this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2024
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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.

(page 2) 39 comments
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

Can't tell if shes 35 or 53

[–] [email protected] 34 points 7 months ago

Attention seeker seeks attention.

[–] [email protected] 112 points 7 months ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (12 children)

School boards have political parties?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

They do where I live, yes. I know they don't everywhere though.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It’s literally in the summary

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yes I read that, I was expressing shock at the concept itself. Sorry for any confusion

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

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.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 7 months ago

No thank you.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


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 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.)

Mandel’s campaign is part of a broader push by conservative culture warriors to take over school boards and decide what children can be taught.

Oklahoma’s Republican superintendent of public schools recently appointed the woman who runs Libs of TikTok, the anti-LGBTQ meme account, to a state library advisory committee.

In a column defending her refusal to use trans people’s chosen names and pronouns, she wrote: “Playing along with delusions isn’t a kindness to those suffering from other psychological conditions.”


The original article contains 1,226 words, the summary contains 156 words. Saved 87%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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