Bethany Mandel, the controversial right-wing pundit, home-schooling advocate, and prolific social media poster, is running for county school board — as a Democrat.
Though the school board race in deep-blue Montgomery County, Maryland, is technically nonpartisan, Mandel’s campaign published a graphic on Tuesday listing her as a Democrat. The move quickly raised eyebrows online, and prompted a community note on X (formerly Twitter) stating, “Bethany Mandel has identified as a Republican numerous times on her personal Twitter account.”
…
Those who know Mandel recognize her for writing molten-hot takes and far-right political commentary. The most infamous was a column, published in the wake of the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, titled “We Need to Start Befriending Neo Nazis.” (Mandel is Jewish.) Her content can be cringey, like her column defending Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ wife: “If Casey DeSantis is a Karen, she’s our Karen.” She’s posted dehumanizing rhetoric, too. “Not nuking these fucking animals is the only restraint I expect and that’s only because the cloud would hurt Israelis,” she’s written about Palestinians.
School boards have political parties?
Homey this is America in the 21st century. Hamburgers have political parties.
My previous favorite hamburger is 2 faced. In my state they have no mask restrictions, in other states they operate in they prohibit masks under any condition. Now I spend a bit (4x as much as I used to spend, 2x as much as current prices) more at a local place, and my burger looks like one you’d see in an advertisement, every time.
Name and shame.
I’m surprised, disappointed, that it was swept under the rug that well, but I guess “food company commits to spreading the next virus as much as possible” is a relatively mild headline in the modern day.
https://www.foxla.com/news/in-n-out-burger-employees-mask-ban “The policy further states this will help “balance two things that In-N-Out is known for – exceptional customer service and unmatched standards for health, safety, and quality.””
“We are introducing new mask guidelines that emphasizes the importance of customer service and the ability to show our associates’ smiles and other facial features while considering the health and well-being of all individuals,”
https://www.kqed.org/news/11956720/in-n-out-and-other-california-workplaces-cant-prevent-employees-from-wearing-masks-regulators-say
Jesus. Not like I’m worried about getting COVID from food but wtf is that stance? That’s the worst logic I’ve read in s while. We care about health and safety but we’re not going to wear anything that’ll actually do that because we want talk to see our face. But trust us, no disease here to spread.
Fucking braindead.
I was quite a fan of their burgers (for fast food), I could ignore the Bible verse # printed on the bottom of their cups, but, and I’m not sure if I blame religion ignorance or greed (though the first preys on the latter) but the result is, even in California, I’m not going to give them another dime.
Hamburgers, probably. Chicken sandwiches we know do
I’d vote for anyone running on the buffalo or Nashville hot platforms.
Sorry, all the candidates are running on the Chick Fil A platform
It’s literally in the summary
Yes I read that, I was expressing shock at the concept itself. Sorry for any confusion
I didn’t mean to be curt either. My reply could easily be seen as dickish, so my apologies. But yes in the USA school board elections are ‘non-partisan’, but any keen observer can glean the partisan leaning of a candidate. It looks as if in this case one must be even keener than usual.
As a gently raised Canadian I too was very confused.
But then the whole “registered party member”, primary voting thing doesn’t really exist here either. Like parties have internal democratically held meetings to figure out their best candidates… But I could technically go to and participate in every party meeting if I wanted to figure out their schedule. People just can’t run for office for multiple parties in an election.
Personally I find it a little fucked up that you register your intentions and essentially choose your political circular mail during the initial voting process in the first place. It would not be out of character from this outsider’s perspective if school boards in the US were a partisan affair because there’s already more infrastructure to create a distinct two party supremacy down there then we of the north are used to.
Just explaining our electoral system to my American friends usually has them very jealous at the general lack of extra steps. Complaining that we still have very much have proportional representation issues to address on the Canadian side usually falls on deaf ears.
As somebody whose dad was involved in getting 2 schools built while I was in school and was also president of the schoolboard for a time before that, I can confidently say that anybody who runs for a schoolboard position is doing so because they have an agenda.
Oftentimes, that agenda is “I want our schools to be better for our kids,” but not always. Sometimes, people run because they have differing opinions on what making schools better means, but sometimes (and rather often right now, it seems) you get somebody whose only goal is to burn it to the ground. Those are the kinds of people who care about political parties in schoolboards - because they’re so obsessed with the us vs. them of their politics that it shapes the rest of their lives.
Local politics can be a cutthroat and dirty game. I’ll always remember my dad telling me about how he was walking out of a town meeting one time when he saw an old lady point to him and loudly say to her friends, “That’s him! That’s the enemy!”
They do where I live, yes. I know they don’t everywhere though.