YouTube
Bethany Mandel, a controversial right-wing commentator, homeschooling advocate and prolific social media user, is running for county school board as a Democrat.
School board elections in Montgomery County, Maryland, are technically nonpartisan, but Mandel’s campaign released a chart Tuesday listing Mandel as a Democrat. The move quickly raised eyebrows online, with the X (formerly Twitter) community pointing out that Bethany Mandel has identified herself as a Republican multiple times on her Twitter account.
Mandel says rolling stone She has been a registered Democrat for several years out of political necessity. “Elections in this county are decided by primaries,” she says. “The county executive won by less than 100 votes.”
Those who know Mandel know that she writes passionate interpretations and far-right political commentary. Her most infamous column was published in the wake of the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, titled “We Need to Start Making Friends with Neo-Nazis.” (Mandel is Jewish.) Her content, like her column defending Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ wife, says, “If Casey DeSantis is a Karen, she’s our Karen.” Like, it can be unpleasant. She also posts dehumanizing rhetoric. “The only restraint I expect is not to nuke these damn animals, and that’s only because the cloud hurts the Israelis,” she wrote of the Palestinians.
Mandel has risen to prominence in recent years for campaigning against Covid-19 lockdowns since the early days of the pandemic. (“You can call me granny killer,” she said. Posted ) She also went to war against “woke indoctrination” in public schools, devoting an entire book on the subject until she could no longer define the word “woke” in a viral interview moment in Hill Rising. I wrote a chapter.
Mr. Mandel is currently running for a seat on the Montgomery County Board of Education. This is an interesting decision for several reasons. She homeschools her children. This county is a Democratic stronghold. Ms. Mandel is currently suing her county school board for denying her media access to an event about LBGTQ books. Her lawyer in the case is the America First Legal Foundation, led by President Donald Trump’s far-right White House adviser Stephen Miller.
Mr. Mandel’s campaign is part of a broader push by conservative culture warriors to take control of school boards and decide what children are taught. Nationally, the fight is being led by an organization called Moms for Liberty. Mandel attended the annual summit last summer. He also has the state Republican Party involved. Under Ron DeSantis, Florida has banned hundreds of books. Oklahoma’s Republican public schools superintendent recently appointed a woman who runs the anti-LGBTQ meme account Libs of TikTok to the state library advisory board.
Mr Mandel said: rolling stone This week, for her school board campaign, conversations could be mutually recorded under agreement.
Despite his persona as a right-wing agitator, Mandel is relatively calm on the phone. But she has been very open about her misgivings about running for office.
“I might hate myself, and I’m sure my husband hates me, too, because I don’t have time for that,” she says, before explaining her thought process. I will explain. Someone needs to participate. And I have a very large profile with many name IDs. If not me, then who? ”
Mandel drove from New York to Rockville, Maryland, and waited until the last minute to submit her application in order to secure a last-minute appointment before the deadline. “She never told anyone about this race,” she said, not even her husband, Seth, a senior editor at a conservative magazine. Explanation. “This is not a joke,” Mandel reiterates. “The truth is, he’s very angry with me.
“It makes me laugh when I hear people say it’s a publicity stunt,” she continues. “Deep down, I don’t want to do this. There are many better advertising campaigns that don’t take as much time and can make more money. But this… A billion dollar budget is being mishandled. Children are the ones who suffer.”
Mandel has six young children, three of whom are school age. they are not attending school. Mandel, who teaches students herself, plans to continue teaching even if she wins election to the school board, which was her goal.
“I’m not going to sacrifice my child’s education,” she says. “That’s how I feel right now…What I’m doing is a privilege. And I recognize that it’s a privilege. And it’s a privilege that not enough people have. But , it’s not a game. My kids are not in the game. I’m not going to send them to a place where they’re not good enough to prove a point at this point.”
Mandel admits it’s a little “weird” that a school board wants to help lead when their children don’t attend local schools. She points out: “We have board members who don’t have children who go to public school. Some board members in other areas don’t have children either. I think that’s weird. I at least have children. Some of the board members are young. None of them have children, so at least I get a glimpse of life with young children.”
Separately, Mandel said: “I grew up going to public schools all my life. And my mother was a single mother,” she said, adding that at one point she taught fifth grade in Cambodia.
Mandel said she and the parents who complained to the school board considered the idea of creating a charter school. [and] Do they teach Hebrew? ” she says.
She noted that the idea would need school board approval to make it a reality, adding, “That’s not going to happen with the current school board.”
Mandel is known as a conservative culture warrior, and she agrees that recognition is fair.
“I definitely think I’m part of a circle of people on the right who are trying to fight these culture wars,” she says. “For me, at the end of the day, I’m not happy with schools taking on many of the social problems they have. The biggest downside is that they’re doing it instead of teaching math and reading and writing. , and I think that’s reflected in the test scores. The amount of money you’re spending on this, you’re not spending on math.”
Online, her comments about LGBTQ people have become more intentionally cruel. In a column defending transgender people’s refusal to use their chosen names and pronouns, she wrote, “To go along with a delusion is not kind to people who suffer from other psychological conditions.” .
Mandel doesn’t necessarily expect to win the school board election.
“I’m not naive about my chances. I’ve looked at the electoral map. I understand where I live,” she says. However, she claims that in recent days she has seen people leaving comments on local message boards to the effect of: Everything about her makes my skin crawl. But maybe someone needs to change things up. ”
Mandel said she was not leading the campaign “for the money or the fame” and just “wanted to hold people accountable.”
“I’m in a unique position to try to affect change,” she said, noting that her public profile should draw attention to the race. She said: “I couldn’t help but try and I think I could have made a difference.”