The "Putinization" of Public Education: Texas superintendent tells librarians to pull books on sexuality, transgender people

What we see happening in Granbury ISD with Superintendent Glenn is nothing short of fascism, making it hard for me not to think of Vladimir Putin (read: "Putin's warning to anti-war Russians evokes Stalinist purges").

I hope folks see the irony that censorship and enforcing a fictitious narrative of heteronormativity by banning LGBTQ books is similar to what Putin is doing right now with Russians—and ostensibly, the world—to impose his fictions on the war he launched against Ukraine.

The colossal tragedy here is that there is so much freedom to be experienced in respecting and honoring difference together with observing others' dignity, especially children and youth in one's care. Hence, under the guise of upholding "the values of our community" Superintendent Glenn's words and actions send a terrible message of contempt toward those same children and youth that he should be protecting.

If, on the other hand, his motivations really are to purge Granbury ISD of those he sees as "scum and traitors," this would make Putin very proud.

Friends, this is full-blown fascism. We're a democracy. It's in our DNA.

We need to vote, run for office, and get involved in the legislative process. This hateful, fear-mongering, backwards, and morally bankrupt leadership needs to occupy the dustbin of history. The sooner, the better.

-Angela Valenzuela

Texas superintendent tells librarians to pull books on sexuality, transgender people

The Granbury superintendent’s comments, made on a leaked recording, raise constitutional concerns, legal experts said.

March 23, 2022, 12:30 PM CDT

By Mike Hixenbaugh and Jeremy Schwartz, ProPublica/The Texas Tribune

For months, conservative parents and politicians across Texas had been pressuring districts to remove from school libraries any books that contain explicit descriptions of sex, labeling several young adult novels as “pornography.” Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, called for criminal investigations into school employees who make such content available to students.

Many of the titles targeted statewide have featured queer characters and storylines, but those calling for the books’ removal have repeatedly said they are concerned only with sex and vulgarity, not with suppressing the views of LGBTQ students and authors.

Glenn made a similar argument during his closed-door meeting with librarians in Granbury, which is about an hour’s drive southwest of Dallas.

“I don’t want a kid picking up a book, whether it’s about homosexuality or heterosexuality, and reading about how to hook up sexually in our libraries,” Glenn said.

He also made it clear that his concerns specifically included books with LGBTQ themes, even if they do not describe sex. Those comments, according to legal experts, raise concerns about possible violations of the First Amendment and federal civil rights laws that protect students from discrimination based on their gender and sexuality.

“And I’m going to take it a step further with you,” he said, according to the recording. “There are two genders. There’s male, and there’s female. And I acknowledge that there are men that think they’re women. And there are women that think they’re men. And again, I don’t have any issues with what people want to believe, but there’s no place for it in our libraries.”

Minutes later, after someone asked whether titles on racism were acceptable, Glenn said books on different cultures “are great.” 

“Specifically, what we’re getting at, let’s call it what it is, and I’m cutting to the chase on a lot of this,” Glenn said. “It’s the transgender, LGBTQ and the sex — sexuality — in books. That’s what the governor has said that he will prosecute people for, and that’s what we’re pulling out.”

Over the next two weeks, the school district embarked on one of the largest book removals in the country, pulling about 130 titles from library shelves for review. Nearly three-quarters of the removed books featured LGBTQ characters or themes, according to a ProPublica and Texas Tribune analysis. Others dealt with racism, sex ed, abortion and women’s rights. 

Two months later, a volunteer review committee voted to permanently ban three of the books and return the others to shelves. But that may not be the end of the process. 

In his recorded comments to librarians, Glenn described the review of 130 titles as the first step in a broader appraisal of library content, and a new policy approved by the school board later in January grants him and other administrators broad authority to unilaterally remove additional titles they deem inappropriate, with no formal review and no way for the public to easily find out what has been pulled from shelves.

Legal, education and First Amendment experts contacted by NBC News, ProPublica and the Tribune said the audio of the superintendent, combined with the decision to abruptly remove books from circulation, even temporarily, raises constitutional concerns.

Glenn’s comments also call into question the district’s commitment to fostering a safe and inclusive school environment for LGBTQ students and could be grounds for a complaint to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which enforces federal anti-discrimination laws, the experts said.

“This audio is very much evidence of anti-LGBTQ and particularly anti-trans discrimination,” said Kate Huddleston, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, who reviewed the recording at the request of NBC News, ProPublica and the Tribune. “It is very much saying the quiet part out loud in a way that provides very significant evidence that book removals in the district are occurring because of anti-LGBTQ bias.”

In a written statement, Glenn said the district was committed to supporting students of all backgrounds. And although he said the district’s primary focus is educating students, “the values of our community will always be reflected in our schools.”

“In Granbury and across Texas we are seeing parents push back and demand elected officials put safeguards in place to protect their children from materials that serve no academic purpose, but rather push a political narrative,” Glenn said in the statement. “As a result, classrooms and libraries have turned schools into battle grounds for partisan politics.”

None of Granbury’s school board trustees responded to messages requesting comment. District spokesperson Jeff Meador sent a statement emphasizing that all of the books permanently removed from shelves in Granbury are “sexually explicit and not age-appropriate” and noting that district libraries “continue to house a socially and culturally diverse collection of books for students to read, including books which analyze and explore LGBTQ+ issues.” 

The three books the committee voted to remove were “This Book Is Gay,” a coming out guide for LGBTQ teens by transgender author Juno Dawson that includes detailed descriptions of sex; “Out of Darkness,” by Ashley Hope Pérez, a young adult novel about a romance between a Mexican American girl and a Black boy that includes a rape scene and other mature content; and “We Are the Ants,” by Shaun David Hutchinson, a coming-of-age novel about a gay teenager that includes explicit sexual language.

At least one member of the volunteer review committee was dissatisfied that only three books have been permanently removed so far, and she has started calling for a second review of the ones that have been returned.

“There are people who want to tear down values and force theirs and then also force acceptance,” Monica Brown, the committee member, said in a Facebook video following the decision. Brown did not respond to a request for comment. 

One of the Granbury ISD employees in attendance at the Jan. 10 meeting with librarians said that regardless of which books are pulled from shelves or returned, Glenn’s comments left her afraid to display or purchase LGBTQ books going forward — a chilling effect that she said could limit the diversity of Granbury library catalogs for years to come. The staff member, who was not the source of the audio, spoke on the condition that she not be named, because she feared retaliation from the district.

“He literally said books on trans issues have no place in a school,” she said. “It was alarming.”

The superintendent’s comments reflect a broader national debate. Conservative state legislatures across the country have been considering bills to restrict the ways educators teach about gender and sexuality in schools. This month, the Florida Legislature passed the Parental Rights in Education bill, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by its critics, which restricts or bans discussion of LGBTQ issues in the classroom.

Conservative activists and politicians pushing these changes nationally say the goal is to prevent teachers from having sensitive conversations with students unless the parents give their consent. Some have at times conflated sex and sexual orientation, accusing educators of attempting to “groom” young children because the teachers had discussed the existence of transgender people and same-sex relationships. Opponents contend that the measures discriminate against LGBTQ students and educators and violate federal laws meant to prevent discrimination in schools.

These changes coincide with attempts in several conservative states to limit the rights of transgender minors to participate in school sports and to access gender-affirming medical care. Last month, Abbott issued a directive — temporarily halted by a Texas judge — ordering the state’s child welfare agency to open abuse investigations into any reported instances of minors receiving such medical care, including the prescription of puberty blockers or hormones. 

As superintendent of a district that’s home to more than 7,400 students, Glenn is responsible for implementing and enforcing policies that ensure that children are not discriminated against based on their gender identity or sexual orientation. 

After listening to the recording of Glenn’s remarks, Lou Whiting, a nonbinary junior at Granbury High School, said they were outraged. Whiting and another student who’s part of the LGBTQ community said classmates at Granbury have harassed them at school, but they’ve avoided reporting the harassment because they worried administrators wouldn’t take their complaints seriously.

Lou Whiting, a nonbinary junior at Granbury High School, said they were angry when they learned the district was pulling dozens of LGBTQ-themed books from libraries.Shelby Tauber for ProPublica, The Texas Tribune, NBC News

"‘Robin Hood’ not the villain in Texas schools," by Chandra Villanueva

School finance in Texas is not well understood, particularly the history of what we know either as "recapture" or "Robin Hood" in Texas. Chandra Villanueva explains the importance of recapture to equity very well in this Dallas Morning News piece. I also encourage you to read Trinity University Professor Enrique Alemán's piece titled,

"Is Robin Hood the "Prince of Thieves" or a Pathway to Equity? Applying Critical Race Theory to School Finance Political Discourse." Drawing on Critical Race Theory, he encourages us to see Texas' system of school finance as institutionalized racism. CRT, by the way, should be less understood as a "theory," than as a fact of our highly stratified society—with race/ethnicity, along with gender, class, sexual orientation, documented status, being major, intersectional axes of differentiation. -Angela Valenzuela

‘Robin Hood’ not the villain in Texas schools

Legislature refuses to fully fund districts, leaving them to squabble over recapture

By Chandra Villanueva | Dallas Morning News

For years, the Texas Legislature has underfunded the basic allotment, failing to base what it pays for education on actual costs. (Smiley N. Pool/Staff Photographer)

When school budgets get tight, property-wealthy districts are often quick to blame the primary equity tool of the school finance system, recapture.

However, recapture, also known as “Robin Hood,” is not the villain in this story. The real problem is the basic allotment, the base level of funding the Texas Legislature funds per student. The Legislature does not base what it pays for education on actual costs.

The basic allotment, the foundational building block for the whole school finance system, is an arbitrary number. It’s not connected to the cost of providing a quality education. In fact, it’s not based on anything at all.

The Legislature underfunded the recommended amount in 1984 — pre-pandemic and pre-modern workforce. Since then, the Legislature has made random changes in irregular intervals. This arbitrary basic allotment also determines if a district is considered “property-wealthy” or “property-poor.”

In simple terms, the school finance formulas start with the basic allotment and then adjust it based on student characteristics of a district, such as how many students are economically disadvantaged, emergent bilingual or another recognized special population. The formula rightfully recognizes that some students require more expensive educational resources. The basic allotment with these adjustments determines the amount of funding the state allows each school to have for its operating budget.

Once the funding amount is determined, school districts tax local property to raise the necessary funds. If the local tax base is unable to meet the allowed funding amount, the district receives state aid. If local property tax revenue is greater than the allowed amount, the state “recaptures” the excess revenue to help fund education statewide.

Those who villainize recapture claim it doesn’t take a wealthy district’s low-income student population into account. We know that’s not true because the formula takes all low-income students into consideration.

But here’s the rub –– in addition to the basic allotment being arbitrary, the amount of additional funding for low-income, emergent bilingual and other special student populations is also arbitrary and was set in 1984 with few changes since. This is why districts are unable to meet the needs of students, because the funding they receive doesn’t reflect their actual costs.

Our state education laws dedicate recaptured dollars to education, just not exclusively to property-poor districts. The amount of recapture revenue collected is roughly the same amount needed to support the network of charter schools across the state. Charter schools are non-taxing entities, yet they are fully funded by the state. Regardless of your opinion on charter schools, the revenue must come from somewhere.

Rapid expansion of charter schools is another reason recapture is growing across the state. Recapture is triggered when a district collects more property tax revenue per student than the state allows it to have. When a student leaves a traditional ISD for a charter school, the amount of property tax revenue that district collects per student increases. That means the district is more likely to collect excess property taxes than allowed by the state because the district has fewer students to support. School districts that have many charter schools within their boundaries, such as Houston ISD, end up paying recapture revenue due to the large number of students lost to charter schools.

Recapture is not the villain. The Legislature has never provided an adequate level of funding for our schools and refuses to make annual adjustments for inflation. As property values rise across the state and additional students move to charter schools, more districts will appear wealthy but, in reality, everyone is underfunded.

Recapture is not the school finance villain — the Texas Legislature is the villain when it neglects our greatest public good and keeps schools underfunded.

Chandra Villanueva oversees Every Texan’s work on education, workforce development and job quality. She wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

Flexibility and relaxing due dates is what grading should have always been about. In a more perfect world, we would also be less about grading and more about evaluation. For this to happen, teachers need smaller class sizes and time during the week to develop curriculum and to work one-on-one with students. This is a funding issue since all of this obviously comes at a cost.

There is definitely an ongoing debate about grading students, as you can read here. I land on the side that students will rise to the level of, and even exceed, our expectations when given the opportunity to own their own learning. Here is where pedagogies like Critical Race Theory, project-based learning, participatory action research, culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogies, abolitionist teaching, and any kind of learning that promotes students asking questions, thinking deeply, developing ideas, sharing ideas, and assuming tasks that are meaningful to them.

And as we think about assessment, we should think deeply about authentic assessment that involves students and teachers in meaningful tasks where "grading" is more a relationship than an outcome. This is what I see reflected in the piece below.

A clear advantage is overcoming our many years of test-driven schooling. Drilling phonics into students' heads for a test is a far cry from assessing students' actual comprehension of the material. It's one thing to decode. It's yet another to be able to explain what they've "read." If they can't explain what they've just read, then they actually cannot read.

At a deeper level, inasmuch as students are also youth of color, we must always seek to affirm and even celebrate their identities, cultures, and languages—albeit while also acknowledging and being responsive to the traumas they have faced both as members of historically marginalized groups in society and ongoing ones as a result of the pandemic. 

I am definitely glad to see that a serious debate about grading students—as well as schools themselves—is taking place today. While test-optional college admissions has encouraged this conversation at the higher education level, more must be done. We need to have a broader conversation focused on the costs and benefits of evaluating, as opposed to grading, or some combination of the two.

-Angela Valenzuela 

Teachers second-guess letter grades as they search for a fairer way

Across the country, educators are experimenting with a more tolerant grading system

By Valerie Strauss

 and 

Donna St. George

 

February 28, 2022 at 8:11 a.m. EST

“We’re aligning the letter grade with actual learning,” says Joshua Moreno, who works in the Alhambra Unified School District in Southern California. “It’s sad that it had to be for a worldwide pandemic to get people to look at this, but at the same time, it’s good that it’s happening. It had to.” (tupungato/iStock)

Sixteen-year-old Sam Luo nearly panicked when he learned about his Advanced Placement English Language teacher’s grading system at his California high school. Gone was the 100-point system he knew well. Homework, extra credit, behavior — they would no longer count.

His teacher, Joshua Moreno, among a few other instructors, grades students on a 50-point scale — 10 points for each of the A-F letter grades — a change from giving so much weight to a failing grade, with Fs ranging from 60 points down to zero. Students can retake exams and redo assignments but only after scrutinizing their own mistakes. The goal is to measure only whether the student has learned the material.

What he and other educators are doing is part of a revolution in grading, one that started years before the coronavirus pandemic in some school districts but that has taken on new urgency as educators around the country think twice about assigning those judgmental letters A-F to students whose schooling has been disrupted for two years.

Instructors typically penalize children for late, incomplete or sloppy work, finding many opportunities (via homework and incremental tests) throughout the semester to do so, scholars say. These strictures, studies have shown, unfairly privilege one type of student — the kind with means, a supportive family, good nutrition, mental well-being and a peaceable home life — over others who may work after school, have a defective laptop or lack a desk and a quiet space to spit-shine their schoolwork every night. And though many districts handed out technology to students and beefed up Internet service during the pandemic, the digital “homework gap” is still affecting low-income families far more than families earning more.

Districts around the country — from California to Virginia and more — are experimenting to level the competition and focus on what experts think matters most: What should a grade represent? How can grades be used to motivate students to learn and retain information? How can grading be equitable? The change has sparked headlines decrying the elimination of D’s and F’s. But many teachers had already stopped giving those grades during the pandemic.

“We’re aligning the letter grade with actual learning,” said Moreno, who works in the Alhambra Unified School District in Southern California. “It’s sad that it had to be for a worldwide pandemic to get people to look at this, but at the same time, it’s good that it’s happening. It had to.”

Public education is facing a crisis of epic proportions

Some, such as Santa Fe Public Schools in New Mexico, are moving to standards-based grading, which measures student performance on benchmarks, sometimes with number grades from 1 to 4; teachers there will use new specific standards set by the state’s education department to assess student performance.

“A grade should represent learning, not behavior,” said Nick Hoover, principal of Cantwell’s Bridge Middle School in the Appoquinimink District in Delaware, which is just starting an overhaul of its own policies. “Look at someone who gets a B. It could be an A student who turned in work late, or a student who averages out at 88 percent in academic work but turns in work on time. That grade doesn’t really represent how much that student has learned.” He added, “We still want to report behavior” — meaning punctuality and other parts of performance — but said it shouldn’t shape how a student is judged on a transcript.

Patrick Truman, a science teacher in Montgomery County, Md., since 2013 and an educator for more than 20 years, offers a hypothetical: Consider a student with marginal motivation who gets 30 points — an F — on their first test. “If you get a couple of really poor grades, you can’t recover,” he said. “Kids give up.”

Grading experts say that since the pandemic closed schools in March 2020, they have been bombarded with requests for help from administrators seeking to change what has been common practice for generations. One of these experts is Joe Feldman, whose book “Grading for Equity: What It is, Why It Matters, and How It Can Transform Schools and Classrooms” (2018) has become a bible for many revising their practices. Feldman said that schools “perpetuate very antiquated and ineffective and even harmful ways of grading,” because there is no or little training on how to grade for students in teacher preparation courses.

The old ways are not without their defenders. Some districts have encountered pushback from teachers and parents who worry the new approach is too easy for students, or too difficult. That’s what Luo thought when he walked into Moreno’s AP English class. Because grades are based only on certain tests and assignments, he said he feared it was “a high-stakes system that would cause a lot of anxiety.”

Moreno said his grading approach is intended, rather, to make students own their learning. There is “a misunderstanding that this is not as rigorous as the traditional system,” he said.

This wave of book bans is different from earlier ones

He likens it to sports. In English classes, all writing — in and out of class — is for practice. No points. “When it’s time for an essay or a presentation or a Socratic seminar, I call that game time,” Moreno said. “You get points.” But a competitive season is "not just one game. If you aren’t happy with what happened in that game, I say, ‘Let’s meet. Let’s conference. Tell me how you are going to work to learn what you missed.’ We can do another game.”

Luo said that the most important change for him in Moreno’s grading system has been that, instead of focusing on formatting his assignments correctly and punctually, he has been forced to think about his learning more deeply and, as a result, he absorbs more information and gets graded on his best work. He observed that he witnesses kids ask their English teachers every year, “How do I write a thesis? How do I write a body paragraph?” — even though they’ve ostensibly learned this skill every year starting in middle school. “With this, as we improve, we are internalizing this information better.”

Still, Luo said, he doesn’t think the system will work for every student. “For students who want to slack off or are not motivated to learn, this class will probably be very enticing. Assignments aren’t graded. Due dates are soft. They will think they can get away with things.”

Other concerns about this kind of grading system were raised by teachers at Wakefield High School in Arlington Public Schools in Northern Virginia after administrators there announced they were considering a new assessment system that would eliminate graded homework and make other changes. One of them may be that any “remediations” of a grade could be undertaken only with a formal one-on-one exchange between student and teacher.

In an open letter that was unsigned, teachers said such a system places new burdens on them. For example, they don’t have time to talk to each student about every grade change. Teachers are already overworked. They face large classes, have little planning time and, with the pandemic, often take over classes for sick colleagues.

The letter also says having nongraded homework makes it more difficult to foster good behaviors and nonacademic skills in students.

“The changes, if implemented, will ... result in the decline of high expectations and rigor in the classroom,” the Arlington teachers said. Students need incentives to “develop organizational, time and stress management skills and grow as responsible, civically engaged, and considerate young adults.”

Bridget Loft, Arlington schools’ chief academic officer, said officials are now considering what to do “without making it feel like it is something being forced upon people. We are thinking about what might be better for students in the long run and how to bring in more equitable experiences.”

Rick Wormeli, a former National Board Certified teacher and now a consultant on classroom practice and grading systems, and others said that report cards should capture academic and nonacademic performance in different ways. A-F grades should be academic, and other habits and behaviors can be recorded through notes or other numerical or alphabetical symbols.

New critical race theory laws have teachers scared, confused and self-censoring

That doesn’t mean, Wormeli and other grading reformers say, that students can get away without doing work. With the new systems, they can still flunk, and they are still responsible for making academic progress.

“I would never want to remove the burden of a child’s learning from his or her shoulders,” Wormeli said. “They have to do the work. But if we read the research about executive functioning — how do you instill moral fiber, time management, perseverance, tenacity? — none of it, not one bit of it, says, ‘yeah, use your grades to do it.’ ”

Each element of grading changes presents challenges. Truman allows students to retake exams. “Many things in life are reassessable,” he said. “Can you imagine if you had one shot at your driver’s license? That’s not the real world.”

But in college, many students don’t get that opportunity. Truman said he has heard about University of Maryland professors who feel they need to remind students from the state’s largest school system that college rules are less forgiving: There are no do-overs. Similarly, he’s heard of students asking professors: “When is the reassessment?”

Another example is softening deadlines of assignments, allowing students to turn them in when they can. Opponents say this practice harms efforts to instill responsibility in students and leads to students falling behind in their work. Supporters say that students often don’t turn in work because they don’t understand it, or have after-school or night jobs, or lack adequate technology or Internet service to complete assignments. But in class, they are forced to move ahead with work they haven’t mastered, making things worse.

The issue of equity runs through the charged conversation about grading. The Wakefield teachers said that some of the proposed changes in Arlington would have “a detrimental impact” toward achieving educational equity in part because “we are providing [lower-performing students] with a variety of excuses and/or enabling them to ‘game the system,’ prompting them to expect the least of themselves in terms of effort, results, and responsibility.”

Wormeli and others said the opposite is what happens — that students are motivated when they feel some ownership of the learning process.

At Wakefield High School, teacher Nisha Sensharma said she began experimenting with different grading systems about seven years ago, after she realized how stressed her students were about grades.

She began to relax due dates for assignments to give students more time to complete them, and, she said, she found that it “helped a little.” Then, she said, she cut back on the amount of homework and found “the kids were happier” and learning just as much. She began teaching mindfulness.

“I really got into social-emotional learning. What bothered me was motivation. And when I asked kids to answer, ‘Why am I in school,’ and ‘What do I want to get from school,’ there was a lot of silence for a long time. And then they say, ‘I want to get the best grade. I want to get into college.’”

So she changed her curriculum to create lessons “that really connected with the kids.” And she began to look at accountability in different ways. “If I expect kids to use social-emotional skills and be self-directed and meet due dates, I need to make some changes,” she said.

She experimented with how she assigned grades and homework. She began giving more feedback to students about their work and behavior, hoping that they would use the information to improve their mind-sets and learning process. Unfortunately, she said, about half of her students don’t look at her feedback and are still overly concerned with grades.

“That’s the grading system we created,” she said. “I think if we all made a change, that would make a big difference for kids.”

Why Putin Didn’t Invade Ukraine During Trump’s Presidency—All In with Chris Hayes

Chris Hayes does a good job of explaining Ukraine's outsized connection to U.S. politics. Worth listening to.

-Angela Valenzuela

Connecting the dots: CPAC, AFPAC, Christianity, and how Vladimir Putin is now a "Far-Right Savior"

Trump's stoking white nationalist fears into his supporters' lives and bodies over the trumped-up lie that Critical Race Theory (CRT) is something to be feared even unto the point of death is not just hyperbolic, but also garish and profoundly offensive (i.e., "Trump calls on supporters to 'lay down their very lives' to defend US against Critical Race Theory").

That said, his shrill screams against that which he believes interrupts whiteness —as if white supremacy should not get interrupted—nevertheless thoroughly rhymes with the piece below on Putin's appeal to the extreme right in the U.S. 

We would all do well to not dismiss these characters as a "fringe group" when what they're normalizing is white supremacy within the Republican party, as a whole.

Rather their angry, defensive, off-putting white nationalist vibe found a home with otherwise similarly fear-mongering, "stop-the-steal" republicans attending this year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) event, including Josh Mandel (R), Candidate for the Senate from Ohio; Congressman Jim Banks (R) Indiana; Josh Hawley (R) Missouri; and Gov. Kristi Noam (R) South Dakota that you can read about in this Rolling Stones piece titled, "White Nationalists Raid CPAC But Find Themselves Right at Home."

CPAC ran adjacently to America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) held in Orlando, Florida organized by white supremacist, anti-Semitic Nick Fuentes who expresses with glee on his face that the "secret sauce here is our young, white men" who then, at Fuentes' behest, loudly applaud Russia for their actions followed by jeers for Putin, all of which you can see and hear for yourselves here. In attendance were Congressman Paul Gosar, (R) Arizona; and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) Georgia, legitimating such extremism. 

The word, "fringe," clearly loses its meaning in a context where the authoritarian, strong-man, by-any-means-necessary, version of history is the preferred one. Read here from this piece below what the offspring is of this kind of thinking:

"Burghart says some extremist rightwing militias even see Ukraine as a potential scenario to discuss how to prepare for urban warfare and a future insurgency in the US itself. Instead of horror at the outbreak of brutal urban warfare, some US extremists are obsessed with the idea of a coming civil war in America.

“They see a societal collapse and need to prepare for an impending civil war, and their focus is on preparing for the battles of that here in the US,” Burgheart added."

What makes this also a Christian ideological agenda is how extremist thought conflates with some interpretations of the book of Revelation that point to Armageddon and end times such that supporting Putin is not only ideologically resonant, but a hastening of the apocalypse. For example, read "Religious Views of Some Extremists May Fuel More Violence : Terrorism: Theologians say apocalyptic visions in Bible’s book of Revelation are being misinterpreted by some right-wing paramilitary groups."

Of course, violence, racial hatred, and war are diametrically opposed to Jesus Christ's call for us to love our neighbors as ourselves. 

It should concern us all that today's Republican Party is leaning heavily in the direction of fascism, endorsing patriarchy, sexism, homophobia, racial violence, totalitarianism, and war, thusly jeopardizing democracy everywhere. 

I hope that people realize this and call it out like I am doing here and vigorously oppose it everywhere—especially at the ballot box. Thanks to Dr. Rudy Acuña for sharing this must-read piece below.

-Angela Valenzuela

‘Key to white survival’: how Putin has morphed into a far-right savior

The Russian president’s ‘strong man’ image and disdain for liberals has turned him into a hero for white nationalists

Sergio Olmos

Sat 5 Mar 2022 02.00

Putin is now seen as the upholder of traditional Christianity. Photograph: Sputnik/Reuters

“Can we get a round of applause for Russia?” asked Nick Fuentes, on stage last week at a white nationalist event. Amid a roar of applause for the Russian president, just days after he invaded Ukraine, many attendees responded by shouting: “Putin! Putin!”

It would be easy to dismiss the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) in Orlando, Florida, as a radical fringe. But speeches by two Republican members of Congress – one in person, the other via video – guaranteed national attention and controversy.

The backlash showed how the war in Ukraine has exposed the American far right’s affinity with Putin. That affinity is complicated by the tortured relationship between Russia and former president Donald Trump, whose rise Moscow supported with a covert operation to undermine US democracy.

Fuentes, a notorious antisemite, created AFPAC to coincide with the more mainstream Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), where Trump was the headline speaker last Saturday.

At AFPAC, Fuentes introduced the Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who would this week interrupt the State of the Union address, rising to yell “Build the wall!” as an objection to Joe Biden’s immigration policy. But here she did not interrupt to object to the chanting of the Russian president’s name.

“Ukraine was a place where the same perceived downfalls of western society existed and Putin embodying a strong man authoritarian-type figure stepping in and inflicting suffering on Ukraine was viewed in a positive light

Jared Holt

“I don’t believe anyone should be canceled,” Taylor Greene told the attendees of the white nationalist conference. She lashed out at a wide range of topics from Marxism to cancel culture but avoided the invasion of Ukraine, saying even less on the topic than Russian state media.

Devin Burghart, executive director of Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, said: “In the world of the white nationalists, you are seeing a lot of support for Putin, as expressed by the cheerleading at AFPAC over the weekend.”

Others agree, pointing to a shared socially and culturally conservative ideology, disdain for democratic systems and appreciation for a “strong man” form of government. There was also the fact that it was the current Ukrainian government whom Trump attempted – and failed – to bribe to investigate his political rival Biden: actions which led to his first impeachment.

Jared Holt, a domestic extremism researcher with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, said: “When Russia invaded Ukraine, large parts of the far right were supportive.”

Nicholas Fuentes flanked by anti-vaccine protesters at a demonstration in New York. Photograph: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

“The common thread is this idea that because of western European and US influence on Ukraine, Ukraine was a place where the same perceived downfalls of western society existed and Putin embodying a strong man authoritarian-type figure stepping in and inflicting suffering on Ukraine was viewed in a positive light.”

Fuentes is certainly the real deal of white nationalism. He attended the deadly “Unite The Right” rally in 2017 and was recently subpoenaed over his involvement in the pro-Trump insurrection on January 6 2021. He now carries on that effort with AFPAC, aiming to create a kind of far-right archipelago by bringing together white nationalists, fascists and Trumpist crowds talking only to each other in their own islands.

The three-year-old conference sees itself as part enfant terrible, piquing the genteel wing of the Republican party, and part Weimar-era beer hall organizing before the putsch. It is far right, but no longer on the fringe of Republican politics.

Taylor Greene was condemned by some in her own party for speaking at AFPAC but is unlikely to be disciplined. And she was not alone. The Arizona congressman Paul Gosar made a video address. A lieutenant governor from Idaho and state legislator from Arizona also spoke at the event, which also attracted figures such as Gavin McInnes, the founder of the violent extremist gang the Proud Boys, which currently has more than three dozen members under indictment for the insurrection.

This represents a disorienting shift for a Republican party once staunchly opposed to communism and the Soviet Union, which President Ronald Reagan dubbed “the evil empire”. But Trump, who in 2015 ran for president promising to build a wall and impose a Muslim ban, stoked the party’s nativist elements.

Donald Trump speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Florida. 

Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

And as America and the world grow more diverse, critics say, Russia has come to be seen as a beacon of salvation by white nationalists. In 2004 David Duke, a longtime leader of the Ku Klux Klan, described it as “key to white survival”. In 2017 Ann Coulter, a rightwing author and commentator, opined: “In 20 years, Russia will be the only country that is recognizably European.”

Researchers who monitor far-right groups agree that the moment of Putin enthusiasm in the US has intellectual underpinnings with deeper roots. Burghart said: “For almost a decade the work of Russian fascist Alexander Dugin has found a home in American white nationalist circles.”

Dugin’s ideology is steeped in Russian Christian nationalism and has chimed with Putin’s world view. At the same time, it echoes much of the Christian nationalist activism in the US, where liberal values, gay rights and a desire to keep religion out of the state, are seen as decadent and responsible for American decline.

Burghart added: “There’s an attraction to Putin’s hardline authoritarian stand, his aggressive policies, they are attracted to his brand of traditional Christianity that Putin’s expressed. Some have liked Putin’s attacks on the Russian LGBTQ+ community.”

On the eve of the Russian invasion, former Trump aide Steve Bannon hosted private security head Erik Princ, founder of the Blackwater military contracting group, on his popular War Room podcast. The two men – who are highly influential in Trumpist circles – praised Putin as “anti-woke”.

“After four years of praise for the Russian leader there’s a large swath of the right that has internalized that message.

Devin Burghart

Bannon declared: “Putin ain’t woke.” Attacks on wokeness were also a constant thread running through CPAC, which this year had the official slogan: “Awake not woke.”

The legacy of the Trump years shapes the perception of Putin among the right in the US as Trump demonstrated a clear affinity for the Russian leader, even as details emerged of the Russian attempt in the 2016 election to disrupt US democracy. Trump himself praised Putin as “genius” and “smart” as the invasion began only to change his tune later as the military action faltered and casualties mounted.

Even then, while condemning the assault, Trump told CPAC: “The problem is not that Putin is smart – which of course he’s smart – but the real problem is that our leaders are dumb.”

The same was true of America’s most popular conservative broadcaster, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. Right up to the invasion Carlson was lambasting Ukraine as “not a democracy” and a puppet state of the US state department. He also praised Putin, saying: “Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia?”

That sort of language – contrasting Putin favorably against Democrats on mainstream US television – has an impact.

Burghart commented: “After four years of praise for the Russian leader there’s a large swath of the right that has internalized that message. Some of the right have embraced Putin while others have been slow to denounce the invasion of Ukraine.”

Burghart says some extremist rightwing militias even see Ukraine as a potential scenario to discuss how to prepare for urban warfare and a future insurgency in the US itself. Instead of horror at the outbreak of brutal urban warfare, some US extremists are obsessed with the idea of a coming civil war in America.

“They see a societal collapse and need to prepare for an impending civil war, and their focus is on preparing for the battles of that here in the US,” Burgheart added.

INVITATION: Freedom Schools for Working Class White People? [On behalf of Dr. Charles Payne and the Freedom Schools Project]

Our next Freedom School panel discussion is Monday, March 7^th, 7:00pm.  Please circulate widely. Click the link to register for the panel discussion:

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