Fascism Comes for a New Mexico School Board

school boards. We just did a two parter on fascist attempts to kind of take over and dominate school boards around the country, and you've got some personal experience with that, so I wanted to kind of just turn this over to you to start us off. Yeah, thanks for Robert, thanks for having me on the show. Um. Yeah, my name is Lucas and I live in mos Cruces, New Mexico, which is in the southern part of the state. Were

close to the border for people that are interested. Um, and yeah, like you know that my experience had happened last week is sort of the quintessential It could happen here exactly. LUs LUs Cruses Um, politically speaking, is actually a very progressive little town I mean in general, New Mexico has been for what you know, however you consider the progressive or not is has been blue for quite

a while. Is in terms of like voting like it's not it's not like Texas politically at least, right that's yeah, exactly, Yeah, we voted for we voted for Bush the first time, but have voted blue every election since two thousands four. Like federally, so in my little stretch of the of the state, our congressional district has been read. But the city of Los Cruces, which is the like where the biggest city in the southern part of the state, where

the second biggest city in the state. UM, our city council has not only been democratic, but like progressively democratic. UM we have UM. As of this recent election. You know, from the beginning of November, we now have an all female city council. UM there is at least we have UM one one if not too trying to think. Sorry, Currently there are two UM folks on the city council have immigrated from Mexico in their life. UM one will still be on. One is now running for congress. UM

we have UM. The school board that currently is sitting is generally progressive, and the one we just elected, we just elected our first openly queer person onto that school board. UM. Our little group of of legislators that go up to

Santa Fe every year is very progressive. So again, just to kind of reiterate, like Las Cruces, New Mexico, pretty progressive little place, and yet at the school board meeting last week, UM, totally dominated by a public attendance of very far right extremists, UM, spouting all kinds of nonsense about all kinds of things. So yeah, it was pretty

well yeah, and this, I mean, this has happened. This happened in Portland, Oregon too, which is also famously I don't know, I wouldn't call Portland politics progressive but solidly democratic. In the school board meeting gets taken over by by far right activists. This is a yeah. So when did you kind of first become aware of this? Well? So, UM it was it was a weird convergence of my personal and my and my private or I'm sorry, my personal and my professional life where I UM, I work

for an organization called progress Now in Mexico. So it's like I do progressive politics for a living, but um, and a colleague who works for the a c LU here had asked if I would go and help lend support to this gender inclusion policy that the school board was going to be um commenting on. They weren't voting on it. That day. It was what's called the first reading, and she asked if I could go and if I could, you know, just speak, and I was like, yeah, absolutely,

be happy too. So I was gonna go and and talk about this in a I'm sorry professional capacity. And then and that day, um, as like before I went to that, my daughter, who's in middle school, texted me a picture a bunch of kids had on Monday of of last week, which was like trans Awareness Week or Transvisibility Week. Some kids had shown up wearing trans flags

and pride flags on that Monday. The following day, that Tuesday, some kids showed up wearing UM thin blue line flags in in response like indirect response um and in my daughter, and you know, my daughter is aware enough to know what that means. So she texted me and was like I can't believe this ship and I was like I know. UM, So then I'm like right, So then I'm like, okay, well, now I want to go speak about this gender inclusion

bill or policy personally right like now like has impacted me. Um, So I show up at uh, you know, about an hour before the meeting is supposed to start. Because the third thing that kind of happened was that I, um, I am, I'm on like a bunch of ailing lists because of my job. And sure enough, the local gop um, who is not very active because again they kind of lose all the time, they sent out a like come show up at this thing, you know email. So I showed up early, thinking okay, well I want to see

if there's going to be something. And at first I was like, oh, like I don't think they showed up. I don't think that they turned out that's good. But it turns out they were all like hiding in their cars so that they could like swarm the building at once. And so then like about half an hour before the meeting, they all walked in at once, and like I was already sitting inside the room and they all came in at once, and they took over all the chairs. They

was standing room only. Um to the point where like the there was a bunch of f f A kids that were there that was supposed to be recognized for you know, f A something or other, and like they had to kick some people out so that they weren't violating the fire code. Um. But that's how many. Yeah. So anyway, that's kind of how it all. That's the setting for where this all happened. Um. It turns out that at the same meeting there was gonna be a policy discussion on a different policy that had to do

with New Mexico's revision of Social studies standards. Um. And of course that got everybody hot and bothered about so called c RT, which isn't a thing. But so like they were there, but I mean, but the folks that showed up to speak, I mean, they were all over the place. They were talking about critical race theory. They were talking about the Gender Inclusion Bill, and like trans violent the myth of trans violence and um. But then of course like like COVID protocols and all kinds of

I mean just again like way out their stuff. Um.

And actually kind of funny. I was listening to Knowledge Fight this morning, and uh, Jordan and Dan really hit on it that like they have just figured out that these are places they can go and yell at like no one you know, like school board people aren't gonna like they're all just these are all just like teachers, like retired teachers who are on these school boards, and they're like they're not there to just you know, have the is like whatever discussions, so they're not gonna you know,

they just like let these people yell and they did. So anyways, it got it got heated, uh pretty quickly because I mean again, these people just like go off and they get they riled themselves up and those lots of applause and anyway, that's kind of how it all started, I guess, or that's what it was. And I mean, has has there have you noticed kind of any sort of mobilization in the community now that this has happened, because it seems like the first ones of these, at

least always take everybody by surprise. People are not used to still not really used to school board meetings being um shall I say interesting, um, certainly important, but like not a thing that you have to really be concerned about for the most part. And that's that's changing. Have you seen the community kind of start to adapt to that? Yeah, you know, since so you know, I put some content out on my you know, local Twitter. Um and and and um got some traction there things to sort your retweet,

I think. But um, but then the biggest thing was that kind of going back to what had happened at my daughter's school, that progress that got worse, if you will. The following day, the Wednesday of last week, some kids showed up in an actual Confederate stars and bars flag, um, which is yeah, that's nuts. Famed Confederate state New Mexico. You know Messia, New Mexico, which is right down the road was it was the capital of the Confederate territory. But yeah, but it wasn't a state at that point.

It was not a state. And I'm not aware of with their battles in New Mexico. And I know we had some in like further south Texas than you would think, but I was not there any There's a couple there was one of famously up north called the Battle of Glorietta, and then um, and then there was one here where

I live. Wasn't a battle. It was a bunch of Confederates got um stranded and super drunk, and then I couldn't cross the desert fast enough, so they got stranded up in the mountains that if they called Baylor Canyon and then they get to the top and like the North was just sitting there like waiting for them and was like, well, you're captured now, we'll see. That's clearly

that's some history worth celebrating right there. I think that the biggest, like one of the scariest but biggest things is like and this goes towards the This is a slight tangent, but like the social studies revision, for instance, in the state of New Mexico. Uh, there are two

paragraphs in our history book about the Gaston Purchase. Um like I live in the chunk that is the guest and Purchase, and um, like the guests and Purchase is like James Gaston was a notorious racist who left the South and took all of his railroad money, went to California and Mexico, lobbying hard, using his influence and money to try to create a slave state in Baja in Mexico.

Like that's what he was trying to do, and like that part of that, part of the context of why the guests and Purchase even happened, is like totally left out of history books. And it's like if anywhere should be taught. It should be taught in the place that is called the guests and purchase when it comes to the United States. So anyway, just a little tangent there why it's important to have context in history. Um so sorry going back to my daughter's school and these kids

wearing the stupid stars and bars so um that. So, like I went and spoke to the assistant principle and was like, so, I understand that your answer to this was to ban all flats and he was like and he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, because they're causing a disruption to education. And I was like, yeah, but I you know, I think I feel like you're giving a false equivalency to like, you know, gender and and pride acknowledgment to verslag. Yeah, it's it's I mean, it's this constant.

This has happened in a couple of places, including a town in Oregon, where it's like this is sort of the the centrist and kind of the right wing solution to this. It's just that like, well, if if kids can't wear racist hate flags, then gay kids can't wear a flag that says that their existence is valid. Uh, you know, because those are the same thing. Yeah, yeah, it's frustrating. It is frustrating. So that was not my

favorite thing. Um. And so then the culmination of that this week was that my daughter's social studies teacher, who had allowed the kids in her class to make little paper flags after the real flags were banned, um, was fired Jesus Christ. And because it's a personnel matter, no one is willing to tell me more. I've I've called the president of the school school board, who actually, in all fairness, he doesn't actually probably have that much sway

over these kinds of things. I would imagine that happened at a level, a level that was not his. But yeah, yeah, but I mean, but I but I have anyway, so I did call him. I also called the school and got very little information from them, obviously, so you who knows. But again, like that's how it was perceived from the

kids in her class, um. And that's so like what we know happened is that we know that after the flags got banned, she let kids make flags out of paper and hang them up, and by Friday she was gone. So like not a great response, no not not not ideal? Not ideal? Yea, yeah, So anyway, that's kind of where

we left at. But I guess maybe what maybe what I should say to get back to your original question, which is to say, like, have we seen a mobilization that Yeah, Like so I learned the newspaper the reporter who that teacher like a couple of weeks ago, had actually been in the newspaper because she had also like um, she she spearheaded this like response like a support, like a girl who wore her job to school had been bullied, and like when news got around in the school, like

the like the majority of the student body, and this team sure like went up and above out of their way to make her feel welcome and like walk her to her class, and like it we got kind of viral on local TikTok. So like this teacher got quoted in the newspaper. So I like called them. I called

the rapport. I tweeted the newspaper and I was like, like, you guys know that the teacher who was in like startlet in your article is fired for allowing kids to waste their thoughts about these flags things, right, And they were like no, we didn't know, And I was like you should probably find so, so you know, I don't know where we're gonna be at now. The next reading for the gender Inclusion Policy is UM December, so we've

got a couple of weeks before that next school board meeting. UM. I think that on my end, like there's gonna be some local organizing to try to get some better, more inclusive voices to be a part of things. UM. I don't you know, I don't know what the interim will hold UM, because it's like, you know, it's the holidays and there's a lot going on and Kyle written how

else and build black better? I mean, there's like, you know, there's always a million things happening, so it'll you know, there will have to be some drum beating to like get people to show up to that. But on the other hand, I think with some of the momentum we have and I think people will show up in Mass for the fourteenth UM in support at least this is the kind of community that in general we have shown up and shown out to support, you know, these kinds

of issues in the past. But I do think that up until now people felt for pretty asleep about it. Yeah, I mean, and hopefully you do see the kind of response you're expecting can you walk me through sort of how the kind of attempts like you talked about getting the local media aware of what had happened to that teacher. Um, how are people like what does the actual organizing effort look like on the ground, Like, how are you trying? How are you and others trying to get the word

out so that you know there's a response to this. Yeah, so I think that, Um, the first thing is is that there was there was a problem with the way that the school board handled public comment that first time. In an attempt to help limit their own sort of exposure to some of the toxic stuff they knew was coming their way, they had they had instituted a limit

on public comment. Um, you had to show up by a certain time and fill out these little pieces of paper saying that you were there to comment about something, and if you weren't there, then you couldn't sign up.

And the problem was was that all these like old white male retirees who are sitting around listening to Alex Jones all day, they had nothing better to do than show up to this meeting at three o'clock in the afternoon, whereas a bunch of for instance, teachers students parents, Um, they were busy because they were in school or like

picking their kids up from school. UM. So I think one of the things that we're going to try to do is get public comment ahead of time, and we're gonna try to like bombard the not bombard that's that's a violent word. But we're gonna try to like just make sure that UM voices from the community that hadn't been represented are represented and sent to the school board

ahead of time. UM. I think we're gonna try to go and save physical space ahead of time for those of us that can write, for those of us that can will go and we'll try to save physical space. And we did learn that even if they keep that policy for the little forms, we can UM, we can actually give that time. We can fill out other people's names, right, So we're gonna try to like make sure that we

have better voices. That was one of the things if you listen to the recording of what I said at that meeting, UM, I asked the school board president if it's possible for me to yield my time because it had literally been like a dozen white men out there spouting nonsense. And then I get up there and I'm like, yeah, hey, um,

we've heard from enough white men. Can we have like a member of the trans community or one of the women of color who are here to talk about this, um, but couldn't get here in time and there they're legal team was like, oh no, like you didn't sign up in time or whatever. So um, but it turns out we could have put their names down ahead of time. So we're gonna try to organize that thing so that

people can show up and save you know, physical space. Um. And then UM, I think the other thing too is to try to involve some other local elected officials from the county and city level, because again we have these really amazing progressive candidates who have come from all walks of life, including immigrants and members of you know, l

g B, t q A community. UM. So having them come and speak in their official capacity UM, I think will carry a lot of weight um for the both for the school board but also just for the public to hear from those voices. Yeah, where are these like? Have you have you gotten any kind of research on

where the people showing up are coming from? Are these like folks within your community or these people coming from kind of outlying areas um to swarm these meetings, Like is there is there kind of an active research contingent. I mean, that's part of what I do. It's part of part of my job with Progress now in Mexico. My my title is Energy Policy Director. I usually spend

most of my day talking about oil and gas stuff. However, I've been doing this job long enough that before I became that person, I was actively researching and tracking a lot of white supremacy activity in the in the state, especially along the border, some of the border militia stuff a couple of years back. So in that regard, I knew, and I knew a number of these folks. A lot of them do live in the city, but so our our county is considered rural by the census, even though

we're a city of a hundred thousand people. But we're a big county. So there's there's two people here, so um, so there's you know, it's it's hard to tell how many people may or may not have lived in, for instance,

the public school district. But what I can tell you, like hands down, is that of those dozen folks that spoke before I did, like, there's no way that at least I mean, maybe one or two of them had kids that could have gone through the last CRUSES public school system, but like the majority of them far and away, like either aren't from here at all, or you know, they've lived here for a long time, but they are They are not active parents or even grandparents of kids

that live and we'll go to school in this in this district. They're just they're just agitated right wingers. Yeah, and it's how does this all tie in? Because New Mexico has had I think it's kind of been on the back burner in terms of like national attention, But y'all have had some really significant dust stops, not just with you know, the border militias. For years there have been violent um acts and even murders as the result

of that stuff going on. But like during last year's the protests over George Floyd's murder, y'all had some really ugly who shall be the dueling rallies were like right wingers shot at people um and some really some nasty situations. I'm wondering, are like those folks, like are you seeing that kind of organization being brought into the school board meeting or is this just kind of bubbling up as part of the same stew it is. Yeah, there, it's

loosely affiliated for sure. UM. And and the crossover, the crossover is hard to tell. Depend I mean, what am I trying to say? There's there is crossover. It's hard to tell how on purpose it is or sort of the fact that this is like a small population community states, right.

So what I what I mean by that is that some of the some of the physical white supremacists who showed up last year at one of our um BLM support you know, George Floyd related peaceful protests, who they showed up at a parking lot across the street, you know, armed, long guns, tech vests, all that kind of stuff. Who that those were the folks that when I when I went and filmed them and put them on blast to to try and sort of out them as best we

possibly could or at least identify them. Um, they came back and ducked me. As And then when after a number of my colleagues up north in Albuquerque, that was about a week before there was the there was a shooting of a of a UM anti fascist protester in Albuquerque, and and it was during sort of all of that stuff that I was like trying to talk about all this out loud um and got tied into a few more other anti fascist voices in the state. So since

then we've all been kind of working together. Um we found each other on Twitter, thankfully, and so so what it seems like is is that like the folks that showed up to the UH school board meeting were what I'll call usual suspects, like politically active old you know,

right wingers that being had um in that room. There were a number of people that I've identified as showing up to anti vax rallies, a number of the Trump train rallies that happened last year before the election, and at least one person who I recognized as being I have never seen carry a firearm, but like has been at rallies where people were carrying firearms and that kind of thing um in response to these, you know, in response to like peaceful protests. So there is crossover for sure.

Where do you see this going, like, because You've been kind of paying attention to this for a while, not just the school board stuff, but just kind of the general problem of right wing um organizing in your area. Like, where do you where do you see this heading within

kind of the context of New Mexico. Well, I mean, so we haven't really talked about this, but like, so, while while here in Los Cruces, we did really well, UM during the November election in terms of our school board be re elected a really good progressive school board president and two new good progressive candidates, including, like I said,

the first you know queer openly queer person. So that's amazing. However, up in Albuquerque, Uh, they lost seats to some of these far right wing UM candidates and UM, so the Albuquerque school board is um not UM not looking as

good politically. So, I mean, so on the like, I guess what I'd say is on the soft end, what I expect is more continued pressure in sort of the UM the way these things are supposed to happen, which is to say, like continued presence of the right wing folks at meetings, yelling, taking up space, UM, slowing things down, running for office when the time comes, you know, those

kinds of things I see. UM. I guess I wouldn't be surprised though if UM, if I if there were further escalation of things UM in a you know, in the way we've seen other places in terms of some sort of you know, an armed response or somebody showing up. Um. You know, in New Mexico's an open cary state, and so people can walk around with guns all the time. UM. And and you know, I mean that's the thing too, is like, well, I didn't see anybody with an open

carried firearm at the school board meeting. There were guys wearing like, you know, Vortex Optics brand hats, thin blue line shirts, a guy with that like a Remingtons shirt, you know. And and like, I don't regret anybody from gun culture. I'm you know, I'm a lefty with a gun, So it's like I get gun culture. But like when you show up in those things and then those spaces with that kind of yeah you're making a point yep, yeah, yeah, yeah,

you're you're you're not Yeah, I get that. Um, have you is there some kind of have you seen, like any kind of budding left wing armed response? Like is there do you guys have like an organized group of folks who have been showing up, um when there are armed protests in the area. Um, I mean I always have my gear with me. UM. I mean I've got I've got a ceramic plate. I've got my you know, rifle and pistol. I I am a member of a

number of different groups. I've been a member of the s R A UM, I've I've worked with some of the armed groups up in Albuquerque. So down here there hasn't been a ton But um, I've got a I've got what I'll call a luciffiliation with a number of folks that I would trust to be armed if need be.

Thankfully that hasn't happened yet. Thankfully, the one big big protests that happened here in Las Cruces that I was sort of nervous about, and I did have my gear for remained peaceful and and we you know, we took over some streets since blocks traffic for a couple hours and there was never any violent response from anybody other than you, like one car at one point trying to push through and car got banged on and that was

about it. But um so so, so to answer your question, like, yes, there are those of us that are left wing and armed, and there are those of us that have been able to show out if we needed to. Thankfully we haven't had to at this point. Yeah, Well, all right. I think that's everything. I had to ask. Is there anything else you wanted to to get to to make sure

to talk about today? Well, I just I mean I would be I would be um not doing the best of my job if I didn't mention the fact that like one of the so one of the talking points of the right wing here and our school board is that New Mexico's education system is is fifty feet in the country. And I the the my assumption is that that has to do with DC's public schools being um. So it's not a great Yeah, that's not a great record. Yeah,

it's not a it's not a great record. And um and and I and I you know, as a parent of a kid who's in the public schools, I uh, you know, I cannot ignore that, right. That's so that's a legitimate talking point. But the but the thing that they want to bring it about is that you know, there you know, it's because we're trying to be gender inclusive. It's because we're trying to like, you know, teach kids

about like actual history that happened whatever. Um, And the reality is it's because our education system is, unlike most places funded by the oil and gas industry and not by like our communities. Um. And so like you know, eighteen months ago, oil prices crashed, right and the State of New Mexico had to have an emergency special session for a legislature to figure out how we were gonna

like fund things like cops and schools and like whatever. Um. And then like now you know, oil and gas is like gangbusters and where you know, record prices and like the State of Mexico has this like surplus budget. But the thing is is that like that that extra money that we're gonna get this time doesn't make up for the like cyclical bad you know way that we fund

our schools. So I just want to like tie in that, like like all of these things tie in together, right, Like we can't talk about education in New Mexico without talking about the oil and gas funding and so anyway, so like because that's my you know, that's part of the reason why I was going to go talk about this stuff at the on my professional level, is that like I get to talk about education as an as an energy expert in the State of New Mexico because

energy and education are so intertwined here. Um. And like when you have literal like Koke Brothers founded UM and and UM like monetarily supplied think tanks in the state of New Mexico who are pushing out this kind of propaganda and encouraging people. So that there's a group called the Rio Grand Foundation and like another one called Power the Future uh PTE Power of the Future in New Mexico.

Like both of those organizations are like tied to the Cooke Brothers because the Kope Brothers are tied to oil and they're pushing these right wing talking points UM and it's all part and parcel of just like you know, clouding the information space. That's what they want to do. They want to have, They want to have the new cycle dominated with things like CRT and gender inclusion studies to you know, to tie up things like school boards so that so that the electorate is busy talking about

these things. Well meanwhile they're just raking in money, hand over fist um, you know, stealing our oil. So anyway, I just that's so important to me to like make those connections UM, especially in this state, and it's something that a lot of people don't consider and don't think about, and it's just really important to me that people understand that. So yeah, UM, all right, well, thank you so much, Lucas.

This has been I'm not gonna say fun, but certainly enlightening and I think valuable A good a good dispatch from you know, a fight that we we continue to see is important here and that everybody should be paying attention to both wherever it happens, including in Los Cruses and around the country. UM, because they ain't given up, um, and they can't be ignored. Um. Yeah, and that's you've mentioned this many times over the years, but like that's

the kind of thing is that we have to show up. Um. Yeah, we can't just let them have these spaces and um. And I think that this this past school board meeting

was a great example of why. Um. And and I'm I'm really counting on a lot of my my, my friends and close you know, the folks that I have come to love and support in this community, UM, to show up and show out for that, because that's you know, we've been there, right we, Like I said, you know, and if you look up Los Crusies politics over the years on the news cycle, like you'll see stories about our you know, progressive City Council and passing a living

wage and you know, banding classic bags. I mean like all these like you know, we've we've tried, we've we've tried to be that kind of little community and and and yet you know, these folks are still there and they're still allowed and if we give them the space, they will take those spaces over. So yeah, yeah, absolutely,

so thanks for having me on. Let me talk about this. Yeah, it really means a lot, thank you for stepping up, because it is this is the thing that's a giant pain in the butt, Um, is that everybody's got a lot going on. Life is complicated. There's all sorts of

shipped to do in the old world. Um, but every time these fascists and their their affiliates decide they're going to try to take over something, you know, as busy as people are, as exhausting as it is, you do have to like they can't just be able to have to do it. Like That's how they win, is they have they have unlimited energy for this ship and um, if they're not, like the thing that causes them to lose energy is actually um being outnumbered and shown to

be like like like being kind of pushed out by communities. Um, you can do it. It takes it, but it requires people showing up. Yes, that's exactly right. So um, I appreciate the signal boost means a lot to me. Uh and this is there any local organs that people can support, so big shout out to a group called Cafe here in Las Cruces that works on all kinds of border issues immigrant rights but also like workers rights and um, immigrants,

like student rights, migrant student rights. Um. They've been very active in this for a long time. Um. And so yeah, I definitely shout out Cafe uh here in here in I mean all of New Mexico, but specifically in southern New Mexico they're doing a lot of work. And then um uh Dreams in Action, which is part of a national network for dreamers. But um again here in New Mexico have done a lot of good work. Okay, yeah, thank you very much, Lucas. All right, um, and that

is going to do it for us here. It could happen here until next time. Go uh, I don't know, hang out at a school board meeting. Go take up space from fascists. Yeah, go take up space from fascists in general. It could happen Here is a production of

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