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.”
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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.
Well your second link can’t be trusted because it’s from a biased source. Literally paid research by the home education group.
The first one is interesting in that it seems to be a hirable think tank. But, does at least seem to be pulling data from sources.
Now you did in fact supply sources more than the people you are arguing against but you started with emotional responses and then angrily stated that you provided resources elsewhere which isn’t a great look and will build bias against you. So now you are facing a losing argument to pivot to “facts” late and with bias just makes it really hard to take your side seriously at this point.
Take a step back and let it go or start over. And know starting over is also gonna be uphill with the hole that’s been dug. Sorry man. Humans are emotional at their core. All of us.
While I can understand taking with a grain of salt on a level of trust, the fact is, I’ve provided evidence and nobody here has been able to provide a modicum of evidence to the contrary yet. I appreciate your recognition of this. I think it’s also worth pointing out that being biased does not preclude being right (e.g., a climate scientist could be considered “biased” on their case for climate change; but their evidence still strong.)
To be clear, I feel I responded to that user with an assertive, passionate response that was proportionate to the amount of substance and emotion they put into their own comments. I question if you gave a second look at what they actually wrote, what evidence they provided, and what “emotion” they brought to the table. I freely admit I’m passionate about this; but I also know for a fact that I know more on this subject-matter than any individual here that has replied to me. Sorry if that sounds arrogant, but it’s frustrating when you see the same tropes play out over and over again. As you can imagine, this isn’t my first discussion on this topic.
So in the end I ask: to How should I have responded that would satisfy you and meet the equivalent level of detail the user I replied to gave (and was up-voted)?