Inside the Republican “Parents’ Party” Rebrand: TNR Featured!
In a week full of big news — especially Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s historic confirmation to the Supreme Court — we wanted to make sure you didn’t miss The Intercept’s excellent mini-documentary, Grassroots or Astroturf? Inside the Republican "Parents Party" Rebrand, by Paul Abowd. True North’s Director Lisa Graves is featured in the piece.
Graves shed light on the stunning hypocrisy of Republicans’ rebrand as “pro-parent” given their long track record of opposing paid parental leave, child tax credits, universal pre-K, and other policies that would benefit parents. Graves told The Intercept:
"The [GOP] has been extraordinarily hostile to common-sense policies that would dramatically help most American families with kids. And yet, they want to rebrand themselves as the parents' party."
Yet, as Graves pointed out, there is a method to this GOP madness. Republicans have identified a pressure point (pandemic-induced fatigue among parents) and injected a dose of the culture wars, leaning on a longtime GOP tactic to rile up bigotry amongst their base as they head into election season. At stake this time are the 2022 midterms. Graves said:
“I do think there has been an effort to exploit the concerns of some parents who really have been very challenged by how to manage our lives during this pandemic. You could see all these right-wing groups really flooding into Virginia to do sort of a test run for 2022.”
True North has been focused on the GOP “pro-parent” rebrand, the right wing’s attacks on schools, and the role of dark money groups for the past several months. To read more of our research, check out: