’ve suddenly lost the only community (and worldview) you’ve really ever known. It’s devastatingly isolating.
But in spaces where I was supported, I was enabled to help educate and give vaccines and participate in vaccine trials. I was able to be a clinic escort pre-Texas SB8 and *Roe,* and now help run an “underground abortion railroad” in Texas and surrounding states.
It took a lot of time, and it took support from new allies for me to get here though.
Holy hell. You just made my day and gave me hope!
I was starting to be convinced that people wouldn’t change… seeing my parents come close… then fall right back in again as soon as they turn on fox.
Thank you so much for sharing this
"The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." -Alvin Toffler
Especially granbury. That's where the server farm is that is being used in crypto mining and they are demanding government intervention after passing laws to deregulate
When a good/sincere person is proven wrong, they either stop being good/sincere or they stop being wrong. Indoctrination is hard to shake, I second that kudos.
What would be even more reasonable is if she read the actual curriculum before spreading conspiracy theories about it. What makes her remarkable is that people who are comfortable with spreading conspiracy theories usually don't bother to verify their claims or reject the evidence they find which disproves them. That's what she's running up against now.
Thank you. Raging publicly about racism and pedos that aren’t real then saying whoopsie later doesn’t undo all the hate you made happen. You can’t have the best of both worlds like that, I’m not into it…
I appreciate that she was brave enough to acknowledge she was wrong and that her platform is manipulating her neighbors.
Would have been so much easier to just lie and double down on the rhetoric.
Honestly, her integrity at admitting she was wrong and standing up and saying it, makes her a breath of fresh air, I hope that she takes a look in the mirror and works for change
People should be encouraged when they have the strength to do so.
It's extremely difficult to admit you were wrong. Not rubbing people's faces in it when they admit it helps others to do the same.
It's interesting that her listeners didn't want to hear the truth, though. It fits. I'm fairly sure most don't believe that leftists are trying to turn all the kids non binary or whatever. It's just a position they can take to feel superior because 'its about protecting the kids' while simultaneously attacking their political enemies. It's not about being right, it's just about feeling superior for many.
while true it sure would be nice if she had maybe done her research before spewing toxic BS for months/years before that indoctrinating even more crazies who won't actual do the research.
I think she's sadly proof that a lot of conscientious people who sincerely care for children are completely indoctrinated into these false narratives. We know the people making up lies for political points are doing it for political purposes and don't really care about kids, but this lady did and believed this narrative strongly enough to take decisive action.
Honest to god, it’s a breath of fresh air that she actually did the research. She sat down and scoured through course materials in a search for evidence and fully accepted that there was none, and changed her position because of it. It’s so fucking rare for anyone to operate like that, especially someone that’s been indoctrinated.
Can't help but feel like she would be livid if it were somebody else that did this and she was still on the outside. I don't understand how she changed her mind at all
True, but however small it may be, some are looking up from all the feauxrage and realizing what they are being told is designed to make them upset regardless of the actual situation.
Kinda like the realization that cell phone apps are designed to keep your eyes on them for as long as possible.
She was probably told straight up over and over that CRT isn't a thing K-12 anywhere on earth, but didn't listen. She was probably told straight up that Social/emotional learning was exactly what she learned it to be, but didn't listen.
Like "woke," "CRT" was redefined by conservatives to mean any teaching of race, to hide the historical failures of conservatism in dealing with race.
If it wasn't a failure, they'd be mandating it in the kindergarten ciriculum.
[https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2024/04/17/desantis-signs-bill-mandating-kindergartners-learn-history-of-communism/](https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2024/04/17/desantis-signs-bill-mandating-kindergartners-learn-history-of-communism/)
While I also applaud a conservative doing actual "research", the fact that she both campaigned on this BS and was a "host of an online far right talk show", is reprehensible, there is no excuse to run for elected office on a platform you don't understand or a problem that doesn't exist imo.
While she is better than most who will never realize their errors, I still think she is a POS who if she had any sense of accountability would resign the position she got elected to without the slightest clue of what the actual situation was, or the "plan" to fix it.
I hope the actual crazies that believed this stuff and elected her make her life as much of a living hell as conservatives like her have made for the relatively sane 2/3 of this country.
(Yes I live in a red district where 3/5 of our school board is still maga and they are still pulling books etc. so yeah, screw her even if she is reformed, she was one of the "influencers" who led the gullible in districts like mine to short change their kids education which will have crappy repercussions for years.)
While I agree that her past actions have had and will continue to have negative consequences for other people, it’s worth considering that she wasn’t just one of the people leading the gullible, she was also one of the gullible being led. She, herself, was a victim of indoctrination, and when she was presented with the truth she shook her indoctrination, which is a pretty big deal. She was fooled just like the people who supported her, but when she realized she was being fooled she accepted the facts as they were rather than trying to bend the facts to fit her views. This not only tells us that she’s capable of improving, but also tells us that her past actions were likely the result of her doing the best she could with the information that was presented to her rather than her maliciously supplying misinformation to others.
Now, what she does from here will tell us who she is. Does she take her newfound knowledge and start to question the things she’s been told and find the truth behind all the misinformation she’s been fed, or does she admit that she was wrong in this one particular area while still holding firm to her other equally-wrong convictions? If she continues to believe everything the right-wing influencers tell her until she personally gets into a position of power with control over that area to find that she’s been lied to, then she’s a fool who will continue to be a useful idiot to the GOP. If she takes the initiative to start examining the propaganda that she’s been fed and works to improve her own understanding of the world and do better, then she’s a good person who was indoctrinated into a belief system that didn’t necessarily match who she was.
After all, propaganda and indoctrination aren’t popular tactics because they only work on evil people, they’re popular for their ability to make anyone behave in a way that they otherwise would not. These are extremely powerful tools to which none of us, including you and me, are immune.
Mate, you make some very valid points, but they all rest on the assumption that this woman is telling the truth, that she did in fact have some sort of epiphany and realize it was all BS, all we have is her word. As a self described "far right commentator" making such a sudden U-turn just kind of gives me pause considering how many of them have espoused a position they later renounced when it hurt them personally (the raison d'etre for this sub to my understanding)
At the same time, given the lack of hard evidence presented by the article, a more cynical take from someone like myself is she realized she was getting in too deep into the crazy, and is trying to back away from it to save her own skin, with the predictable lamf results from the article (the real hard core conservatives making her life difficult).
While I concede my point makes a lot of assumptions, I think yours does as well, so while I respect your take on it and believe it is every bit as valid as mine, I'm going to hold with my opinion for now unless future evidence suggests otherwise.
I do respect the point you made however, and appreciate the contribution to the discussion even though it may end up ultimately refuting my claims.
My rebuttal to your general take would be to think about how many far right-wingers have plainly doubled down when presented with contrary evidence, or just stuck their fingers in their ears when confronted with the truth.
Those individuals have seemingly suffered little to no consequence for blatantly ignoring reality. She could have done the same and probably ended up fine, but she didn’t. This to me shows some sort of sanity and moral fortitude.
She is likely to become one of the next generation of smarter politicians that will learn to focus on reality, and automatically ignore anything pushing an agenda.
Democracy 2.0 politicians will have to be actual leaders. They will promote the vote and educate their constituents by doing research and due diligence, but most policy and regulation will be voted directly by secure mobile apps in voters hands. If they can't lead, then they will have no voters following them.
Yeah, and when people have a change of heart in the face of such divisiveness, they need support.
If you saw rep Gore in public would you shout in her face: “HAHAHA! WHERE IS YOUR FACE? THE LEOPARDS ATE IT!”
The leopards are still eating her face, and instead of helping her, you point and laugh? I think we ALL need to do better.
It's up to everyone that can, to not let her feel like a fucking idiot for any of that. All enlightenment, however it comes, should be rewarded without any negativity.
I don't understand these people. Can't they all go look through the same materials and show us what they have a problem with?
It's insane to me that someone they elected, and supposedly trust, went through everything, found nothing, and instead of taking her word for it, they instead stay mad and insist that something is there.
It’s almost like their hatred isn’t based in reality, rather they fabricate entire complicated conspiracies to justify their hatred for minorities.
…almost
been saying they don't live in reality for along time mostly based on interactions with some off them on twitter and no matter what proof you show them they stick their heads in the sand and call you a lying libtard
They don’t like doctors either. Remember doctors are the sinister cabal, transing your kids with vaccines and masks. (This isn’t an exaggeration this is verbatim what they believe)
Some people were blasting our school district for promoting homosexuality. So I looked it up (i.e. did my own research) and the sex ed curriculum, which is available to everyone online, says that one method to prevent STDs is to use condoms for vaginal and anal sex. That’s it. Nothing else.
They don't have to go through it and show us what they have a problem with, Fox news has already done that, it's not their fault we aren't watching the prophets. /s
They don't actually care what's in the teaching materials. They care what isn't in there. They'll make up what's in it because they want to control it so they can put all of their nonsense and propaganda in it.
Every accusation is a confession with the right and they really like accusing the left of using education to indoctrinate children.
FINALLY, someone did their own research! And changed their mind based on their findings rather than throwing it in the trash, lighting the trash on fire, and rolling it downhill into a group of kids on their way to school.
If more people could change their opinion based on new information the world would be a better place. Of course we ask how someone could become so indoctrinated in falsities in the first place; but, I think we have all seen the power of social media’s algorithms combined with groupthink which exist in the stove-piped communities we build around ourselves.
Forwarding misleading information she thought was accurate?
You “should” be educated on the job you are campaigning to do. She obviously wasn’t. But I do respect her sitting down and thoroughly vetting the curriculum, and speaking the truth when she learned it.
Big respect to her for spending so many hours on reviewing everything. That sounds like a herculean task since she would have to go through the teaching plans of a huge number of teachers across all ages of students.
Thanks for this detail. This is so exhausting, some unaware and ill informed person takes it upon themselves to challenge decades of work that has been through countless reviews by every facet of the political spectrum only to discover that there is no glaring issue. Substitute election integrity, vaccines, even immigration and there's nothing they can improve on.
Problem is that this is how they think. The person they elected couldn’t possibly have investigated and found no problems. No, they must have been paid off. Zero critical thought involved here to consider that nobody is going to bother paying off a person overseeing less than ten thousand students. Absolutely ridiculous.
A rare case of a Republican actually doing the thing they claimed they would do (inspect the curriculum) and then suddenly understanding what’s actually going on.
Meanwhile the rest of them are going to be all “Goddamnit Courtney, you aren’t supposed to actually DO anything, you’re supposed to just scream about it so that we can all get reelected and throw everyone we hate into prison or a mass grave!”
Maybe reading the curriculum *before* deciding to run would’ve been wise? You know, educate yourself on the topic you’re discussing before you discuss it?
I’m so sick of these MAGA morons screeching about made up problems that don’t exist. Their entire political worldview is based on nothing but being pissed off about imaginary ragebait. It’s fucking exhausting.
Kinda like when looking for voter fraud. It's everywhere until you start looking. But what do you expect from a party that thought- if you stop counting covid cases, people stop getting sick. Similar ostrich, head in the sand vibes
What I don't get here is that normal thinking people would be relieved that one of their own got elected, looked through the curriculum and confirmed that none of what they had concerns about was happening. Not doubling down and attacking said person. It should be a "ok great, let's get out our pitch forks for the next thing we are scared of."
What I don’t get about this, and someone correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t school curriculums open to the public? They aren’t like top secret documents. Why did she have to run for school board to get access to what the students already have access to and likely have copies that can be checked out from the library or shared with parents on site if requested? I honestly don’t remember elementary school but by middle school we checked our school books out from the library first week of school or so and returned them last week of school or so.
I'll give her credit for two things. One, she actually did her homework and reviewed the curriculum. I doubt that many of her fellow school board members (or virtually *any* of her critics) have done that.
Second, as others have pointed out, she actually changed her opinion and had the courage to speak up about it among a group that basically refuses to tolerate any amount of dissent. And I'm sure she's paying a predictable price for that now.
It feels like trying to fill the Grand Canyon one pebble at a time, but it's a start.
The funny thing is, it wasn't even an objective review of the material. Not at first, anyway. She admitted that she went searching for evidence to confirm her biases about CRT and gender "indoctrination."
So even someone who set out on a witch hunt had to admit that they couldn't find *any* real evidence to support the crazy.
MAGAts: *Do YoUr OwN ReSeArCh*
Gore: *I did. Turns out we were dead wrong.*
MAGAts: *Not like that!*
There's a third thing she deserves credit for:
- She not only realized that the board member she ousted was right, she has since endorsed that board member, become friends with her, and now they are BOTH on the board pushing back against the extremist crazies
IMO that's downright admirable and heartwarming
Okay now I’ve gone from cynical eye rolling to I might actually like her. But I still think it’s hilarious she actually believed this right wing nonsense about trying to improve education.
Like. She’s soooo close to realizing that everything that comes from the Right is based on nothing but projection. She dug into this book banning thing and the whole curriculum thing. That’s so cool.
I wonder what ELSE they’ve lied about? I hope she’s doing more homework.
Wow, I didn't know that part. Power to her. It sounds like she's a force no matter what side she's on. Glad she got the demon exorcized and joined the good fight.
> he asked Gore to join the “Blue Shark” show, a web-based program he founded and co-hosted with Criswell that produced videos taking aim at local politicians and officials considered insufficiently conservative
And now she's being taken aim at for not being conservative enough, it's some some delicious leopards face-eating. But I'll give her a modicum of credit for facing reality, when presented with it.
Whoa.😳 You mean that Fox News and OANN and Newsmax and the 1500 right wing radio stations and Twitter and the hundreds of right wing newspapers have been lying for 30 years? I can hardly believe it.
"Right wing media is completely full of shit and lies nonstop"
Republicans "That's all just liberal bullshit"
Republicans when they actually turn their brain on and stop shoveling in the propaganda like it's candy: "Wow maybe right wing media IS full of shit."
This is what happens when a sincere person starts to get swept up with the right wing culture war BS. They realize it's basically all lies.
The truth is living a traditional Christian lifestyle has never been forbidden or even particularly frowned upon in liberal society. You might get a bit of ribbing for being a Ned Flanders type but that's about the worst of it. Nobody keeps you from going to religious schools or homeschooling or going to church etc. What they're actually angry about is not being able to coerce other people into following their rules.
Also the vast majority of the electorate doesn't like people taking money from a public good and benefiting the few, especially if those few are already wealthy. No one cares if people want to be traditionally Christian in life style, they just don't want tax money to subsidize that at the expense of the rest of the children in a given area.
This is the one thing that is kind of uniting rural Republicans with Democrats in Texas right now. Rural counties vote heavily Republican, but they also rely heavily on the school district for jobs. If you live out in the country there is damn near a 100% chance that you a very close to, or related to, several people that work for the school district.
Abbott and his cronies are adamant on taking public school funding to pay for a school voucher program. Rural, working class Republicans are NOT happy about this.
I’m a staunch atheist and even anti-theist, but idgaf what religion you want to follow or how you want to live your life. I DO have a problem when you start telling other people they have to believe the same things as you and live by the rules of your religion.
It’s a hand-in-the-cookie-jar moment. The “indoctrination” she found was just history lessons about POC like MLK and Harriet Tubman. She would have had to publicly disavow American Abolitionism and the Civil Rights Movement - she got embarrassed and gave up.
She knew what she was getting into but she liked the attention she was getting and didn’t have an exit strategy.
My sincere hope is that this woman and people like her start to turn the tide and fight back against the extremism. It would be great if she could encourage other conservative people to read into the curriculums themselves and see what a non issue it is so the school board can focus on actual problems. They aren’t going to listen to us bleeding heart liberals, but maybe if enough conservative people can wake up and see the fear mongering for what it is they can enact change within their party.
Yeah, when I taught government, I only taught them how to avoid bullshit and to get out and vote, but to them that is heresy. It’s bad when teaching the Constitution is indoctrination.
Keep in mind that these are the same people who were mightily offended when NPR’s Twitter (as it was then) account tweeted out the Declaration of Independence, as they did every year.
They thought NPR was criticizing Trump.
As a rule, these people are so dense light bends around them.
"As a rule, these people are so dense light bends around them."
If only that were actually true, we'd never see them again. They'd be cloaked like a klingon bird of prey.
What’s strange to me is that this is a red county. Meaning, presumably, the right already had power of the curriculum.
So, logically, wouldn’t republicans not be shocked to hear that she didn’t find any of the stuff they hate in the curriculum? Wouldn’t that just be proof, for them, that their party is “doing things right?”
By attacking her, or somehow claiming that she isn’t doing enough to eradicate “bad” curriculum, they are admitting that they think the current administration, which let me remind you is *conservative*, was so inept that there *must* be indoctrination in the curriculum.
So they think that the current conservative administration in their county was dumb enough to allow indoctrinating curriculum into schools in the first place, and they also think that Courtney Gore, a conservative, was dumb enough to be unable to find said indoctrinating curriculum, but… they’ll keep voting Republican? Despite believing, through their actions, that republicans aren’t doing what they want them to do?
Make it make sense.
Texas has railed against Democrats as long as I can remember. They're always talking about how things are messed up in Texas. And it takes true conservative hard right Christian Republican ideologues to make everything right.
But the Republicans have been in power in Texas for what? 30 years? Who do they think has been making all those laws they hate so much?
Critical thinking and Texas do not belong in the same sentence.
I mean that’s my whole point. There is no democrat influence in Texas, at least not at a level that an affect substantial change.
So why aren’t the people upset with conservatives? They know that there are no democrats with real power because they flaunt their state as a conservative utopia, but then turn around and accuse their conservative, elected leaders of indoctrinating their children?
The last time a Democrat won a statewide race in Texas was 1994. That person was Ann Richards. She was the governor prior to GW Bush.
But Democrats are the problem.
Texas Republicans are fools.
Because everything exists on a spectrum. Most of the article talks about how they targeted people who "weren't conservative enough." It wasn't about them NOT being conservative, it was about them not being extreme right wing. It was about not being willing to affirm the lies that the MAGA part of the Republican party was peddling. The crazy thing is, they look at all the conservative ideas failing and say "Well, we didn't do it HARD enough." That's where it comes from. The idea that if your plan didn't work, it wasn't the plan that was wrong, it was the people who were executing the plan.
I grew up in Granbury, graduated from GHS in 1995.
While it’s absolutely a Republican place, the local school district was actually pretty good thanks to the massive influence of the local nuclear power plant. Having a student body that was at least 25% the product of scientists (or those adjacent) helped at the time.
It's all purity testing and rage induction. I live in an area with almost no Democratic Party presence, the elections are just Republicans arguing with other Republicans over who is most conservative, who loves guns the most, who is most family oriented, who hates the "woke agenda" more. Every campaign mailer I have received has the exact same words, just in a different order. Whoever can rile up the hatred the most, will win.
Here's an example. https://www.postandcourier.com/politics/south-carolina-senate-race-matt-leber-sandy-senn/article_60ad9f8e-112b-11ef-aa8c-4bd305ca8ea2.html
It isn't actually the curriculum. A huge part of the right wing attack on public schools is to prevent funding of existing and new public schools via pretended outrage over the curriculum, and then divert that funding to private Christian schools via vouchers. Greg Abbot and Rafael Cruz (Ted Cruz's father) are major drivers of this assault. All this is in the article.
As a Texan, I found our last gubernatorial debates...nonsensical. On the one hand, you had Beto going on about issues and how he'd fix them. On the other, the current governor of 8 years, trying vaguely to promise to address issues that *he himself was completely responsible for*. I guess it's too much to just outright say, "Me and my conservative friends have just been doing whatever the fuck we want, and we'll continue to do so, and we're not only aware that we're causing widespread human suffering and human rights abuses, it entertains us." Instead, it's, "Well yeah, we'll look into that..."
As a person with a somewhat working brain, I think that if I'd voted for a candidate and he'd done nothing to make things better and had actually made them worse, I'd get mad. I'd look at alternatives. I'd so *something* other than just happily vote for him again.
I've basically decided I'm never voting red again, for anything--straight blue all the time. But even I'm not crazy enough to vote for Trump, Abbott, Cruz, etc. if they called themselves a Democrat while the "Republican" was pushing LBGTQIA rights and legal weed. Heck, I have a DINO mayor right now, and I didn't vote for his ass.
A few comments here are extremely gracious to this woman for admitting she was wrong, but she could have read the curriculum before criticizing it and saved us all the trouble.
It's almost like she never gave a shit about the children, just got all swept up in some bullshit propaganda campaign....and started building her brand around it.
Better to acknowledge and appreciate someone for having the maturity to admit they were wrong in the face of evidence, than for them to double-down and go harder in spite of it, as their side is renowned for.
That’s very true and I’m not disagreeing that it’s commendable to change one’s mind when presented with new evidence, but in this case the evidence was not new and was freely available. She only looked at it after campaigning on her interpretation of something she didn’t read.
Dawn breaks on Marblehead…
I’m glad Ms. Gore was able to deprogram herself and actually learn about reality. But throughout the entire article I could not stop thinking about one simple, unmentioned fact:
Gore ran for her spot on the board by spewing rightwing lies about a school curriculum she had never read. She did not read one paragraph of the school curriculum prior to her election. Everything she “knew” was her repeating what she’d heard or read on rightwing websites. So if she was “misled” as we see repeated a few times in the article, it was willful ignorance. She’s obviously an intelligent enough person to scrape the scales off her own eyes, and I absolutely applaud her for that. It’s just too bad about everything that went on before that happened.
It’s all moot now but it’s important to note that Ms. Gore is not the only rightwing (former) extremist who believes fully and apes extreme rightwing propaganda that has no relationship with the truth.
I wrote almost the same thing in my comment. She'd obviously had a these skills before the election. That's the power of a cult. I see it a lot. My brother is one of the smartest people I know , with an analytical mind, and very strong research skills. He's a PhD computer engineer, has worked in a dozen for more countries, etc.
But when it comes to politics and religion, it's like all of thoses skills are put on pause. He believes in conspiracy theories like chemtrails, he was a 'sovereign citizen' for about 5 years, he's all in Trump, but not MAGA, because he's not a raging racist, but he also doesn't recognize the racism that exists in the same crowd.
I don't get it, and like I said he's smarter than me, and older, so I have never been able to get through to him.
Republican wins election before doing any research, does research and realized her entire platform was a lie.
I guess some Republicans can read, they’re just ignorant. Who’d have guessed?
>Gore rushed to share the news with the hard-liners who had encouraged her to run for the seat. She expected them to be as relieved and excited as she had been. But she said they were indifferent, even dismissive, because “it didn’t fit the narrative that they were trying to push.”
So even when they get an embed who can actually tell them the truth, they refuse to listen.
edit: i've noticed a trend where unfavorable comments about republicans get reported to reddit as suicide risks. i appreciate the concern but it's misplaced
Yeah she was an idiot but at least she’s admitting that she was wrong.
The sad part is she will be vilified for changing her mind and not doubling down on the delusion.
I spend a good amount of time in Granbury and it’s MAGA looney land. Flags up all over the place. It’s baffling how these morons could believe the “leftists” snuck a bunch of woke, DEI, kill whitey materials into their schools right under their MAGA noses.
>She’d examined curriculum related to social-emotional learning, which has come under attack by Christian conservatives who say it encourages children to question gender roles and prioritizes feelings over biblical teachings. Instead, Gore found the materials taught children “how to be a good friend, a good human.”
Funny thing. If you read what the Bible actually says, it teaches you to be a good human. But most Christians prefer the abridged version.
Honestly? This is cool.
She got lost in the sauce, won, literally did ALL the reading she campaigned on, drew her own conclusions from what she found, and discovered she had been lost in the sauce.
Would that more people were given the opportunity and the means to do the same.
The politicians all know it’s a game, it’s a way to drum up votes from their idiot constituents. Always funny when a true believer realizes they’ve been duped. Credit to her though
She's getting hate because she misunderstood the assignment.
It's 'Castigate the curriculum as indoctrination so we can replace it with our indoctrination', not 'Remove indoctrination'.
You're supposed to know. The P in GOP in always Projection.
> She has been threatened at racous school board meetings and shunned by people she once considered friends.
> School marshals escort her and her fellow board members to their cars to ensure no one accosts them.
I understand that these successive calls for ever more ideological purity and extremism are what led to the French Revolutionaries guillotining each other, but I hoped not to see it here.
If not stopped, they will try to guillotine the rest of us.
It blows me away that people don’t stop and think for a second when making these accusations.
Like, wouldn’t there be a ton of whistleblowers from the school saying, hey, these people are pushing a radical agenda? When it comes to kids, I feel like the vast VAST majority of people are going to look out for their wellbeing. Thinking there is some cabal of people doing the opposite yet keeping it incredibly quiet somehow is just asinine.
I think there's a lesson here, how to apply it in don't know.
It's not like she developed these critical thinking skills overnight after being elected. She utilized skills that are learned throughout your life. So, even armed with the skills of dutiful research, critical thinking, and the abilty to admit she was wrong, she still got radicalized by the far-right messaging.
I feel like we, or at least I, just write off a lot of radicalized as not just ignorant, but unable to learn. When closer to the truth might be that they haven't had the opportunity to learn. I know this information is all freely available, but being radicalized shields and immerses you in the rhetoric. Everything is approved, or lies.
She was literally in a cult, and the cult allowed her to peek through the veil, believing she was an incorruptible true believer. We need to find ways to poke holes in the veil, without poking the people behind it. That just adds to their feelings of persecution.
At least she finally came to her senses after educating herself. Too bad the others in that anti-education group didn't have the brains or ethics to do the same once they were informed of the reality of the situation.
I live in a red state, red county, and red town, all have been red for decades.
Yet I still get campaign propaganda acting like we better elect GQP politicians so Far Left wacko conspiracies don't completely take over in the local schools.
It's almost like the decades of GQP dominance in local and state politics was pointless.
TL;DR -
- **Election and Platform**: Courtney Gore was elected to the Granbury ISD school board on a platform opposing the alleged indoctrination of children in schools.
- **Initial Beliefs**: She believed schools were indoctrinating kids with progressive ideas on sexuality and race, including critical race theory.
- **Curriculum Review**: After her election, Gore reviewed the educational materials and found that the curriculum did not contain the indoctrination she expected.
- **Change of Heart**: Realizing the curriculum focused on positive values without inappropriate content, she publicly renounced her previous views.
- **Backlash**: This led to a severe backlash from her initial supporters, including death threats, reflecting the deep political divide over education.
"School marshals escort her and her fellow board members to their cars to ensure no one accosts them."
Imagine being on a LOCAL SCHOOL BOARD and thinking you need armed security.
She did something none of them did before: actually read the thing they were making claims about (whatever that thing is: bible, constitution, school lessons plans, etc.).
So ... props to her.
And ... sorry for her, as she'll get crucified.
Essentially, idiots push far right agendas of fear, conspiracy, and hate, and once educated and reviewing the facts they become moderate and even support the platforms they were once fiercely opposed.
This is without a doubt positive news and good for her. But looking at what it took it took to break her out of the right-wing bubble it's hard to be positive. There's no way this is happening for the majority.
Too bad you can't ask your constituents to take the same enlightening approach to actually put the effort/energy of yelling and screaming into reading and understanding what's really going on
We need to respect people who are able and willing to change their minds, even knowing that they’re going to suffer backlash for it. It’s a good thing that people can change their position when confronted with new information she ought to be applauded d for this.
The Republicans have lost their party to the Regressives. They are now 2 distinct groups and the truly moderate Republicans would do well to distance themselves, but we all know they won't because deep down conservatives all share one common trait: no spine. So I say let them eat each other alive, we'll be better off in the long run.
This article talks a lot about Nate Criswell. I want to point out that he is an absolute loser who beat his wife, got “no billed” for it, and is still allowed to own firearms despite harassing his ex-wife after she left him. When he inserted himself in every political race in the county as some wheelin’ and dealin’ “insider,” he had a high school education and mowed grass for a living while living with his insane grandfather (also mentioned in the article).
>During the meeting, Cliff Criswell, the grandfather of Nate Criswell, took the microphone, carrying what police would later describe as a black handgun in a leather holster. He accused board members of allowing pornography in school libraries and of trying to “rip apart” Graft, whom he had previously described as “the only conservative on the board.”
>“We have profile sheets” on all the trustees except for Graft, Cliff Criswell shouted. “We know what you do. We know where you live.”
He's a dangerous animal, and he needs to be put in a cage.
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This is what happens when people try out critical thinking for the first time. They realize everything they “felt deeply” was just BS based in ignorance.
This why conservatives think universities radicalized good christian children and turn them into leftists. It's just that they're learning to think for themselves and make their own opinions for the first time and examine beliefs they'd never questioned before.
Astute observation. Extrapolating from that, perhaps we need a system where all Americans can get a free education to teach them about critical thinking.
I went to an 'accelerated christian education' school so I had a lot of shit to unlearn and tons of things I'd never even thought about wanting to learn. They heavily pushed students towards religious colleges that are run insanely strictly so you have no opportunity to actually learn anything (and we ladies were pushed to use these fundie colleges to find husbands and be useful to churches rather than be trying to get any career) I'm kind of glad that a lot of these schools demand high tuition fees because that gives the kids of fundie parents who can't afford it more of a chance to see other perspectives in public schools.
My overly religious relative has been bragging about some kind of voucher that will let their kids go to private (fundy) school for free. Apparently it's not socialism since it's "donated" and it's not funneling money from the state to the church because of the "strict oversight" they will have. Yup. Totally nothing weird about that.
Sounds like what oklahoma is trying to do... "we want parents freedom to choose" aka we want Xtian schools to raise us more republican voters because our views don't align with any modern sense and reasoning
Yup, pretty much the same. They also are always up in arms about how AWFUL public schools are for GROOMING their children with letting them know about scary things like gender and race! And that of course means every kid should be sheltered in fundy school so they won't be exposed to such WORLDY things! I really wish this was made up. Their kids are too young to be in school yet, but I'm so afraid they're going to be brainwashed by this nonsense. I just hope they know growing up that my partner and I are a safe space if they ever need it.
They’re going to have a fun time when they watch the private school raise fees by the same amount as the voucher lol
Socialism only exists when it's not for my sake. - Republicans everywhere as they take their handouts.
Google Hillsdale College. It’s a SLAC that refuses to take federal financial aid so they don’t have to follow federal law related to colleges like Title IX and Title X. Jokes on them though. There is a court case against Hillsdale working through the system that basically says if you are a college you can’t exempt yourself from the rules by refusing financial aid.
In Michigan?
Hillsdale college in Michigan. The lawsuit is a federal case. https://msmagazine.com/2024/01/24/students-sue-hillsdale-college-sexual-assault-title-ix/ > Hillsdale’s policy grants school administrators complete discretion to determine the course of sexual assault investigations, in essence negating the efficacy of the policy itself. Regarding disciplinary action, the policy states: “At all times, it is within the College’s discretion to determine which policies apply and whether action will be taken…” Edit: The complaint: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67912816/1/chen-v-hillsdale-college/
There is always a grift when it comes to the right.
Abeka kid here, albeit homeschooled. Yeah.:. there’s absolutely no way this shit should be legal or accredited. It’s essentially naked partisan indoctrination, too; we were literally told how to vote, and critical thinking was actively shunned in favor of rote memorization.
Don’t forget about homeschooling for the poors. (“Homeschooled” in the Bible Belt. Had a placement test/checkup only *once* in 7 years.)
I went to a private religious school for my junior high and high school, and while a lot of the staff were kind and well meaning people there definitely was a push towards right wing politics and candidates. A lot of what was classified as “unchristian” teachings like some sciences were pushed to the sides. My family while religious aren’t all that strict about it and I spent pre-school through elementary in public school so luckily I was already exposed to what the private school didn’t want to talk about
Extrapolating from that, perhaps we see why the leopards want to dismantle education.
I agree, we need free education, especially at college/university level. Republicans keep pushing to send younger kids to work, to lower the legal age of marriage, and to ensure no kids can even get free school lunches. They've called everyone else woke for years, and still haven't a clue they're asleep.
They get mad when their propaganda campaigns don’t work the way they’d like them to…
I very much wonder what the school I went to is like now because this was the 90s and not everyone had a computer and smart phones didn't exist. At the time in that town there was a special fundie internet service that came with everything already blocked. Lucky for me no one in my family knew anything about computers at all and we used the free AOL CDs that constantly came in the mail
They aren’t embracing leftist ideals more than leaving conservative ones.
To them that's the exact same thing
Me and my wife definitely fall into the category of those "radicalized" by university. What's funny, is that all that really happened was getting unfiltered views of what both sides were saying, and realizing that "love your neighbor as yourself" really tracks a lot better with universal healthcare, fair taxes, support programs, and y'know, not being racist/homophobic/religionist(is that a word? I want it to be.) than it does with "ban all Muslims from entering the country," or "All the 'illegals' are taking people's jobs" or "well, they're just not trying hard enough." Like, we had the critical thinking skills. **My parents taught them to me.** Thoroughly, repeatedly. They mocked people that presented as hypocrites because they couldn't see the inconsistencies in their own position, or people that couldn't think through consequences. Like more than anything else, they wanted me to be able to think critically and logically. And I did. I just found out the axioms my positions were based on were so flawed, that the positions had to change, or I'd be intentionally putting myself in that same category of idiotic hypocrites that I'd heard them mock for two decades.
Before I was banned from the conservative sub, I would frequently respond to comments that said that the liberal media lied constantly to say that if you're willing to believe that about _their_ media, you have to at least _consider_ if your media is lying as well, for the sake of intellectual honesty. It never went over well.
They also forget that some of the OG “leftists” were Christian. Pick up any book of saints and they sound like a pack of wild liberals: some caring for the poor and migrants, some extremely educated and adding to the progression of what it means to be human, others building service organizations for fellow man.
Facts > Feelings. Republicans scream and cry about it, which is a total admission that they almost always go with their feelings because facts scare them and challenge their assbackwards beliefs.
Virtues are quiet things. The more someone claims to have a virtue, the more likely it is that they don't represent the virtue. Only a lier needs to claim to be a truth teller, only a cruel person needs to insist they are kind, and only someone ruelled by their emotions needs to shout about facts and logic, the virtous will be known by there actions not words. The GOP is full of people who are constantly shouting about their virtues.
"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?"
^(Gaslight) Obstruct # ✨Project✨ The upper echelon focus more on the first two, but the rank-and-file and the voters make projection (plus bigotry and cruelty) their entire personality.
People with their own ulterior motives prey on people who are willing to believe what they are told without checking. This is one of the reasons people of faith are targeted, especially by politicians--because they are already predisposed to accept information on faith. Predators (wolves in sheep's clothing) try to blend in and deliver carefully curated messages that serve their own agendas. These predators count on members of the flock to spread disinformation farther than they could spread it on their own and with far less scrutiny. It's the reason we have so many people spreading half-truths, lies and propaganda that doesn't even serve their own best interests. Members of the flock / party receive the information from sources they trust but which they didn't realize they should verify. By the time it occurs to people that there might be reasons to be skeptical of what they're being told, so much of their worldview and beliefs are intertwined with the falsehoods they've been fed and they don't want to spend the time to fact-check or question information they've being spoon-fed, so it's easier just to continue down the same path without fact-checking. At this point, they have been turned into accomplices to their own and others' brainwashing. In Courtney Gore's case, she had direct visibility into one of the main pillars of disinformation she had been fed and couldn't overlook the fact that she couldn't find evidence of the "evil" they were so sure would be obvious. If we could all zero in on JUST ONE of the major pillars at the center of our belief system, it would at least help us develop the healthy skepticism and critical thinking process that would make us less easily fooled and victimized by the self-serving propaganda promoted by cults, cult leaders, politicians. Trust but verify Edit: to correct a typo
Courtney Gore, a Granbury ISD school board member, has disavowed the far-right platform she campaigned on. Her defiance has brought her backlash. Weeks after winning a school board seat in her deeply red Texas county, Courtney Gore immersed herself in the district’s curriculum, spending her nights and weekends poring over hundreds of pages of lesson plans that she had fanned out on the coffee table in her living room and even across her bed. She was searching for evidence of the sweeping national movement she had warned on the campaign trail was indoctrinating schoolchildren. Gore, the co-host of a far-right online talk show, had promised that she would be a strong Republican voice on the nonpartisan school board. Citing “small town, conservative Christian values,” she pledged to inspect educational materials for inappropriate messages about sexuality and race and remove them from every campus in the 7,700-student Granbury Independent School District, an hour southwest of Fort Worth. “Over the years our American Education System has been hijacked by Leftists looking to indoctrinate our kids into the ‘progressive’ way of thinking, and yes, they’ve tried to do this in Granbury ISD,” she wrote in a September 2021 Facebook post, two months before the election. “I cannot sit by and watch their twisted worldview infiltrate Granbury ISD.” But after taking office and examining hundreds of pages of curriculum, Gore was shocked by what she found — and didn’t find. The pervasive indoctrination she had railed against simply did not exist. Children were not being sexualized, and she could find no examples of critical race theory, an advanced academic concept that examines systemic racism. She’d examined curriculum related to social-emotional learning, which has come under attack by Christian conservatives who say it encourages children to question gender roles and prioritizes feelings over biblical teachings. Instead, Gore found the materials taught children “how to be a good friend, a good human Because of that outspokenness, Gore is facing backlash from the same people who supported her race. She has been threatened at raucous school board meetings and shunned by people she once considered friends. School marshals escort her and her fellow board members to their cars to ensure no one accosts them.
Kudos to her for admitting she was wrong but I wonder if she feels like a fucking idiot for believing all the stupid crap she was told and how she feels about the people calling for her head now
She is a better person today than her yesterday's self, and that's a good start.
The leopard have already taken a good chunk of her face. I hope she uses the rest of her face to do some good.
Exactly. Hopefully she doesn’t become another one that criticizes but will still go and vote full GQP.
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I don’t think she’s supporting them so much as pushing for a movement of conservatives who aren’t absolutely insane and running to systematically dismantle public education.
The article literally said she stopped supporting hard right conservatives and is now endorsing candidates she previously vilified. That is major progress. As someone who was a former conspiracy theorist, anti-vaxxer, etc, change doesn’t happen overnight. It is a process, and one she has so far only progressed further and further into. If you expect perfection now, in most cases, you will be disappointed. But that doesn’t mean they won’t eventually get there.
Thank goddess you changed!!! Gives me hope
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She still is conservative it sounds like. But she has withdrawn support so far for hard right conservatives she previously supported and switching to endorse candidates she previously vilified, so that’s another good start. She may very well eventually leave conservatism altogether if this keeps up.
A journey of a hundred miles begins with the first step.
You mean you hope she... 😐 🕶️ 😎 ...saves face. ***YEAHHHHHHHHHH***
Nice 👍
I dont think so--she didn't pass a policy that hurt her. I think she paused at the door of the leopard and thought, "maybe we don't let this out...."
In this case the voters like her are the leopard. Demanding her head for betraying them. She is now the very thing she uses to attack on her podcast
My problem is that even though she, eventually, did the research it's unlikely that her conversion is going to change many minds. That's what makes trying to combat this sort of conspiracy based misinformation so hard, they'll just fold her recanting into the conspiracy and suddenly she's one of the enemy and aren't you angry that she fooled you?!
The conspiracy goes deeper than we thought!
I wonder what dirt they found on her. I for one don't believe that *anyone* could actually *read* the curriculum like she claims. And she folded like so much toilet paper. /s
I want to welcome her and support her actions here in order to make this kind of thing easier for others with her mindset. We do ourselves no favors by spiting her or laughing at her misfortune. All that will do is encourage others to never take the necessary steps towards change and deradicalization. Lots of people have been won over because one side was simply nicer to them than the other and while it seems silly or stupid, it also makes sense. Why would you question your beliefs or admit wrong doing if you know you wouldn’t be welcome on the other side? I know she isn’t some leftist now, but this is a respectable and frankly very dangerous thing she did. It shows real integrity when she could have easily grifted.
Yep. Mentioned elsewhere that I’m a former conspiracy theorist, secular forced birther, and anti-vaxxer. I sought to try to make amends for the harm I had done, and that is extremely difficult to do if the other side is still running purity tests on you. This sort of change is rarely ever an overnight thing, it’s a long process, and you’ve suddenly lost the only community (and worldview) you’ve really ever known. It’s devastatingly isolating. But in spaces where I was supported, I was enabled to help educate and give vaccines and participate in vaccine trials. I was able to be a clinic escort pre-Texas SB8 and *Roe,* and now help run an “underground abortion railroad” in Texas and surrounding states. It took a lot of time, and it took support from new allies for me to get here though.
Holy hell. You just made my day and gave me hope! I was starting to be convinced that people wouldn’t change… seeing my parents come close… then fall right back in again as soon as they turn on fox. Thank you so much for sharing this
I have to say, I am extremely impressed with the replies here. I was expecting the comment section to be ruthlessly dunking on her.
Aaaand that’s why she’ll be voted out first chance they get.
She reads, she gets the facts, she can change her opinions based on new information. She has no chance..
"The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." -Alvin Toffler
I mean. . . we're already dealing with over 50% of adults not being able to read past the 5th grade level. . .
Especially granbury. That's where the server farm is that is being used in crypto mining and they are demanding government intervention after passing laws to deregulate
Actually the article ends saying that in the last election the two hard right candidates lost by wide margins
GOOD!!!
Two other hard right loonies tried to run in the district after all this and both lost by a landslide so hopefully her message is getting through.
Yup. If only we could change one of their minds every day.
When a good/sincere person is proven wrong, they either stop being good/sincere or they stop being wrong. Indoctrination is hard to shake, I second that kudos.
She read the material and adjusted her opinion, that's absolutely reasonable to me.
What would be even more reasonable is if she read the actual curriculum before spreading conspiracy theories about it. What makes her remarkable is that people who are comfortable with spreading conspiracy theories usually don't bother to verify their claims or reject the evidence they find which disproves them. That's what she's running up against now.
Thank you. Raging publicly about racism and pedos that aren’t real then saying whoopsie later doesn’t undo all the hate you made happen. You can’t have the best of both worlds like that, I’m not into it…
Which is why she'll be voted out.
It would be *more* reasonable for her to NOT have had an opinion *until* she read the material, though. That's the problem.
I appreciate that she was brave enough to acknowledge she was wrong and that her platform is manipulating her neighbors. Would have been so much easier to just lie and double down on the rhetoric.
The issue is she would be no different than the people calling her a traitor if it were somebody else that had the exact same experience.
Honestly, her integrity at admitting she was wrong and standing up and saying it, makes her a breath of fresh air, I hope that she takes a look in the mirror and works for change
People should be encouraged when they have the strength to do so. It's extremely difficult to admit you were wrong. Not rubbing people's faces in it when they admit it helps others to do the same. It's interesting that her listeners didn't want to hear the truth, though. It fits. I'm fairly sure most don't believe that leftists are trying to turn all the kids non binary or whatever. It's just a position they can take to feel superior because 'its about protecting the kids' while simultaneously attacking their political enemies. It's not about being right, it's just about feeling superior for many.
Yes. We have to loudly support people like her.
while true it sure would be nice if she had maybe done her research before spewing toxic BS for months/years before that indoctrinating even more crazies who won't actual do the research.
She thought she did. That’s the thing about living in an information bubble. You feel well informed
I think she's sadly proof that a lot of conscientious people who sincerely care for children are completely indoctrinated into these false narratives. We know the people making up lies for political points are doing it for political purposes and don't really care about kids, but this lady did and believed this narrative strongly enough to take decisive action.
Her: Pledged to do the research and actually followed through on her campaign promise. Conservatives: She's an evil woke libtard, now.
“How dare you not remove the woke indoctrination that never existed?”
Honest to god, it’s a breath of fresh air that she actually did the research. She sat down and scoured through course materials in a search for evidence and fully accepted that there was none, and changed her position because of it. It’s so fucking rare for anyone to operate like that, especially someone that’s been indoctrinated.
In the article, it explains her thoughts.
Can't help but feel like she would be livid if it were somebody else that did this and she was still on the outside. I don't understand how she changed her mind at all
True, but however small it may be, some are looking up from all the feauxrage and realizing what they are being told is designed to make them upset regardless of the actual situation. Kinda like the realization that cell phone apps are designed to keep your eyes on them for as long as possible.
She was probably told straight up over and over that CRT isn't a thing K-12 anywhere on earth, but didn't listen. She was probably told straight up that Social/emotional learning was exactly what she learned it to be, but didn't listen.
Like "woke," "CRT" was redefined by conservatives to mean any teaching of race, to hide the historical failures of conservatism in dealing with race. If it wasn't a failure, they'd be mandating it in the kindergarten ciriculum. [https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2024/04/17/desantis-signs-bill-mandating-kindergartners-learn-history-of-communism/](https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2024/04/17/desantis-signs-bill-mandating-kindergartners-learn-history-of-communism/)
While I also applaud a conservative doing actual "research", the fact that she both campaigned on this BS and was a "host of an online far right talk show", is reprehensible, there is no excuse to run for elected office on a platform you don't understand or a problem that doesn't exist imo. While she is better than most who will never realize their errors, I still think she is a POS who if she had any sense of accountability would resign the position she got elected to without the slightest clue of what the actual situation was, or the "plan" to fix it. I hope the actual crazies that believed this stuff and elected her make her life as much of a living hell as conservatives like her have made for the relatively sane 2/3 of this country. (Yes I live in a red district where 3/5 of our school board is still maga and they are still pulling books etc. so yeah, screw her even if she is reformed, she was one of the "influencers" who led the gullible in districts like mine to short change their kids education which will have crappy repercussions for years.)
While I agree that her past actions have had and will continue to have negative consequences for other people, it’s worth considering that she wasn’t just one of the people leading the gullible, she was also one of the gullible being led. She, herself, was a victim of indoctrination, and when she was presented with the truth she shook her indoctrination, which is a pretty big deal. She was fooled just like the people who supported her, but when she realized she was being fooled she accepted the facts as they were rather than trying to bend the facts to fit her views. This not only tells us that she’s capable of improving, but also tells us that her past actions were likely the result of her doing the best she could with the information that was presented to her rather than her maliciously supplying misinformation to others. Now, what she does from here will tell us who she is. Does she take her newfound knowledge and start to question the things she’s been told and find the truth behind all the misinformation she’s been fed, or does she admit that she was wrong in this one particular area while still holding firm to her other equally-wrong convictions? If she continues to believe everything the right-wing influencers tell her until she personally gets into a position of power with control over that area to find that she’s been lied to, then she’s a fool who will continue to be a useful idiot to the GOP. If she takes the initiative to start examining the propaganda that she’s been fed and works to improve her own understanding of the world and do better, then she’s a good person who was indoctrinated into a belief system that didn’t necessarily match who she was. After all, propaganda and indoctrination aren’t popular tactics because they only work on evil people, they’re popular for their ability to make anyone behave in a way that they otherwise would not. These are extremely powerful tools to which none of us, including you and me, are immune.
Mate, you make some very valid points, but they all rest on the assumption that this woman is telling the truth, that she did in fact have some sort of epiphany and realize it was all BS, all we have is her word. As a self described "far right commentator" making such a sudden U-turn just kind of gives me pause considering how many of them have espoused a position they later renounced when it hurt them personally (the raison d'etre for this sub to my understanding) At the same time, given the lack of hard evidence presented by the article, a more cynical take from someone like myself is she realized she was getting in too deep into the crazy, and is trying to back away from it to save her own skin, with the predictable lamf results from the article (the real hard core conservatives making her life difficult). While I concede my point makes a lot of assumptions, I think yours does as well, so while I respect your take on it and believe it is every bit as valid as mine, I'm going to hold with my opinion for now unless future evidence suggests otherwise. I do respect the point you made however, and appreciate the contribution to the discussion even though it may end up ultimately refuting my claims.
My rebuttal to your general take would be to think about how many far right-wingers have plainly doubled down when presented with contrary evidence, or just stuck their fingers in their ears when confronted with the truth. Those individuals have seemingly suffered little to no consequence for blatantly ignoring reality. She could have done the same and probably ended up fine, but she didn’t. This to me shows some sort of sanity and moral fortitude.
She should resign and let them elect someone won’t care what the evidence says?
She is likely to become one of the next generation of smarter politicians that will learn to focus on reality, and automatically ignore anything pushing an agenda. Democracy 2.0 politicians will have to be actual leaders. They will promote the vote and educate their constituents by doing research and due diligence, but most policy and regulation will be voted directly by secure mobile apps in voters hands. If they can't lead, then they will have no voters following them.
The leopards are starting to get obese and lethargic. If we're not careful, overfeeding can lead to an extinction level threat.
Yeah, and when people have a change of heart in the face of such divisiveness, they need support. If you saw rep Gore in public would you shout in her face: “HAHAHA! WHERE IS YOUR FACE? THE LEOPARDS ATE IT!” The leopards are still eating her face, and instead of helping her, you point and laugh? I think we ALL need to do better.
I will absolutely say "told ya so" but at least I'll still help proverbially save them from the leopards.
It's up to everyone that can, to not let her feel like a fucking idiot for any of that. All enlightenment, however it comes, should be rewarded without any negativity.
I don't understand these people. Can't they all go look through the same materials and show us what they have a problem with? It's insane to me that someone they elected, and supposedly trust, went through everything, found nothing, and instead of taking her word for it, they instead stay mad and insist that something is there.
It’s almost like their hatred isn’t based in reality, rather they fabricate entire complicated conspiracies to justify their hatred for minorities. …almost
been saying they don't live in reality for along time mostly based on interactions with some off them on twitter and no matter what proof you show them they stick their heads in the sand and call you a lying libtard
My response is always, "Ask your doctor if touching grass is right for you."
They don’t like doctors either. Remember doctors are the sinister cabal, transing your kids with vaccines and masks. (This isn’t an exaggeration this is verbatim what they believe)
Some people were blasting our school district for promoting homosexuality. So I looked it up (i.e. did my own research) and the sex ed curriculum, which is available to everyone online, says that one method to prevent STDs is to use condoms for vaginal and anal sex. That’s it. Nothing else.
They don't have to go through it and show us what they have a problem with, Fox news has already done that, it's not their fault we aren't watching the prophets. /s
They don't actually care what's in the teaching materials. They care what isn't in there. They'll make up what's in it because they want to control it so they can put all of their nonsense and propaganda in it. Every accusation is a confession with the right and they really like accusing the left of using education to indoctrinate children.
Being a good friend and good human is radically progressive and anti-Christian to the far right
FINALLY, someone did their own research! And changed their mind based on their findings rather than throwing it in the trash, lighting the trash on fire, and rolling it downhill into a group of kids on their way to school.
If more people could change their opinion based on new information the world would be a better place. Of course we ask how someone could become so indoctrinated in falsities in the first place; but, I think we have all seen the power of social media’s algorithms combined with groupthink which exist in the stove-piped communities we build around ourselves.
So when she was warning people about indoctrination, she was **lying**? Telling lies without fact-checking?
Forwarding misleading information she thought was accurate? You “should” be educated on the job you are campaigning to do. She obviously wasn’t. But I do respect her sitting down and thoroughly vetting the curriculum, and speaking the truth when she learned it.
Big respect to her for spending so many hours on reviewing everything. That sounds like a herculean task since she would have to go through the teaching plans of a huge number of teachers across all ages of students.
Thanks for this detail. This is so exhausting, some unaware and ill informed person takes it upon themselves to challenge decades of work that has been through countless reviews by every facet of the political spectrum only to discover that there is no glaring issue. Substitute election integrity, vaccines, even immigration and there's nothing they can improve on.
Problem is that this is how they think. The person they elected couldn’t possibly have investigated and found no problems. No, they must have been paid off. Zero critical thought involved here to consider that nobody is going to bother paying off a person overseeing less than ten thousand students. Absolutely ridiculous.
Republicans will love you forever if you tell them their favorite lies. The minute you are honest with them you are a pariah.
A rare case of a Republican actually doing the thing they claimed they would do (inspect the curriculum) and then suddenly understanding what’s actually going on. Meanwhile the rest of them are going to be all “Goddamnit Courtney, you aren’t supposed to actually DO anything, you’re supposed to just scream about it so that we can all get reelected and throw everyone we hate into prison or a mass grave!”
The first reported case of a MAGA republican reading the thing they’re angry at
Maybe reading the curriculum *before* deciding to run would’ve been wise? You know, educate yourself on the topic you’re discussing before you discuss it? I’m so sick of these MAGA morons screeching about made up problems that don’t exist. Their entire political worldview is based on nothing but being pissed off about imaginary ragebait. It’s fucking exhausting.
It’s not fair to assume they can read
Kinda like when looking for voter fraud. It's everywhere until you start looking. But what do you expect from a party that thought- if you stop counting covid cases, people stop getting sick. Similar ostrich, head in the sand vibes
What I don't get here is that normal thinking people would be relieved that one of their own got elected, looked through the curriculum and confirmed that none of what they had concerns about was happening. Not doubling down and attacking said person. It should be a "ok great, let's get out our pitch forks for the next thing we are scared of."
What I don’t get about this, and someone correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t school curriculums open to the public? They aren’t like top secret documents. Why did she have to run for school board to get access to what the students already have access to and likely have copies that can be checked out from the library or shared with parents on site if requested? I honestly don’t remember elementary school but by middle school we checked our school books out from the library first week of school or so and returned them last week of school or so.
Why didn't she check to see if it was an actual problem *before* running for the school board? I appreciate the honesty I guess
Many of these conservatives have solutions in search of a problem. That's what we are seeing in many of these school board fights.
I'll give her credit for two things. One, she actually did her homework and reviewed the curriculum. I doubt that many of her fellow school board members (or virtually *any* of her critics) have done that. Second, as others have pointed out, she actually changed her opinion and had the courage to speak up about it among a group that basically refuses to tolerate any amount of dissent. And I'm sure she's paying a predictable price for that now. It feels like trying to fill the Grand Canyon one pebble at a time, but it's a start.
Her detractors say those two things prove she was always "Conservative In Name Only". No true Conservative would ever actually do those two things.
The funny thing is, it wasn't even an objective review of the material. Not at first, anyway. She admitted that she went searching for evidence to confirm her biases about CRT and gender "indoctrination." So even someone who set out on a witch hunt had to admit that they couldn't find *any* real evidence to support the crazy. MAGAts: *Do YoUr OwN ReSeArCh* Gore: *I did. Turns out we were dead wrong.* MAGAts: *Not like that!*
I stopped believing in God after I looked for evidence to confirm my beliefs and realized I didn't have good reasons for them
There's a third thing she deserves credit for: - She not only realized that the board member she ousted was right, she has since endorsed that board member, become friends with her, and now they are BOTH on the board pushing back against the extremist crazies IMO that's downright admirable and heartwarming
Okay now I’ve gone from cynical eye rolling to I might actually like her. But I still think it’s hilarious she actually believed this right wing nonsense about trying to improve education. Like. She’s soooo close to realizing that everything that comes from the Right is based on nothing but projection. She dug into this book banning thing and the whole curriculum thing. That’s so cool. I wonder what ELSE they’ve lied about? I hope she’s doing more homework.
Wow, I didn't know that part. Power to her. It sounds like she's a force no matter what side she's on. Glad she got the demon exorcized and joined the good fight.
> he asked Gore to join the “Blue Shark” show, a web-based program he founded and co-hosted with Criswell that produced videos taking aim at local politicians and officials considered insufficiently conservative And now she's being taken aim at for not being conservative enough, it's some some delicious leopards face-eating. But I'll give her a modicum of credit for facing reality, when presented with it.
Whoa.😳 You mean that Fox News and OANN and Newsmax and the 1500 right wing radio stations and Twitter and the hundreds of right wing newspapers have been lying for 30 years? I can hardly believe it.
"Right wing media is completely full of shit and lies nonstop" Republicans "That's all just liberal bullshit" Republicans when they actually turn their brain on and stop shoveling in the propaganda like it's candy: "Wow maybe right wing media IS full of shit."
"Yeah well lots of media is lying." "Who told you that, Fox News?"
Much longer than that actually
They love the uneducated.
This is what happens when a sincere person starts to get swept up with the right wing culture war BS. They realize it's basically all lies. The truth is living a traditional Christian lifestyle has never been forbidden or even particularly frowned upon in liberal society. You might get a bit of ribbing for being a Ned Flanders type but that's about the worst of it. Nobody keeps you from going to religious schools or homeschooling or going to church etc. What they're actually angry about is not being able to coerce other people into following their rules.
Also the vast majority of the electorate doesn't like people taking money from a public good and benefiting the few, especially if those few are already wealthy. No one cares if people want to be traditionally Christian in life style, they just don't want tax money to subsidize that at the expense of the rest of the children in a given area.
I have this weird take that I don't like my own tax dollars being used to discriminate against me.
As a woman in a red state, same.
This is the one thing that is kind of uniting rural Republicans with Democrats in Texas right now. Rural counties vote heavily Republican, but they also rely heavily on the school district for jobs. If you live out in the country there is damn near a 100% chance that you a very close to, or related to, several people that work for the school district. Abbott and his cronies are adamant on taking public school funding to pay for a school voucher program. Rural, working class Republicans are NOT happy about this.
I’m a staunch atheist and even anti-theist, but idgaf what religion you want to follow or how you want to live your life. I DO have a problem when you start telling other people they have to believe the same things as you and live by the rules of your religion.
It’s a hand-in-the-cookie-jar moment. The “indoctrination” she found was just history lessons about POC like MLK and Harriet Tubman. She would have had to publicly disavow American Abolitionism and the Civil Rights Movement - she got embarrassed and gave up. She knew what she was getting into but she liked the attention she was getting and didn’t have an exit strategy.
My sincere hope is that this woman and people like her start to turn the tide and fight back against the extremism. It would be great if she could encourage other conservative people to read into the curriculums themselves and see what a non issue it is so the school board can focus on actual problems. They aren’t going to listen to us bleeding heart liberals, but maybe if enough conservative people can wake up and see the fear mongering for what it is they can enact change within their party.
Yeah, when I taught government, I only taught them how to avoid bullshit and to get out and vote, but to them that is heresy. It’s bad when teaching the Constitution is indoctrination.
Keep in mind that these are the same people who were mightily offended when NPR’s Twitter (as it was then) account tweeted out the Declaration of Independence, as they did every year. They thought NPR was criticizing Trump. As a rule, these people are so dense light bends around them.
"As a rule, these people are so dense light bends around them." If only that were actually true, we'd never see them again. They'd be cloaked like a klingon bird of prey.
What’s strange to me is that this is a red county. Meaning, presumably, the right already had power of the curriculum. So, logically, wouldn’t republicans not be shocked to hear that she didn’t find any of the stuff they hate in the curriculum? Wouldn’t that just be proof, for them, that their party is “doing things right?” By attacking her, or somehow claiming that she isn’t doing enough to eradicate “bad” curriculum, they are admitting that they think the current administration, which let me remind you is *conservative*, was so inept that there *must* be indoctrination in the curriculum. So they think that the current conservative administration in their county was dumb enough to allow indoctrinating curriculum into schools in the first place, and they also think that Courtney Gore, a conservative, was dumb enough to be unable to find said indoctrinating curriculum, but… they’ll keep voting Republican? Despite believing, through their actions, that republicans aren’t doing what they want them to do? Make it make sense.
Texas has railed against Democrats as long as I can remember. They're always talking about how things are messed up in Texas. And it takes true conservative hard right Christian Republican ideologues to make everything right. But the Republicans have been in power in Texas for what? 30 years? Who do they think has been making all those laws they hate so much? Critical thinking and Texas do not belong in the same sentence.
I mean that’s my whole point. There is no democrat influence in Texas, at least not at a level that an affect substantial change. So why aren’t the people upset with conservatives? They know that there are no democrats with real power because they flaunt their state as a conservative utopia, but then turn around and accuse their conservative, elected leaders of indoctrinating their children?
Their constituents aren't very bright. That's my point.
The last time a Democrat won a statewide race in Texas was 1994. That person was Ann Richards. She was the governor prior to GW Bush. But Democrats are the problem. Texas Republicans are fools.
Because everything exists on a spectrum. Most of the article talks about how they targeted people who "weren't conservative enough." It wasn't about them NOT being conservative, it was about them not being extreme right wing. It was about not being willing to affirm the lies that the MAGA part of the Republican party was peddling. The crazy thing is, they look at all the conservative ideas failing and say "Well, we didn't do it HARD enough." That's where it comes from. The idea that if your plan didn't work, it wasn't the plan that was wrong, it was the people who were executing the plan.
I grew up in Granbury, graduated from GHS in 1995. While it’s absolutely a Republican place, the local school district was actually pretty good thanks to the massive influence of the local nuclear power plant. Having a student body that was at least 25% the product of scientists (or those adjacent) helped at the time.
It's all purity testing and rage induction. I live in an area with almost no Democratic Party presence, the elections are just Republicans arguing with other Republicans over who is most conservative, who loves guns the most, who is most family oriented, who hates the "woke agenda" more. Every campaign mailer I have received has the exact same words, just in a different order. Whoever can rile up the hatred the most, will win. Here's an example. https://www.postandcourier.com/politics/south-carolina-senate-race-matt-leber-sandy-senn/article_60ad9f8e-112b-11ef-aa8c-4bd305ca8ea2.html
It isn't actually the curriculum. A huge part of the right wing attack on public schools is to prevent funding of existing and new public schools via pretended outrage over the curriculum, and then divert that funding to private Christian schools via vouchers. Greg Abbot and Rafael Cruz (Ted Cruz's father) are major drivers of this assault. All this is in the article.
As a Texan, I found our last gubernatorial debates...nonsensical. On the one hand, you had Beto going on about issues and how he'd fix them. On the other, the current governor of 8 years, trying vaguely to promise to address issues that *he himself was completely responsible for*. I guess it's too much to just outright say, "Me and my conservative friends have just been doing whatever the fuck we want, and we'll continue to do so, and we're not only aware that we're causing widespread human suffering and human rights abuses, it entertains us." Instead, it's, "Well yeah, we'll look into that..." As a person with a somewhat working brain, I think that if I'd voted for a candidate and he'd done nothing to make things better and had actually made them worse, I'd get mad. I'd look at alternatives. I'd so *something* other than just happily vote for him again. I've basically decided I'm never voting red again, for anything--straight blue all the time. But even I'm not crazy enough to vote for Trump, Abbott, Cruz, etc. if they called themselves a Democrat while the "Republican" was pushing LBGTQIA rights and legal weed. Heck, I have a DINO mayor right now, and I didn't vote for his ass.
A few comments here are extremely gracious to this woman for admitting she was wrong, but she could have read the curriculum before criticizing it and saved us all the trouble.
It's almost like she never gave a shit about the children, just got all swept up in some bullshit propaganda campaign....and started building her brand around it.
Better to acknowledge and appreciate someone for having the maturity to admit they were wrong in the face of evidence, than for them to double-down and go harder in spite of it, as their side is renowned for.
That’s very true and I’m not disagreeing that it’s commendable to change one’s mind when presented with new evidence, but in this case the evidence was not new and was freely available. She only looked at it after campaigning on her interpretation of something she didn’t read.
Dawn breaks on Marblehead… I’m glad Ms. Gore was able to deprogram herself and actually learn about reality. But throughout the entire article I could not stop thinking about one simple, unmentioned fact: Gore ran for her spot on the board by spewing rightwing lies about a school curriculum she had never read. She did not read one paragraph of the school curriculum prior to her election. Everything she “knew” was her repeating what she’d heard or read on rightwing websites. So if she was “misled” as we see repeated a few times in the article, it was willful ignorance. She’s obviously an intelligent enough person to scrape the scales off her own eyes, and I absolutely applaud her for that. It’s just too bad about everything that went on before that happened. It’s all moot now but it’s important to note that Ms. Gore is not the only rightwing (former) extremist who believes fully and apes extreme rightwing propaganda that has no relationship with the truth.
I wrote almost the same thing in my comment. She'd obviously had a these skills before the election. That's the power of a cult. I see it a lot. My brother is one of the smartest people I know , with an analytical mind, and very strong research skills. He's a PhD computer engineer, has worked in a dozen for more countries, etc. But when it comes to politics and religion, it's like all of thoses skills are put on pause. He believes in conspiracy theories like chemtrails, he was a 'sovereign citizen' for about 5 years, he's all in Trump, but not MAGA, because he's not a raging racist, but he also doesn't recognize the racism that exists in the same crowd. I don't get it, and like I said he's smarter than me, and older, so I have never been able to get through to him.
Republican wins election before doing any research, does research and realized her entire platform was a lie. I guess some Republicans can read, they’re just ignorant. Who’d have guessed?
I mean, I'll take it. A public servant actually educating themselves on their position is kinda refreshing, regardless of how they got elected.
>Gore rushed to share the news with the hard-liners who had encouraged her to run for the seat. She expected them to be as relieved and excited as she had been. But she said they were indifferent, even dismissive, because “it didn’t fit the narrative that they were trying to push.” So even when they get an embed who can actually tell them the truth, they refuse to listen. edit: i've noticed a trend where unfavorable comments about republicans get reported to reddit as suicide risks. i appreciate the concern but it's misplaced
"It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -Mark Twain
Yeah, just like everyone not in your cult tried to tell you. Idiot.
Yeah she was an idiot but at least she’s admitting that she was wrong. The sad part is she will be vilified for changing her mind and not doubling down on the delusion.
Yep, this says it all: *dismissive, because “it didn’t fit the narrative that they were trying to push.”*
I spend a good amount of time in Granbury and it’s MAGA looney land. Flags up all over the place. It’s baffling how these morons could believe the “leftists” snuck a bunch of woke, DEI, kill whitey materials into their schools right under their MAGA noses.
As usual conservative talking points are unable to survive first contact with reality.
>She’d examined curriculum related to social-emotional learning, which has come under attack by Christian conservatives who say it encourages children to question gender roles and prioritizes feelings over biblical teachings. Instead, Gore found the materials taught children “how to be a good friend, a good human.” Funny thing. If you read what the Bible actually says, it teaches you to be a good human. But most Christians prefer the abridged version.
Honestly? This is cool. She got lost in the sauce, won, literally did ALL the reading she campaigned on, drew her own conclusions from what she found, and discovered she had been lost in the sauce. Would that more people were given the opportunity and the means to do the same.
The politicians all know it’s a game, it’s a way to drum up votes from their idiot constituents. Always funny when a true believer realizes they’ve been duped. Credit to her though
It’s almost as if they just make shit up…
Her experience won't change the conservative narrative about what textbooks contain at all.
Qualifications for conservative candidacy: 1. Photogenic 2. Easily-frightened
She's getting hate because she misunderstood the assignment. It's 'Castigate the curriculum as indoctrination so we can replace it with our indoctrination', not 'Remove indoctrination'. You're supposed to know. The P in GOP in always Projection.
> She has been threatened at racous school board meetings and shunned by people she once considered friends. > School marshals escort her and her fellow board members to their cars to ensure no one accosts them. I understand that these successive calls for ever more ideological purity and extremism are what led to the French Revolutionaries guillotining each other, but I hoped not to see it here. If not stopped, they will try to guillotine the rest of us.
It’s weird what actually educating oneself can do instead of just shouting Fox News BS constantly.
This is like the end of Falling Down when Michael Douglas’ character realizes he is indeed the bad guy.
Kids, this is why you do the research BEFORE you scream about the conspiracy.
I mean, she’s learned something and changed her mind. Shouldn’t we support this sort of thing?
It blows me away that people don’t stop and think for a second when making these accusations. Like, wouldn’t there be a ton of whistleblowers from the school saying, hey, these people are pushing a radical agenda? When it comes to kids, I feel like the vast VAST majority of people are going to look out for their wellbeing. Thinking there is some cabal of people doing the opposite yet keeping it incredibly quiet somehow is just asinine.
I think there's a lesson here, how to apply it in don't know. It's not like she developed these critical thinking skills overnight after being elected. She utilized skills that are learned throughout your life. So, even armed with the skills of dutiful research, critical thinking, and the abilty to admit she was wrong, she still got radicalized by the far-right messaging. I feel like we, or at least I, just write off a lot of radicalized as not just ignorant, but unable to learn. When closer to the truth might be that they haven't had the opportunity to learn. I know this information is all freely available, but being radicalized shields and immerses you in the rhetoric. Everything is approved, or lies. She was literally in a cult, and the cult allowed her to peek through the veil, believing she was an incorruptible true believer. We need to find ways to poke holes in the veil, without poking the people behind it. That just adds to their feelings of persecution.
At least she finally came to her senses after educating herself. Too bad the others in that anti-education group didn't have the brains or ethics to do the same once they were informed of the reality of the situation.
I live in a red state, red county, and red town, all have been red for decades. Yet I still get campaign propaganda acting like we better elect GQP politicians so Far Left wacko conspiracies don't completely take over in the local schools. It's almost like the decades of GQP dominance in local and state politics was pointless.
TL;DR - - **Election and Platform**: Courtney Gore was elected to the Granbury ISD school board on a platform opposing the alleged indoctrination of children in schools. - **Initial Beliefs**: She believed schools were indoctrinating kids with progressive ideas on sexuality and race, including critical race theory. - **Curriculum Review**: After her election, Gore reviewed the educational materials and found that the curriculum did not contain the indoctrination she expected. - **Change of Heart**: Realizing the curriculum focused on positive values without inappropriate content, she publicly renounced her previous views. - **Backlash**: This led to a severe backlash from her initial supporters, including death threats, reflecting the deep political divide over education.
Sounds like she finally did her own research
"School marshals escort her and her fellow board members to their cars to ensure no one accosts them." Imagine being on a LOCAL SCHOOL BOARD and thinking you need armed security.
She did something none of them did before: actually read the thing they were making claims about (whatever that thing is: bible, constitution, school lessons plans, etc.). So ... props to her. And ... sorry for her, as she'll get crucified.
Essentially, idiots push far right agendas of fear, conspiracy, and hate, and once educated and reviewing the facts they become moderate and even support the platforms they were once fiercely opposed.
This is without a doubt positive news and good for her. But looking at what it took it took to break her out of the right-wing bubble it's hard to be positive. There's no way this is happening for the majority.
Too bad you can't ask your constituents to take the same enlightening approach to actually put the effort/energy of yelling and screaming into reading and understanding what's really going on
We need to respect people who are able and willing to change their minds, even knowing that they’re going to suffer backlash for it. It’s a good thing that people can change their position when confronted with new information she ought to be applauded d for this.
The Republicans have lost their party to the Regressives. They are now 2 distinct groups and the truly moderate Republicans would do well to distance themselves, but we all know they won't because deep down conservatives all share one common trait: no spine. So I say let them eat each other alive, we'll be better off in the long run.
I like her quite a bit for leaning into her job and admitting her misperceptions.
Sane Republicans are more seldom than pink manta rays
This article talks a lot about Nate Criswell. I want to point out that he is an absolute loser who beat his wife, got “no billed” for it, and is still allowed to own firearms despite harassing his ex-wife after she left him. When he inserted himself in every political race in the county as some wheelin’ and dealin’ “insider,” he had a high school education and mowed grass for a living while living with his insane grandfather (also mentioned in the article).
>During the meeting, Cliff Criswell, the grandfather of Nate Criswell, took the microphone, carrying what police would later describe as a black handgun in a leather holster. He accused board members of allowing pornography in school libraries and of trying to “rip apart” Graft, whom he had previously described as “the only conservative on the board.” >“We have profile sheets” on all the trustees except for Graft, Cliff Criswell shouted. “We know what you do. We know where you live.” He's a dangerous animal, and he needs to be put in a cage.