Moms for America holds press conference in Grand Rapids to oppose school mask mandates, while MLive fails to reveal the group’s far right politics

Yesterday, the national organization, Moms for America, held a press conference in Grand Rapids, to protest the growing number of schools that now have mask mandates in place because of the growing COVID threat.

Kimberly Fletcher, founder of Moms For America, along with Cindy Chafian, director of coalitions and engagement for Moms for America Action, both spoke during the press conference and were the only sources cited in an MLive article, headlined: Moms for America Action group calls for parents to ‘strike’ against K-12 schools that mandate masking.

Besides quoting two members of Moms for America, the MLive story provided minimal context on mask mandates in West Michigan schools. More importantly, the MLive article provides no information on the history and politics of Moms for America. This omission is significant, especially since Mom’s for America is very much a part of the far right movement in the US that embraces an ideology that places people in danger and contributes to real harm being done to some of the most vulnerable communities in the country.

According to the Moms for America website, it says that the group was founded in 2004 and originally operated out of Dayton Ohio. However, as the organization grew, Mom’s for American now lists Mansfield, Texas as its headquarters.

Moms for America’s mission states:

Our Mission is to build a foundation of liberty in the homes of America, through the mothers of America, to raise a new generation of patriots, and heal our nation from the inside out.

While the mission statement is rather vague, it is clear that Moms for America embrace a far right political perspective. All one has to do is investigate their website, their Facebook page, their Instagram account and their YouTube channel to get a sense of what their organization is all about. 

I looked at their Facebook page going back as far as the Spring of 2020, and here are some of the things Mom’s for America has posted:

• Moms for America clearly condemns the Black-led uprisings that took place all over the country after the police murdered George Floyd. In fact, Moms for America regularly refers to Black Lives Matter as a Marxist entity that hates America.
• Moms for America made numerous posts in support of the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, then celebrated her appointment to the US Supreme Court. Many of their posts also celebrated Barrett’s far right religious views.
• Moms for America condemns the teaching of Critical Race Theory and often posts that  the country is being overrun with Socialist, because Marxism is being taught in the public schools.
• In March of 2021, Moms for America held a rally along the US/Mexican border called Secure Our Borders. At this rally they condemned the undocumented immigrants who enter the US, denote the fact that so many of the immigrants coming from Central America and Mexico are mothers with children.
• Moms for America was an integral part of the Stop the Steal protest around the US, thus clearly demonstrating their partisan bias in support of the GOP.
• Moms for America also held a rally near the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 5th, the day before hundreds of people stormed the Capitol building. The Mom’s for America organized rally on January 5th was called, Save the Republic.

These bullet points provide a pretty clear picture of what Moms for America is all about. So what about their leadership? The most visible leader within Moms for America is Kimberly Fletcher, who is the founder of the group and the person who spoke yesterday in Grand Rapids. Fletcher is a regular columnist for the online forum called Townhall, which also features columnists such as Ben Shapiro, Ann Coulter, Dinesh D’Souza, John Stossel and Pat Buchanan. 

Other members of the leadership team of Moms for America include: Meredith Iler, President of The Strategic Alliance; Rose Tennent, the host of the radio show called Rose Unplugged https://www.roseunplugged.com/; Rebecca Friedrichs, who wrote the book, Standing Up to Goliath: Battling State and National Teachers’ Unions for the Heart and Soul of Our Kids. 

All of the information we just provided is the kind of information that the MLive writer should have provided, yet didn’t. In addition, the mLive writer should have asked why Moms for America, a group that is based in Texas, would hold a press conference in Grand Rapids. In fact, this is an important question for all of us, especially for parents, students and community members who have serious concerns about public health and public safety. With Covid cases on the rise in Kent County, we should all be concerned about groups like Moms for America who claim to advocate for freedom, but in reality they threaten the health and safety of everyone in this community.