The More Extreme Politics Becomes, the Less It Appeals to Ordinary Citizens
From school boards to Congress, angry ideologues are pushing out regular Americans in a vicious cycle
Last week, a school board in Arizona was confronted with a decidedly unpleasant sight: noted Q-Anoner Ron Watkins, who recently moved to the state supposedly in order to run for Congress, at the podium during the public-comment section of the meeting.
Watkins, who is not a parent to any student in the district, used his time to deliver an incoherent tirade about his plan to stop Communists from taking over the schools. He talked over the board members, and generally acted like a nut. And the thing is, he’s not alone.
School board meetings have always attracted their fair share of ranters and ravers, but in the past couple of years, as schools have become extraordinary flashpoints of controversy, school boards have been beset by a parade of angry wackos — many of them not only not parents, but not even residents of the school district — anxious to vent about their ideological hobbyhorses.
In September, right-wing commentator Matt Walsh literally leased a place in Loudoun County, Virginia, just so he could go to the school board meeting and berate the board for “prey[ing] upon…
