‘Never apologize’: How Moms for Liberty teaches its members to spin the media
‘Never apologize’: How Moms for Liberty teaches its members to spin the media
A media training session at the organization's annual conference provided a rare look inside the effort to control the narrative.
PHILADELPHIA — Last week, a local Indiana chapter of Moms for Liberty attracted attention for quoting Adolf Hitler in its newsletter. After the local paper reported the story, the group added additional “context” but kept the quote. Eventually, after it faced even more scrutiny, the organization removed the quote and apologized in a statement posted to its Facebook group.
That, however, was a big mistake, according to advice at the Moms for Liberty national conference’s media training session Friday.
“Never apologize. Ever,” said Christian Ziegler, the chairman of the Florida Republican Party. “This is my view. Other people have different views on this. I think apologizing makes you weak.”
He advised the attendees to instead make it clear that the Hitler comment was “vile” but to immediately pivot to make the point that Hitler indoctrinated children in schools and that that’s what Moms for Liberty was fighting against. Ziegler warned that any apology would become the headline, so that should be avoided.
You read that right. He said to not apologize for quoting Hitler. That's what we're dealing with now.
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This is indicative of a shitty rhetorical strategy. Really, the only way to hold someone accountable when they use this strategy is to insist on continuing to talk about your main issue, not whatever they want to say.
So, if they pivot to making a point against Hitler's indoctrination of children, then take it back to their use of a Hitler quote that makes that point relevant in the first place.
I may be butting into a topic I don't understand. I don't know much about these Moms for Liberty except that I thing I've heard that they support trump.
The quote in question is: "He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future.”
It's pretty ambiguous in its meaning and intent. In the context where it was used: advocating for parents to have more control over their children's education: aka decentralize control of children.
But let me point you to a less catchy but far more horrifying quote:
I rarely agree with or endorse or agree with violence. But the rise of the far-right shitbirds has really led me to believe that perhaps General Sherman really should’ve gone all the way to the sea.
If I learned anything from playing Civilzation, even when you win a neighboring city over to your side with culture or trade alone, they’re always going to be a problem. It’s better to just raze the whole damn thing to the ground and start over in the same spot.
It has 2 upvotes and I'm the only downvote ...
You talk about bad faith actors using shitty strategy to derail the debate. They're affirming that parents should have more control over their children's education, they unwisely used a Hitler quote without enough context in one of their publication and now that's all you want to talk about.
I haven't looked into it but I'm pretty sure that the greater context here is that these parents don't want their kids to be taught that "it's ok to be gay" and "kill the trans" is a bad thing to say. They probably won't say it publicly, but that's what I suspect is really going on.
And if I see them on the fediverse making these kinds of statements I might call them out on it. If I see them accusing the other side of acting in bad faith by acting in bad faith themselves, I might call them all on it. And if I see them almost directly calling for armed conflict, you bet your ass I'll DEFINITELY call them out on it.
But guess who it is that I see acting in bad faith right now? You.
And guess who it is that I see kinda, "but really just joking", advocating for armed conflict / quasi genocide? Someone on this thread getting upvoted that I won't even give the respect of directly responding to.
"I may be butting into a topic I don't understand. I don't know much about these Moms for Liberty except that I thing I've heard that they support trump." I mean, it doesn't take that much effort to go to wikipedia, but here, I've even done it for you:
Mom's for Liberty is so much worse than what you're implying here. They're not some innocent gathering of parents who don't want certain things taught in schools. They're an astroturf, highly GOP connected, right wing campaign that has supported many things like anti-vax propaganda, book bans, anti-LGBT legislature, and the rest of the "normal" GOP stuff. They have an extensive history of getting caught calling for violence against those they disagree with. They have 3 separate sections on Wikipedia about the different people they have been caught threatening with violence.
They were literally labeled an extremist group recently.
From the very few references to them I've seen, that's exactly what I assumed them to be.
That doesn't excuse the behavior I see in this thread. By not addressing their points from a charitable perspective, you're playing right into the astroturfer's hands.
If you have real evidence to present of their true agenda, then present it. Otherwise, fight their presented agenda directly and advocate against their hidden agenda indirectly.
But most importantly there's a comment on here jokingly kinda calling for armed genocide with as of writing SEVETEEN upvotes. There's something deeply wrong with this community and that's what I object to the most.
"By not addressing their points from a charitable perspective, you're playing right into the astroturfer's hands."
That's the exact opposite of how this works. The GOP astroturfers want the conversation to be about "addressing concerns of these poor mothers, whose innocent children are being subjected to XYZ" meanwhile they get to keep fear mongering and raising money. You can tell these people that book banning isn't a good idea for thousands of reasons but that'd be meaningless. They don't care about book banning in the first place. They care about raising money and fear mongering as a way to do so.
And now you're accusing them of being Nazi's. But THEY know they're not Nazis (well those of them that aren't nazis think they're not nazis). So who are you trying to convince? Yourselves? Now they're worried because people are lying about them and what they want and then they'll just donate to the astroturfing organization that's protecting them from the unhinged lunatics accusing them of being nazis.
You need to fight on both fronts, you have to use a charitable approach to slow down grass roots recruiting. AND you attack the values and falsehoods behind the hidden agenda.
They have their public claims and they have their behind closed doors claims. You combat their public claims directly and proactively promote the counterarguments to their behind closed doors claims.
You also indict them for ACTUAL poor behavior that they've done.
This is the best source I could find for the original context for the Hitler quote. Sticking strictly to the context of that image, it's classic: Hitler did this thing that the government is doing, that's why we have to fight against it.
I don't have the actual original before the yellow box was added, so I can't say if the yellow box was the only change. But now all you're doing by attacking them on this nothingburger of a Hitler quote, is you've given them ammunition to talk about how irrational and unreasonable the people opposing them are.
The accusation of ambitions similar to that of Hitler could be true, but your evidence doesn't support it at all. All you're doing is whipping up your side to an irrational fervor which will get noticed by the other side and then they'll do the same thing.
You're making things worse, not better.
I don't know. That's how I do advocacy, maybe it's ineffective. I think it works on the people where something can work and doesn't work on the people where nothing worse. This more unhinged kinda of advocacy is pushing away the people on whom it can work, helps turn the people on your side into lunatics and helps to turn people on the other side into even worse lunatics.
And now you’re accusing them of being Nazi’s. But THEY know they’re not Nazis (well those of them that aren’t nazis think they’re not nazis).
Well then maybe they shouldn't intentionally cough over moments of silence for Holocaust victims.
And excusing that sort of behavior by claiming it's not the group it's just individuals is nonsense. The group encourages it. The group supports it.
Just from a couple of passing references in the passed, I already basically assumed they were far right anti lgbtq+ pieces of shit.
It's just now when I see all the "evidence" you're giving in support of that I'm almost reconsidering my original position... Ok, but not really.
They coughed during a moment of silent purportedly to be in recognition of the victims of the holocausts but the context is clear that the intent was just to humiliate this particular political group.
That's not evidence of anything. It's just another nothing burger.
How is the context clear there? It sure isn't clear to me. And isn't there a better way to "humiliate" someone than mocking a Holocaust remembrance? Especially after quoting Hitler?
I can see that very little is ever clear to you except your preconceived notions.
Obviously, I meant that it was the opponents of the Moms for Liberty that were attempting to humiliate the Moms for Liberty by calling for a moment of silence.
And you keep saying "quoting Hitler" as if that was an indictment on their (the Moms of Liberty) character. They were quoting Hitler in condemnation to his statement, not in support of it.
The opponents were not the ones coughing. Don't gaslight.
And their quote was in big letters in a box by itself with no context, so yeah, it is an indictment of their character. Then they did a half-apology. Then they walked it back. They're proud of their Hitler quote and they happily interrupted a moment of silence for Holocaust victims by coughing through it.
What are you talking about? I never said anything about Nazis. You said you didn't know who they were so I sent you a link to Wikipedia. Then you said something about treating a astroturfed company with alterior motives charitably. And I said that's a bad idea. No idea where the rest of this is coming from.
But guess who it is that I see acting in bad faith right now? You.
Yeah, can you explain this a bit more?
From my perspective, I only said don't let them change the issue being discussed because...well...that's what's being discussed, not their self-aggrandizing goals. And I offered a strategy to do that.
In contrast, you're associating me with some quote about killing "far-right shitbirds" because...why? I'm not seeing the logic of the association between me and that quote or about how I'm acting in bad faith.
I accidently replied as a top comment here: https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/133199/-/comment/522700
No one is getting genocided because a guy on lemmy suggested a dead general should've done more. To everyone but you it's obviously a hyperbolic statement.
Fuck Moms for liberty, they are a hateful and harmful group and do not deserve any measure of tolerance or respect.