News/Commentary

NYT warns Dems that parents ‘have become increasingly dogmatic’ over pandemic mandates

August 2, 2022 | | Print Article

The New York Times seems to be sounding the warning to Democrats that American parents are not to be trifled with if the party hopes to have any electoral success come November — ill-fated hopes such as they are, given that the Democratic Party is widely expected to experience a drubbing in the midterms.

In a piece titled, “How Some Parents Changed Their Politics in the Pandemic,” the newspaper stated, “They were once Democrats and Republicans. But fears for their children in the pandemic transformed their thinking, turning them into single-issue voters for November’s midterms.”

A driving factor here is “last year’s surprise win in Virginia of Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, after he gained the support of young parents by invoking their frustration over Covid-driven school closures,” the Times noted, suggesting that Republican candidates who have publicly opposed Covid-19 vaccine mandates were better positioned to attract these voters.

More from the newspaper:

“Nearly half of Americans oppose masking and a similar share is against vaccine mandates for schoolchildren, polls show. But what is obscured in those numbers is the intensity with which some parents have embraced these views. While they once described themselves as Republicans or Democrats, they now identify as independents who plan to vote based solely on vaccine policies.

“Their transformation injects an unpredictable element into November’s midterm elections. Fueled by a sense of righteousness after Covid vaccine and mask mandates ended, many of these parents have become increasingly dogmatic, convinced that unless they act, new mandates will be passed after the midterms.”

 

Former Obama political advisor Dan Pfeiffer was quoted telling the Times that these voters appear to be a lost cause in November — then again, perhaps the party is prepping to blame their expected losses on the pandemic.

“A lot of Democrats might think these voters are now unreachable, even if they voted for the party recently,” Pfeiffer said.

It would appear that Democrats didn’t think about the consequences of labeling concerned parents showing up at school board meetings “domestic terrorists,” or having the Justice Department set up an FBI task force to target them.

One of those parents, Laura Fagan, took exception to the tone of the N.Y. Times article, suggesting that the newspaper “is so afraid of parents and how we will vote this November they decided to write a hit piece on us.”

In a follow-up tweet, Fagan added: “My view on open schools and no mandates in schools has 100% been informed by what European/Nordic countries have done and are doing. But the @nytimes didn’t include anything on what’s happening over there. Easier to just do lazy reporting and call us names.”

She also had this to say:

What the Times got right is that there is a brigade of motivated parents in America and, as one of them pointed out, there “is intensity involved in motherhood that goes way beyond being a ‘voter.'”

Here’s a quick sampling of responses to the story from Twitter:

https://twitter.com/CuseWaterBoy/status/1554403964761870337?s=20&t=addRrfbjY0X-aCwmMMxpwA

Tom Tillison
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