Thread by @oneunderscore__

I want to tell a quick story about Tucker Carlson, a small town in Maine, and a panic over “critical race theory” stoked with the help of Fox News and viral conservative websites.

Last year, Maine’s 51st school district put out a letter denouncing white supremacy after George Floyd's death.

One parent, Shawn McBreairty, took issue, saying it “essentially labeled all the community members from [his town] ‘white supremacists.’”

As you can see, it doesn’t.

Because of the letter, McBreairty quickly became convinced his daughters’ school was teaching Critical Race Theory.

He filed a Freedom of Information Act request and discovered the town had spent $12k for diversity training for its staff.

He then filed 53 more FOIAs, which can be complicated and expensive.

That’s where a national organization comes in: No Left Turn in Education.

No Left Turn is a national conservative group devoted to fighting what they believe is Critical Race Theory in public schools.

They said they helped with some of McBreairty’s fees, synced him up with pro bono lawyers, and helped with tactics and press strategy.

McBreairty and an out-of-town ally with no school-aged children, Michael Doyle, then started a campaign to prove Maine’s 51st school district was teaching Critical Race Theory.

At one school board meeting, Doyle, who runs a local blog, used public comment time to request an impromptu recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.

One school board member, Ann Maksymowicz, didn’t stand.

McBreairty then put a picture of a seated Maksymowicz on his lawn.

When Maksymowicz asked McBreairty to remove the sign of her face from his lawn, McBreairty put a larger, billboard-sized photo on his lawn, then claimed he boobytrapped it with rat traps to prevent theft.

He even decorated it with lights for Christmas.

McBreairty then began a national conservative media campaign to get school board members to resign.

The Daily Wire picked up his story when he claimed he was banned from his daughters’ graduation.

(He wasn’t, but was issued a criminal trespass warning. He attended.)

McBreairty sent a list of demands, saying “the tip of the iceberg of media [is] coming your way” if the the school district didn’t apologize for its letter from a year ago.

He CC’d a Fox News producer.

“Not a threat, but reality. Choose wisely.”

The tip of the iceberg? Tucker.

Doyle, McBreairty’s ally, sent a letter to the school board, looking forward to the hate mail the superintendent would receive once McBreairty appeared on Tucker.

“This will make the dickhead in charge get even more hate mail from all over the WORLD!”

He attached a picture.

When the superintendent refused to cave to McBreairty’s demands, he appeared on Tucker's show, then a daytime Fox News show to talk about Critical Race Theory in public schools.

“I just think it's inspiring that someone wasn't going to let their kids be destroyed,” Carlson said.

After he appeared on Tucker, McBreairty was sent a summons for “improper influence,” a class-D misdemeanor in Maine, tied to another demand.

McBreairty threatened to release a phone call between the now-deceased father of school board member Tyler McGinley if she didn’t resign.

Days after McBreairty’s Fox News appearances, his primary target to oust from the school board, Ann Maksymowicz, cruised to re-election.

Superintendent Porter said the fight over CRT proved “how much hate can be generated by a small group of people in the community.”

Porter said his school district was “almost held hostage by this national ideology or national movement that says we're all teaching Critical Race Theory, and we're all trying to indoctrinate kids."

He said he can’t wait for the panic to be over so his town can move on.

Here’s the whole story about how national groups and conservative media have parachuted into small towns to kickstart fights over what they claim is “critical race theory.”

We put a lot of work into this one. I hope you read it.

nbcnews.com/news/us-news/c…