I'm in Florida, the home of Mom's for Liberty.
Our escape to the Gulf Coast of Florida is winding down.
If the temperature has not been what we might have wished for, the days have still been sunny and beautiful, the blackened grouper plentiful and the sandy beaches look a lot like the snow we left behind in Chicago.
Even the occasional storm that rolls in off the Gulf is enjoyable for the few moments it lasts. Soon the sun comes out again providing the most dramatic of sunsets.
Then, of course, there is Governor Ron DeSantis and the hate-filled movement that has created him.
The list of things they hate is long: Books, non-traditional relationships, even saying the word Gay or making white people feel uncomfortable about the country’s history of slavery.
Aside from DeSantis, the movements most recognizable face has been the astro-turf group, Moms for Liberty.
M4L’s target are public education and public school teachers.
Teacher unions are weak in Florida, which is a right-to-work-for-nothing state. That hasn’t kept DeSantis and M4L from going after them.
Lately though, things have not been going well.
DeSantis’ presidential campaign has crashed and burned in the face of the MAGA cult.
He's still a powerful and popular figure in Florida.
That may have something to do with the fact that the Democrats are fairly pathetic in what used to be be a swing state.
But Moms for Liberty loses more elections than it wins, and some chapters are leaving the national organization over public controversy stemming from a three-way sex scandal involving one of the organization's co-founders and her husband.
Bridget Ziegler, who also sits on the Sarasota School Board, is refusing to resign her seat as her husband faces an allegation of rape and that the two of them frequently engaged in three-ways.
Of course, their sexual proclivities are really not the problem.
Fellow Moms for Liberty co-founders were quick to distance themselves from Ziegler, emphasizing in an email that Ziegler had resigned as co-founder within a month of Moms for Liberty’s foundation but had “remained an avid warrior for parental rights across the country.”
While they said they were shaken by the allegations against her husband, they condemned the “hateful vitriol” from those opposed to their organization and affirmed they were committed to all parents in building relationships to “ensure the survival of our nation and a thriving education system.”
By thriving they meant one that is privatized, unregulated and free of teacher unions.
If there is a lesson to be learned from the rise of M4L it is that elected school boards across the country are fair game for astro-turf groups spouting phony parent rights propaganda.
When I return back to Chicago where we are still waiting for an elected school board, it is something to be mindful of.
Meanwhile I still have a few more days of sun, surf and grouper.