All of Our Children Are Worth Fighting For

We are witnessing a backlash to equity unparalleled in our lifetime. Public education has become the battleground in the war over the future of our democracy, and schools are being used to drive a wedge in our communities and country. This threatens the children being targeted with these attacks, the future of public education itself, and is a strategy directly out of the playbook to drive folks towards authoritarianism. 

We are proactively talking to moderate women about the culture war issues we know they are being inundated with and developing effective strategies for fighting against noxious anti-LGBTQ+, antisemitic, anti-Black, anti-Asian, anti-immigrant, and anti-public education narratives. Without intervention, these narratives heighten the desire to protect one’s children, family, and community from threat and to the perceived safety and security of a strongman leader. 

Educational ads like this one by our nonpartisan affiliate, Galvanize USA, inoculate against messages designed to trigger fear of the “other” by meeting women at their values and sidestepping those fear-driven defense mechanisms. 

Why does this type of messaging work so well? The ad below from our 2022 work countering the disinformation about critical race theory walks you through how we use neuroscience to effectively connect with our audience.

The attacks on LGBTQ+ rights go well beyond the classroom. We saw anti-trans ads in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race earlier this year and opponents of Ohio’s Right to Reproductive Freedom ballot measure are focusing on trans rights and “parental rights” as the basis of their opposition despite no mention of either in the abortion amendment. It’s clear that such efforts to polarize and divide us through culture war issues will not slow down in the coming year. The path forward requires long-term engagement to strengthen our democracy with individuals committed to protecting all of our children and our rights.