How ‘Moms for Liberty’ grew into a 2024 Republican power player

Leading Republican presidential candidates are making their cases at the Moms for Liberty summit in Philadelphia on Friday and Saturday, a sign of the right-wing group’s growing influence in GOP national politics.

Former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy are slated to address the organization, conceived of during the school closures and mask mandate clashes of the Covid-19 pandemic, and which now advocates for what it describes as “parent power” in public education.

Wearing T-shirts with the slogan “We Don’t Co-Parent With The Government,” Moms for Liberty members have emerged as some of the most fervent evangelists for efforts to ban certain books from schools, outlaw the teaching and discussion of gender and sexuality by teachers, and crack down on educators’ embrace – however overstated or outright concocted – of “critical race theory.”

Organized opposition to those typically liberal priorities has accelerated during Joe Biden’s presidency as Republicans seek to claw back gains made by Democrats among suburban women, who broke sharply against Trump in 2020. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, another potential GOP presidential candidate, made “parents’ rights” a centerpiece of his winning campaign in 2021. But similar culture war messaging yielded mixed results a year later during the midterms, when Republicans struggled again with crucial suburban moderates.

But as the 2024 GOP presidential primary heats up, the candidates are almost uniformly pushing a similar set of issues – though often more vitriolic in tone – as they seek to win over conservative activists who remain largely aligned with Trump.

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