Moms for Liberty: Cultural Facilitators of Exclusion and Extremism
| by By Dr. Amy Cooter, Robin O’Luanaigh, CTEC Researcher DiRi, Brooke Allison, Toby Graf, Frances Breidenstein, and and Kendra French
Moms for Liberty (M4L) is a so-called parent’s rights organization that has achieved incredible momentum and political gains since its inception in 2021 by latching onto and amplifying some of the most contentious cultural flashpoints of the time. Despite suffering numerous public controversies, M4L’s rhetoric and activism have dramatically impacted schools, school boards, and both local and national politics while inspiring similar organizations to take root. This paper qualitatively examines core themes and ideas that M4L has used to accomplish these outcomes via content analysis of M4L’s national website materials and their Town Hall at the 2024 Republican National Convention. We find that M4L messaging weaves together interrelated narratives rather than presenting distinct, issue-focused materials, and that these narratives center on themes of Conspiratorial Thinking, Political Engagement, Gender Roles, Parents’ Rights, and Identity-Based Narratives. While less of an overt presence in the dataset, Nationalism and Christianity are also important for contextualizing these narrative themes.
