Moms for “Liberty” aka Moms for Fascism

Moms for “Liberty” aka Moms for Fascism, Karen Svoboda

Refuse Fascism Episode 161

Sun, Jun 25, 2023 4:34PM • 40:06

Karen Svoboda 00:00

I think at one point in all of our lives, we’ve asked ourselves, you know, what would I do if it was like 1930s Germany? We’ve all said: Oh, I would be the one to stand up. I would be the one to speak out. Use your voice. It is a civic responsibility to speak out, so take advantage of that responsibility. Do the right thing.

Sam Goldman 00:38

Welcome to Episode 161 of the Refuse Fascism podcast, a podcast brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. I’m Sam Goldman, one of those volunteers and host of the show. Refuse Fascism exposes, analyzes, and stands against the very real danger and threat of fascism coming to power in the United States. In today’s episode, I’ll share a commentary on the one year anniversary of the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Mark, a producer of the show, is taking the mic and getting into Moms for Liberty, and we’re sharing an interview with Karen Svoboda, president of Defense of Democracy on countering Moms for Liberty at their summit this upcoming week in Philadelphia.

Thanks to everyone who goes the extra step and rates and reviews the show on Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen. If you appreciate the show, and want to help us reach more listeners who want to refuse fascism, be a gem and go write a review and drop five stars wherever you get your pods. Please tell the people out there in podcast land why you listen and they should do and of course, subscribe/follow so you never miss an episode. Keep up all that great commenting and sharing on social media. It all means a lot. And thank you to everyone on Patreon for supporting the show for $2 or more a month. Thanks patrons. Not one yet? Go become one at patreon.com/RefuseFascism.

So before we get into this Roe anniversary, I just gotta say that the idea that Biden is our bulwark against fascism, the only viable path to defeat fascists, is a vicious delusion on many levels. But it was given the lie on a new level this week as he welcomed India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and called him a “partner in the worldwide fight for democracy against an autocracy.”

What? Modi is a fascist leading a country of over a billion people. He has effectively revoked citizenship for over 2 million people and enacted laws providing citizenship on the basis of religion. He has repeatedly unleashed violent lynch mobs of thousands to murder and maim Muslims, burning down buildings wrecking whole neighborhoods. He has attacked the press with violent consequences. His party emerged from and remains closely linked to an explicitly Nazi loving organization. This is all just tip of the iceberg.

Biden is not a bulwark against fascism, or fighting fascism. What Biden is doing is attempting to preserve the stability of the U.S. Empire in the form it has been since World War Two, wherein fascism is good when it serves the U.S. ruling class where the U.S. has supported and even installed fascists and other kinds of brutal autocrats all over the worlds from Chile to Indonesia, to South Korea, while parading as the leader of the free world. He opposes American fascism, because he doesn’t think fascism here would best serve the US Empire.

To put it bluntly, for people who want to actually defeat this fascist threat, relying on Biden is either delusional or cynical. But as fascism rises around the world with their support, do you really think it’s a strategy that could even work? Let us know your thoughts on this. Share them with us. You can do it over on our socials @RefuseFascism, you can leave us a message, find it in the show notes — the link to do that, or you can send us an email at [email protected].

I’m a little bit hoarse from screaming yesterday. I was back in D.C. outside the Supreme Court on this one year anniversary of the overturn of Roe and we’ve got to talk about it. So before we get into Moms for Liberty and Philly plans, I want to talk about yesterday and the marking of one year without Roe. You’re all listening at different times and dates, but yesterday, Saturday June 24 marked one year since the illegitimate, Trump-packed, fascist Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, ripping away nationwide protections for abortion rights.

One year since the clear-eyed warning that RiseUp 4AbortionRights issued is being borne out in living color across the country. In RiseUp4AbortionRights’ founding statement, they warned “denying the right to abortion forces women to bear children against their will. This does grotesque physical, emotional, societal and psychic violence to women by reducing them to baby-making machines. Compelling women to carry unwanted and or dangerous pregnancies, hijacks their bodies, their safety, their lives, their sexual autonomy, their aspirations and accomplishments and their lifelong relations in the service of patriarchal domination. Forced motherhood is female enslavement. When women are not free, no one is free.”

One year later, tens of thousands have been forced to give birth against their will. One year later, that hell of living in the world’s biggest superpower after its highest court has reduced women to nothing more than incubators is felt across the country. It is felt by 22 million women and girls of reproductive age who live in states where abortion access is heavily restricted and often totally inaccessible, and is felt by half of humanity in this country — yes, all over this country — who have become second class citizens.

There is simply no overstating the harrowing magnitude of a deepening generational tragedy. One year later, we see women and girls brought to the brink of death from sepsis or bleeding out before they get care for miscarriages or high risk or non viable pregnancies. Doctors turned into arms of a fascist state or punished if they dare to speak out. Violent incidents and threats against providers and patients have risen dramatically.

Maternal mortality and morbidity are increasing along with a climate of fear among healthcare providers, while access to all forms of care shrinks. One year later, we see clinics shuttered and with them futures, lives, and dreams foreclosed. One year later, women and girls beg for exemptions to save their lives or not have their rapists’ baby, the infringement of privacy rights spreads, “abortion trafficking” laws are enacted with penalties of up to five years in prison for assisting a minor in accessing an abortion in Idaho, with others likely to follow suit. One year later, the callous lie of “sending it back to the states” rings with profound cruelty as the Christian fascists in and out of power salivate over a nationwide abortion ban and our free states shrink each month while they are moving to pull abortion pills from the market, aiming to go after birth control and moving to punish women who seek abortions.

On top of all of this, as harrowing as this year has been, it is clear that this is only the beginning of the hell they hope to rain down on women, girls and LGBTQ people. And let’s get real, this was foreseeable and foreseen. In April 2022. RiseUp4AbortionRights wrote, “the reversal of abortion rights would do immeasurable harm to generations of women and girls and to everyone who can become pregnant. It would strengthen and accelerate the escalating attacks on contraception, LGBTQ rights, voting rights, the lives and true history of Black people and other people of color, immigrants and many more.

Acquiescing to this loss rather than fighting now to defeat it would also contribute to the dangerous dynamic where people will be forced to adjust and work within greater and greater atrocities.” One year later, this is evident to everyone and anyone looking at reality. The Christian fascist victory and overturning abortion rights has accelerated their juggernaut, which right now is taking genocidal aim at transgender folks while escalating attacks on LGBTQ people overall. The theocrats who were popping champagne in front of the Supreme Court when Roe was overturned were out celebrating again yesterday and demanding the codification of fetal personhood and a nationwide ban on abortion.

At the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference this past weekend, Pence underscored this saying “it’s important for us to remember the battle for life is far from over. We’ve not come to the end of our cause, we’ve simply come to the end of the beginning.” Trump, who wears his federal criminal indictment as a badge of honor, continues to be a fan favorite for the Christian fascists. At the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference, he boasted of the role he played in overturning Roe. He made it happen and told a crowd that the federal government has a “vital role” to restrict abortion access.

Since RiseUp4AbortionRights was founded, we have struggled against the accommodation with this movement, and we warned right after Roe was overturned that, “too many pro-choice leaders and Democratic Party politicians preach a realism of working within this new reality. They tell us to dig in for the long haul of the electoral process or to focus on protecting abortion in a few states, helping women induce their own abortions or helping women travel across state lines. Whatever their intent, this allows the Christian fascist juggernaut to continue to advance and capitulate to a growing nightmare.” One year later, the losing tactic of relying on increasingly rigged elections is beyond obvious. In speech after speech I listened to on the anniversary, I heard calls that the main thing, the best thing we could do is elect “reproductive justice champions,” and celebrate our victories.

As revolutionary Sunsara Taylor said “they tell you to celebrate a few rearguard ballot initiatives that protect abortion rights for some women in some states while turning a blind eye as millions and millions lose this right and the Christian fascist juggernaut picks up speed. This is akin to a strategy of climbing to the higher depths of a sinking ship, ignoring those who are drowning below and ignoring the reality that you’ll soon drown too. This is not only unconscionable, it is downright delusional, and is wasting time we cannot afford to waste.”

Last year I worried the world would only see our tears as women slowly vanish from public life, defeated. I worried that we would swallow our rage as this gross assault on our humanity and lives barreled ahead. I worried that we’d surrender and accommodate to this indignity following the counsel of those telling us to dig in for the generation-long electoral process. In this past year, despite the widely felt outrage, the vast support for abortion rights, and the private heartache felt by the majority of us at the now-daily tragic stories caused by this overturn, the streets have been definitely silent — the decent people too passive as the women-hating theocrats continue to mobilize to strip away this fundamental right. But this does not have to be our future.
On the one year anniversary of this horrendous defeat, together, let’s affirm the urgent demand: Legal abortion on demand and without apology, nationwide and everywhere. Only the people in mass nonviolent struggle rising up in the streets relentlessly can make this real. Let’s take inspiration from the green wave for abortion rights in Latin America, and the women in Iran rising up against patriarchal degradation. In our millions we can and must unite and act together to win back the fundamental right to legal safe abortion.

You can check out a version of this available as a statement from RiseUp4AbortionRights, which I encourage listeners to read, comment on, and spread. If you want to listen to more on this topic that we’ve covered this past spring, I want you to check out the episode that aired April 16 on the fascist attack on medication abortion. Our April 2 episode on the post-Dobbs human rights emergency and our March 19 Episode Your Questions Answered for more on this topic. They’ll be linked in the show notes. With that. Here’s Mark:

Mark Tinkleman 14:14

Moms for Liberty is coming to Philly for a major summit to train more foot soldiers to disrupt and take over school boards across the country. It’s a milestone for them, to branch out of Florida and really become a national organization. They will be joined by Trump DeSantis and others. We’ve got a great interview with an activist that’s bringing folks to Philly, but we also have a few words about this.

First off, the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified Moms for Liberty as an anti-government hate group. It’s good that they’re given this pariah status, but these concepts of hate group, they often reflect U.S. law or nonprofit grant writing language more than they reflect reality. So they can be useful frameworks to some extent, but also disarming. Hate is a feeling. To paraphrase Stokely Carmichael, it doesn’t matter if you hate me, what matters is that you have the power to do something about it. These groups are accumulating and serving power, and their mission is genocide.

The mirror side of this framework shift is that when you understand what we’re up against, you realize that this isn’t an aberration to our otherwise survivable status quo, that we cannot just be fighting the good fight, we have to build people power that can defeat this. Let’s back up a little bit. In 2020, while clinging to power, Trump unveiled a number of projects specifically as a promise of what his next term would look like.

One of these was his 1776 project, aimed at indoctrinating students across the U.S. in violently delusional patriotism. This was a combination of much wider and long term thinking among American fascists, even as it was very controversial amongst many of them — as, you know, scary government overreach — but it was also a direct response to the 2020 uprising, where, for the first time, the founders and other patriotic historical figures were broadly and correctly being seen as the monsters that they were — with statues being tarnished and toppled as one expression of this. As righteous and beautiful as the uprising was, it was largely crushed and its most powerful expressions were diverted into reformers bullshit.

But the backlash has endured, including through this broad passion unleashed by organizations like Moms for Liberty to disrupt school boards, to wildly denounce “critical race theory,” as though it killed their dog and to publicly spout the most wild anti-LGBTQ claims formulated through a concoction of Q Anon and their fundamentalist churches, sometimes backed up by their gunned up white saviors in the parking lots. With 2024 fast approaching, and MAGA eyeing the White House, planning to take over by hook or by crook, this Moms for Liberty crusade could play a major role in that campaign and in the enforcement of indoctrination if they win.

Even in these years of reprieve, relatively, as the GOP is power has been hindered, they’ve plowed forward in places like Texas and Florida where they have power, enacting the Stop Woke Act, the “don’t say gay,” “don’t say trans” bills, and now expanding them with real life consequences for millions of students, teachers, librarians and communities. Additionally, it must be noted that these Moms for Liberty are the ideological descendants of things we’ve seen before — the white moms for segregation, the women of the Klan, the daughters of the Confederacy, and also the people who burned the Magnus Hirschfeld library in Germany. Those thugs did not enact their violence in a vacuum.

We must learn from this history today. I’ll be protesting outside the Marriott on July 1, and I hope to see you there join Refuse Fascism June 30 and July 1 outside the Moms for Liberty Summit. Here’s Sam’s interview with Karen from Defense of Democracy.

Sam Goldman 17:48

Moms for Liberty, aka “moms for fascism” Summit is coming to Philly June 29 through July 2, and bringing with them Trump, DeSantis, Haley and more. Today we’re talking about Moms for Liberty, the danger they pose, what their summit is about, and most importantly, how you can be part of taking action to defend the lives and rights of LGBTQ people, defend black history and black lives, the rights of kids to have a real education and against the overall fascist program that they are part of hammering into place.

To do that. I am so excited to chat with Karen Svoboda. She’s the CEO and President of Defense of Democracy. Their mission is advocating to create a public education system that enhances the child’s experience, regardless of religion, cultural background or sexual orientation. Welcome, Karen. Thanks so much for coming on.

Karen Svoboda 18:45

Thank you and welcome. It’s great to be here.

Sam Goldman 18:48

So let’s start with the basics. Who are Moms for Liberty?

Karen Svoboda 18:55

They are a hate group. It is really, really important now that they have been officially designated an anti government extremist organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Everything that I have seen them do the messaging that they project, the people who they endorse, the stands they take on family and spirituality and country and patriotism is hate. It’s hate from beginning to end.

Sam Goldman 19:21

There’s a lot of talk about parents rights, that’s really that platform that Moms for Liberty operates on, and slogans like, we don’t co parent with the government, and they’re just advocating for the rights of parents to be involved in their child’s education. I’m wondering if you could help listeners understand why that’s such a farce and why it’s actually dangerous to frame it in that way.

Karen Svoboda 19:50

We can unpack each one of those little slogans one at a time. Let’s look at “we don’t co-parent with the government.” Let’s talk about who the client of the public school system is. The client of the public school system is the public. The job of the public school system is to take children, working in tandem with parents, to create an education that gives these children the appropriate critical thinking skills, and gives them the knowledge and understanding of the country in which they live so that they can be excellent purveyors of the United States Constitution and the values of our country. The saying that “we don’t co-parent with the government” is all fine and good. That’s why you can homeschool your child or put them in private school. The public school system is there to educate the public. That is where I chose to put my children because I believe it is a wonderful system.

Sam Goldman 20:49

And when they’re making decisions — and that’s a nice way of putting it, to be honest, what they’re doing is terrorizing teachers, librarians, other parents — when they’re waging these attacks, they are doing irreparable harm to, not just their own children, but all children. It is nothing to do with their rights as a parent, but other children’s rights and whole peoples’ rights; the rights of black folks, the rights of immigrants, the rights of LGBTQ people, the rights of people of different religions, than theirs. So I think that that’s also where that danger comes in. For those who aren’t as in it as we are, what does Mom’s for Liberty do?

Karen Svoboda 21:34

The way they operate versus what the outcome is of those operations, depends on how you want to look at that. What they do is they mobilize, and they have enormous amounts of funds, they’re not required to disclose their funds, because they’re not a 501 C3 nonprofit that’s required to do that. They have enormous amounts of funds. They have backing of some of the biggest political figures known, including an ex-president. With that money, they are able to put on this facade of being a grassroots organization, especially leading it with the word moms. They are able to go in with this presentation of being the squeaky clean, kind of wholesome thing.

Then you see the harassment and the hate, and absolutely, they’re targeting teachers and librarians. It’s still absurd to me that anyone would go after our teachers, and our librarians. People who enter that profession don’t go in because it’s a job, they go in because it’s calling. The teachers who I have met — not every one of them is amazing — but the ones that we remember in our own lives and the who our children remember the good ones, the ones who allowed them to be curious and to question and to understand and to be respected.

But yes, they use harassment campaigns over social media, they will dox these schools and superintendents [who] I have seen been driven out of their jobs. And what is so upsetting about it is that they are able to do this in the minority. So they’re not speaking for the majority of parents. They’re speaking for the very loud minority, and they’re doing it in a frightening way so that the majority is silenced. First of all, silenced into shock.

When it started for me — and this is very similar to other groups — I was so shocked by what I saw. One Moms for Liberty individual in my hometown — which is, p.s. where Defense of Democracy got started — had posts up on our public page that said things like gay marriage is about sexualizing children — that was her whole post. What is it about being Black that enhances your resume? Right, there, out for the world to see. I was so shocked, and it was like — who can take this absurdity seriously? But there are people in this country today who are taking that very seriously.

Defense of Democracy has decided that we will give a voice to the majority. We will be a platform for people who want to speak out against that in defense of their children and families of color, and their families who are not white, straight and Christian — which, by the way, I am. This is not how I understand this country to be. So, we, Defense of Democracy are giving a voice to those to the majority of people who are the modern American family, the American family.

Sam Goldman 24:22

There’s a lot to appreciate and what you said. First, there’s seeing this need, and instead of running away, hiding back into your personal life, and maybe the comfort that you might have, you deciding to start something to give people a voice and give people a platform I think is really important. There’s also a lot of heaviness in what you’re saying about the overt bigotry that they’ve put out. What really sticks with me is how quickly a lot of that has been normalized.

At first, it was shocking, they’re coming to school boards. The picture books that they’re holding out, and you’re like: It’s about a penguin. And they’re, like, livid. Now it’s like you expect it to happen at school board meetings, and you’re kind of shocked if it doesn’t. All of that I think is really important in terms of what we need to pay attention to, how this gets normalized, and then how we act or don’t and the difference that it makes. I wanted to talk a little bit about what they’re trying to do with this summit.

Karen Svoboda 25:26

I can’t speak for them, but to me, it’s a summit to give more energy to the fire of destruction. I can tell you, in my experience in reacting to things like this, and this goes back to the beginning, and I was sitting at a school board meeting with my volunteers — this was when we first started out, small group — we went to one of our school board meetings, and we sat there and there were there were Moms for Liberty members saying really hateful things. We knew it was coming, that’s why we were there. They were sitting in the audience, and the school board had said you’re not allowed to clap, you’re not allowed to say anything, because they knew it was very volatile, so they were like, you know, these are the rules.

When the Moms for Liberty representative got up there and finished telling everyone that our librarians were introducing porn into the school district, I booed her and my husband who is like, the most nice guy who doesn’t want to be in the middle of everything, he was like: Karen, you can’t do that — there are rules. And I’m like: You know what, the rules do not apply right now, because that is fascist and our kids are gay, and that is bullshit. At very least, I’m gonna boo, and I am trying to tell all of my followers that it is okay to stand up to hate and to speak out against it. You may be removed from from an event or something, but you cannot sit by and say nothing, that school board should not have sat by and said nothing, we cannot sit politely by and let our country be burned to ashes. Not on my watch. That kind of thing is what we’re empowering. We say: If you stand up, you’re giving courage to the ten people sitting around you want to stand up. That’s what we see our job as doing.

Sam Goldman 27:06

That’s really the spirit that we need now. And the courage, the daring, the determination that this moment calls for. You use the ‘F’ word. You said fascist, the ‘F’ word we mostly talked about on this show. I wanted to get your take on how you see Moms for Liberty within the larger fascist movement that they’re a part of. What role are they playing? How do you see this fitting together?

Karen Svoboda 27:33

What is fascism, if not, the silencing of communities? Moms for Liberty and the word censorship are now hand in hand. They try to say that we don’t ban books, we ban pornography — you can look at the hundreds of books that they have worked to ban. You know who decides what pornography is? It’s tough to even nail down that description, which is why Defense of Democracy doesn’t take a stand on particular books, but we do say that our teachers and librarians and our educators who have the background to make those decisions are the ones who should do it.

So that, to me, is a fascist act; the burning of books, the censorship, the pulling them off of library shelves — for them to say that to me that I’m not going to let your children read what I don’t think they should read, that is a fascist act. So where is this going? Well, it starts at this kind of grassroots level, very insidious, it started the school board. Unplug the school boards replaced the school superintendents. Tiffany Justice was on a podcast herself in 2001 — I think it was, and I forget what podcast it was, but I have seen it, so this is fact — where she said we are going to work to get search firms to hire conservative teachers and school superintendents and administrators so that we can have a conservative view in the school, starting at the teacher. So they started the ground level, they get into the schools, they replace the administrators and the teachers, they harass them, they drive them out.

Then, from there, they go on to the town boards and then into state and then into every level of government. This has been an extremely effective way to overthrow the country. And there are some moms and moms for Liberty who may not even realize that. I haven’t seen it, but I do have my volunteers who tell me some of them may genuinely think this is the right thing to do, and the feeling these back to basics. Well basics for who? Basics for people of color? Where are we going back to if you’re African American? How is anything looking backwards something that you would want to revisit or you would want your children to revisit? I think this country should continue moving forward. I think we have to move forward. We need to keep our eye on the prize and keep opening our doors and working to accept each other and love each other and embrace each other no matter what. All that Moms for Liberty wants to do is shut those doors.

Sam Goldman 29:48

It is really horrific, the dynamism at play between what I would call shock troops, the Moms for Liberty and those who have their hands on the levers of power in state houses across the country. I think sometimes it gets framed by decent good people as this one sided thing, where it’s all coming from their rabid base. But I think that there’s actually a lot of dynamism between the calls made by the DeSantises and others like him, not only him, and then the actions of those shock troops.

There’s also a way that Moms for Liberty issue something and then you hear it the next day or so, come out of the lips of one of these people. So, I think that there’s this relationship that is really worth paying attention to — and opposing — paying attention to it to oppose it. I wanted to move the conversation into what we can do, and resistance. This interview will air on Sunday, folks will have a few days to get in the car, hop on a plane, get a train ticket to come to Philly, if that’s within their reach. What can we do together if we’re here to stand up to the hate and to stand up to this fascist movement,

Karen Svoboda 31:08

There are a few things that are going on that Defense of Democracy is coordinating. The first thing that we are having in Philadelphia is on Thursday, June 29, at 1pm. We are having a sign-making rally. It’s very family friendly. We’re actually trying to get a drag story hour in there for kids. The location is not disclosed yet, you do have to RSVP in order to get the location. To find out information about that, you would go to the Defense of Democracy website, and click get involved, and there is a link to register for all the activities. So that sign-making protest rally is on Thursday at one o’clock, and then we will be present our volunteers will be out in front of the Marriott on Friday.

We were given a donation by a very, very generous individual, and he has given us the money to charter two buses, and to put people up in hotels. It’s just amazing that there are people out there willing to do this. For the Philadelphia protest, join us at the sign-making rally, and join us in front of the Marriott. Everyone’s invited. Going forward, if you’re not able to do that — I am contacted by people all the time, who they will say: Oh, look, look at this video of this person attacking my librarian or my library, what should we do? Well, the answer for us is always going to be the same. You need to start a Defense of Democracy chapter in your school district. To do that, you go right to our website, DefensOfDemocracy.org. You click volunteer.

Sam Goldman 32:36

You alluded to it earlier, but before we wrap up, I did want to get your thoughts on why Philadelphia?

Karen Svoboda 32:43

They said they chose it because — Florida is their biggest state, that’s where they have their summit last year — Philadelphia is number two as far as their Moms for Liberty chapters and members. Anyone who’s listening to this from Philadelphia, or Pennsylvania, a light bulb should go on. And you should say wow, this is right in your backyard. There are some very active Moms for Liberty chapters in Pennsylvania. I think that’s why they chose it. Again, I’m speculating on another group, but I cannot imagine that they deliberately chose to hold their summit down the street from the gayborhood in Philadelphia, in a community that is all about the brotherly love, and is all about actual freedom and American history. So I think that is a mistake that Marriott will regret, and I think the Museum of American History will regret hosting them. I really hope that this serves as a cautionary tale for any states or venues that are considering hosting a hate group on their premises for any reason.

Sam Goldman 33:41

I really, really hope that you are right. I really, really hope that there is an uproar commensurate with what they represent. And I really hope that it is a mistake for them. There’s a lot of sense to what you’re saying about the membership in Central Bucks, which isn’t far from here, they’ve done a real knockout job banning books, and seizing the school boards and all that. I think that the state of Pennsylvania is either second or third in the top states with both bans. It definitely makes sense. I also think that there is — not a mistake, but sadly — an intent of coming to a city that’s filled with Black folks that’s filled with gay folks, that’s filled with queer folks, making it clear, we’re coming for you. [KS: Yeah]

I wish that weren’t the case, but based on their own rhetoric, their own language, their quoting of Hitler, not ours, I can’t say that that’s not it. One of the people that they’re bringing, Trump, said bad things happen in Philly — basically talking about the population that he deems subhuman, a population that is overwhelmingly black, overwhelmingly poor, that has a large LGBTQ population. I think that the votes didn’t count because they weren’t seen as full people to Trump and the GOP. So I think that there is something to that piece as well, as disgusting and as awful as that is. Again, those are just my personal thoughts.

Karen Svoboda 35:12

It’s so hard. I go back and forth was saying: God, that was the stupidest move I ever saw — PR-wise, as far as Mom’s for Liberty — and then I’ll turn around be like: it’s so stupid, was it deliberate? You know, I try not to get in their head. That’s just not where I want to live right now.

Sam Goldman 35:27

I totally get that. In the spirit of really urging people to act — to take that one step out of your comfort zone, that one step into using your voice and the power that you do have to say no to Moms for Liberty, no to fascism. I did want to address something that comes up sometimes, which is: Isn’t it better if we ignore them?

Karen Svoboda 35:48

No, it is not better if you ignore them, because you look at some of the communities that have ignored them, and they are not in a good spot right now. Those communities are the ones whose schools are affected, ignoring it is absolutely the worst thing that you could do.

Sam Goldman 36:04

Well, Karen, I wanted to thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience with us to share your your ideas and perspective and to connect us with ways to act to resist Moms for Liberty. I wanted to just give you a moment, if there’s anything that I didn’t ask that you feel like listeners need to know.

Karen Svoboda 36:25

First of all, I want to say thank you for inviting me to the podcast. This has been a lot of fun. I love raising awareness about this issue. I think the only thing I would want to leave it on is to let anyone who’s listening to this now that it’s not a hopeless situation. But it’s also not a situation that’s going to go away. Whether it’s Defense of Democracy or another one of these amazing organizations that is mobilizing against fascism in our country, it is time right now to get involved. I think at one point in all of our lives, we’ve asked ourselves: What would I do if it was like 1930 Germany? We’ve all said: Oh, I wouldn’t be the one to stand up, I would be the one to speak out. This is your opportunity to prove to yourself and to your children, that you actually would be the one to do that. My advice to everyone is to take that opportunity. To use your voice. It is a civic responsibility to speak out and in defense of our fellow Americans. So take advantage of that responsibility. Do the right thing.

Sam Goldman 37:25

Thanks, Karen. I’ll see you soon.

Karen Svoboda 37:28

Yes, I look forward to it.

Sam Goldman 37:30

We wanted to make one minor correction: The museum that is hosting Mom’s for Liberty’s. welcome reception is Museum of the American Revolution. There will be protests Thursday, June 29. At that welcome reception, which starts at 6pm. Again, we hope to see you outside the Marriott June 30, when DeSantis Trump Haley and more will be speaking, and on July 1, as well — that is Friday and Saturday. Stayed to tuned to our social for more information.

Sam Goldman 38:05

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