Republican extremism will cost us our democracy if we don't fight it
I’m a story producer for Red Wine & Blue, a community of half a million diverse women organizing against extremism in their communities. I talk to women every day about how they’re seeing rising extremism, from attempted book bans from groups like Moms for Liberty and Take Back Our Schools, to gun violence by white supremacists, and attacks on reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ people by the Republican party.
But I also hear about how women are getting involved, sometimes for the first time. Recently, I interviewed 16 women for a limited series podcast called "The Cost of Extremism." Some were survivors of gun violence, some were educators and some were trans activists. They shared the toll that extremism is taking on our children with me, from hiding in dark places during active shooter drills to the threat of violence if they are trans.
Where I live in Ohio, Red Wine & Blue volunteers worked tirelessly talking to their fellow Ohioans across the political spectrum about voting to protect reproductive health care and our democracy.
A change of pace for the GOP: A post-Ohio message from the Republicans on abortion – On second thought, we’re pro-choice!
Voters, especially women, turned out in force against Issue 1 in a frivolous $20 million special election orchestrated by Ohio Republican politicians to try to raise the threshold for citizen-led ballot proposals from a simple majority to 60%. And across the country, mainstream Americans are speaking up against book bans and voting against extreme school board candidates who are supported by politicians like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Republicans are fighting guns measure to protect children
One of the first women I interviewed for "The Cost of Extremism" was Mia Tretta, a wounded survivor of the 2019 Saugus High School shooting in Santa Clarita, California, – a shooting I had never even heard of. I had to catch my breath when she told me she had just graduated from high school. She was only 18. My own daughter just started high school recently and, like many parents, I don’t even want to think about my kid being in this position four years from now.
Tretta told me that kids like her that are in the gun violence prevention movement wish they could just live a normal life like so many other teenagers. But while her peers are going to the beach every weekend, she’s advocating in Washington, D.C., for stronger gun legislation because instead of increasing gun regulation, Republicans are easing restrictions to carry firearms.
The fact that we have legislators who want to bring more guns into our schools and spend billions of dollars to train our kids how to fight off shooters and use tourniquets to help each other if their classmate is bleeding is beyond wild. It’s a reality I refuse to accept.
The extreme attacks on transgender people
I also interviewed Alejandra Caraballo, a trans activist. The amount of hate and disinformation about transgender people is outrageous, especially when it comes to the youth. At this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, Michael Knowles actually said, “Transgenderism must be eradicated.”
Some extremists, such as Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, are even trying to strip funding from children's hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to trans youth. But, as Caraballo explained, gender-affirming care starts with creating a loving environment that includes therapy and support.
Social transitioning usually means a haircut, different clothes, new pronouns and maybe a name change. Then as trans youth hit puberty, they may start puberty blockers to give them more time to figure out their identity. In the three years before COVID-19, fewer than 8% of surgery patients were 12- to 18-year-olds, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open.
Data from the Trans Legislation Tracker shows that just this year, an unprecedented 566 anti-trans bills have been introduced – a number expected to grow as the 2024 election inches closer. These include restricting what sports teams kids can play on and what bathroom they can use at school.
Their hate won't win: LGBTQ+ politicians like me fight for equality. We'll keep winning despite vile attacks.
Last year, a Utah high school athletics association went as far as secretly investigating a female athlete – without telling her or her parents – after receiving complaints from the parents of two girls she had defeated in competition suggesting the girl was transgender.
When referring to Republicans targeting trans people, Alejandra said, “This is the biggest issue in primary, not actual kitchen table issues, not inflation, not employment, not pay, not the economy, not gas prices, health care access – none of that. No, it's trans people. It's an obsession.”
Extremists are willing to demonize a group of people to try to get votes and stay in power. We all should be horrified by this.
And then we have Moms for Liberty
The final story I want to share is about Jennifer Jenkins. She serves on the school board of Brevard County in Florida, a seat she won by defeating the incumbent, Tina Descovich.
Descovich is the co-founder of Moms for Liberty, a group labeled as "extremist" by the Southern Poverty Law Center because it's seeking to undermine public education, block schools from teaching accurate history and divide communities through book bans, taking over school boards and targeting LGBTQ+ kids.
Members have called for LGBTQ+ kids to be put in separate classrooms. A chapter in Indiana recently quoted Hitler in its newsletter. Last year, when Moms for Liberty took over a school board in the Berkeley County School District in South Carolina, the board fired the district's first Black superintendent.
Jenkins told me about the constant harassment and intimidation she has experienced from this group, like when people showed up in front of her home with signs calling her a pedophile and a child abuser in front of her daughter. She said, “I would label it trauma, it was traumatizing. The only thing I could do to survive, though, was to keep pushing forward. I didn't have time to wallow. I didn't have time to think about backing down. I was just trying to survive.”
What I want is for people to get their heads out of the sand and wake up to the reality of what extremism is doing to our country. Extremism will cost us our communities, public education and ultimately our democracy if we don’t do something to protect the future for our kids. These stories in "The Cost of Extremism" are the wake-up call we all need.
This is an updated version of a column that originally ran in the Cincinnati Inquirer. Jill Jonassen is the story producer at Red Wine & Blue. She lives in Liberty Township with her husband and two children.
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This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Moms for Liberty represent a larger Republican campaign of extremism.
