Ladies of the Right: A Q&A with Madeline Peltz
Talking Turning Point USA, Moms for Liberty, and the anti-democratic moms movement with an expert on the frontlines.
Hey momrades! For this week’s Sunday MomLeft, I interviewed Madeline Peltz, one of the top researchers of far-right media. Madeline monitors emerging right-wing media trends at Media Matters, where she was the first to reveal old tapes of Tucker Carlson saying extremely gross shit about minor girls. She’s also a keen observer of far-right women’s spaces, especially those of Moms for Liberty (school board wingnuts) and Turning Point USA (a youth movement trying to get women to forgo careers in order to become mothers and eventual school board wingnuts).
We chatted about tradwives, GOP astroturf, and infiltrating far-right women’s conferences. Here’s our conversation (transcript edited lightly for length):
Kelly: You spend a lot of time watching the women of the right, who are often overshadowed by men in their movement. What do you see as the role of far-right influencer women in the organizations that you monitor?
Madeline: I see women in the right-wing media and the movement as validators for the conservative movement. The men that are at the forefront of the party couldn’t do what they’re doing without this role that women are playing as backup support, even when they’re in positions of leadership like GOP Chair Ronna McDaniel whose whole job is defending and justifying the party’s continued embrace of Donald Trump. So I really see them as a cleanup crew for the deeply unpopular positions of the conservative movement, and for rape apologism and racism, in particular; for the torturing of pregnant people that we’re seeing the movement’s generally hostility and misogyny.
And they’re also aggressive perpetrators of misogyny themselves. You can see that in Turning Point USA figures. You can see that in Candace Owens and some of the more fringe figures that you’re seeing bubble up from what we’re calling the “Manosphere.” There’s a number of women who are participating in that space, which has some of the extreme misogyny you’ll see and hear in the movement. One of the main messages that you’ll see is this framework of a “complimentary role” for women to play as helpers of men. It’s a very biblical worldview, and often they are very explicit about that. In this framework, men are the leaders and the providers, and women stay behind, quite literally, in the home; their function is to have and raise children. Both of those roles are critical to supporting a fascist movement. And one thing that is particularly fascinating is the way that this message is calibrated to connect with Gen Z on social media.
There’s a real push by some groups like TPUSA to talk young women and girls out of careers and college. Tell me about Alex Clark and the attempts to brand something called a “Cuteservatives” movement.
Some background about Turning Point USA: it is a chapter-based organization on high school and college campuses, founded by Charlie Kirk in 2009 as a reaction to the election of Barack Obama. Kirk emerged on Fox News as a counterweight to what was seen at the time as an emerging youth movement on the left. Kirk’s original message was about things that drove the Tea Party: it was a reaction to the election of the first Black president, but they spoke in terms of opposition to government spending. That is still the way Turning Point USA describes itself in its literature: that they are an organization supporting economic freedom and liberty. In reality, this organization has transformed itself into a culture war machine led by Kirk, with a sprawling social media and radio empire. The organization has multiple podcasts, YouTube channels. There’s Instagram accounts with millions of followers, and of course this circuit of conferences that feature speakers from across conservative media.
One of these speakers is a young woman named Alex Clark, who is sort of the girly pop lifestyle and pop cultural influencer for the organization. She has almost 200,000 followers on Instagram, which is really her main platform, where she is very active and describes herself as the conservative movement’s best friend. She speaks to her audience in this distinct influencer voice that you hear from many other young women making video content online. But under that surface, she is pushing extreme, regressive gender ideology, telling underage girls they need to start thinking about getting married, getting off birth control, having babies, and that this is something they need to consider before they graduate even high school. She tells young women that daycare is going to harm your children in an irreversible way, and that women must stay home and forgo a career in order to have a family. This belies the reality of her own personal life where she is single and doesn’t have children. But her entire social media presence is largely based around this niche parenting advice. I don’t have children myself, but I can’t imagine that it’s that easy to raise your children under a certain Scandinavian parenting style that’s more of an Instagram aesthetic than it is the reality of motherhood, so far as I’m aware.
There’s a really explicit pro-natalist push embedded in that movement. Clark and TPUSA are currently promoting a speed-dating event (sponsored by the right-wing dating app The Right Stuff!) with the tagline “get married. Have babies. Save America.” How are these figures pitching motherhood to young women?
I think that tagline really succinctly sums up the answer to your question. The right makes an explicit connection between the project of starting a family and the fascist movement that is festering in the Republican party; that having children—white children, in particular—is necessary to support the project of tearing down democracy. So they’re really pitching motherhood as if it’s a dream, as if it’s an aesthetic, even as if it’s a predetermined role for everyone who is able to give birth. They pitch motherhood as if it’s a role that exclusively happens in the domestic sphere.
I’ve read a lot about the tradwife movement, and we’ve written about it at Media Matters, but I read this essay that characterizes the tradwife movement and this social media trend of being a stay-at-home mom with a very specific vintage aesthetic, to a sort of agoraphobic movement. It’s like these women don’t leave the home. Their lives as mothers consist of swishing around a kitchen, pulling a pie out of an oven, kissing a husband on the cheek while he eats a home-cooked meal at the end of the day. There is a vintage aesthetic attached to this, as if they’re living in some sort of pastoral utopia, or in the suburban 1950s. There is a fantasy, almost cosplay element to this. And of course, no one is cosplaying the reality of their own lives. You can also see this in the social media presence of a figure like Hannah Neeleman, of Ballerina Farm. She’s an influencer with 8 million followers. She has this litter of children that putter around her farm where she’s caring for cows and farm animals and she’s calmly baking sourdough in a linen apron in a pastoral setting, when in reality the only reason this is a possibility is because her husband’s family is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
So it’s self-evident to see the way that motherhood is portrayed in ideological spaces like Turning Point USA, and also non-ideological spaces, that the reality of having children and being a mother is heavily papered over, especially for the vast majority of families that don’t have endless resources. And I would be remiss not to also mention that overlaying all of this is the implication that motherhood can only be properly performed by white women. So there is a political agenda embedded in this depiction of submission, of retreat to the domestic sphere, of deference to the judgment of men. It directly connects to some of the really scary stuff that we’re seeing in the Republican party and conservative media ahead of 2024.
I’m so interested in how the right is using some left-sounding language about “nature” and “big pharma” to denigrate reproductive health tools like birth control. Have you noticed that tactic, and do you think it’s making any inroads with young people?
I’ve seen Alex Clark specifically describe this discourse about wellness and rebellion against big pharma as what she describes as her politics; that this, specifically, is a political project for her. I think the pseudo-scientific movement against big food, against big pharma is an extension of the paranoia that you see in the right-wing movement writ large. It’s tailored not only to the Instagram audience, but also the set of incentives that influencers respond to on social media. If you’re saying you’re a natural influencer, companies are going to approach you and say “sell this natural moisturizer, sell this non-toxic cleaning product.” And there's nothing wrong with wanting to use non-toxic cleaning products, or connect with young women based on your lifestyle advice.
But in the context of Turning Point USA, some messages I heard when I attended the Young Women’s Leadership Summit (TPUSA’s yearly conference for young women) touched on many of the themes we’re discussing. You see it deeply connected to the broader agenda that Turning Point is pushing. At the summit, Alex asked the audience how many of them have gotten off hormonal birth control. A very scant few indicated that they had, despite that it is a constant refrain in her social media and podcasting presence.
That’s one of the things I find so fascinating about her. When you think of an influencer, you think of someone who is trying to draw you in, whether that’s to sell you something or just engage with their content. When I think about the quintessential influencer, I think about Remy Bader, a plus-sized influencer who exposes the absurdity of clothing marketing to the vast majority of women. She speaks through social media like she’s your best friend and it’s a relatable struggle not to fit into clothes. But it is extremely alienating to hear an influencer cast harsh judgment for taking hormonal birth control, for using a daycare, for having an abortion, when these are realities that have touched the lives of virtually every American woman. To hear constantly that you’re doing something wrong is not a warm message to receive through social media.
I do believe Alex’s content is resonating with her target demographic, but I also don’t think it’s particularly large. She calls this movement the cuteservatives. I still think it’s a very niche audience, a very self-contained universe. Her podcasts get a couple thousand views on YouTube, which is not very much. But it’s so bizarre and such a constant stream of content that it can be hard to turn away.
You also attended Moms for Liberty’s summit this summer. They like to cast themselves as a grassroots organization but that event looked lavish. Can you describe the vibes?
Well I can say that the vibes were horrendous. I wouldn’t have made it without my colleague Olivia Little, who’s truly one of the premier experts on Moms for Liberty. There were constant protests outside, that had a profound effect on the mood inside. Virtually every speaker started with some appeal about not backing down in the face of evil antifa, when in reality the protests were a reflection of the fact that thousands of Philadelphians did not want Moms for Liberty in their city.
Inside, there was a sense of “us versus them,” and certainly among attendees and speakers a profound paranoia that LGBT teachers are coming for your children, that your four-year-olds are being taught critical race theory in kindergarten. At one point I was standing in the hallway between sessions and one of the Moms for Liberty started chatting with me. I asked her about herself and she told me she was from out of town and hadn’t wanted to come to Philly because the cops hate white people. I almost did a spit-take. To someone who is very deeply submerged in conservative media, that’s just like a mashup of a number of narratives you’re constantly being confronted with as a consumer of conservative media.
I stayed in this one session about social emotional learning. The presentation was completely unhinged, saying that social emotional learning is basically a backdoor for Marxism. But after the session was over, people stayed and it got more and more conspiratorial once the crowd thinned out. The people who stayed were connecting with the speaker and pushing it farther and farther.
How has the broader GOP used Moms for Liberty to further its agenda?
Moms for Liberty is deeply plugged into a well moneyed infrastructure of the right-wing movement. It really is incubated through this organization called the Leadership Institute, which was founded by Morton Blackwell, an alumni of the 1964 Barry Goldwater campaign. It came out of that and provides training for activists. I went to a number of these trainings in which they tell you how to run a campaign, how to talk to the press. So Moms for Liberty is a project of well established right-wing initiatives based out of DC. They use right-wing media, launching off of Rush Limbaugh’s radio show when they were a brand new, virtually non-existent organization, to grow and create this veneer of there being a broad “parents’ rights” movement that supports book bans and witch hunts against teachers.
I think one thing that’s overlooked about Moms for Liberty is that it’s a very young organization. It gets a lot of attention for good reason and the press absolutely should be paying attention. They’re a radical group not to be taken lightly, but there’s so much growth potential there. I think that reality only nudges them only further in the direction of radicalism. So Moms for Liberty is a fascinating, well moneyed, fake grassroots movement that continues to metastasize despite the fact that the broad majority of parents just want their kids to learn.
In addition to your Media Matter work, you’re working on a book! Tell me about that project.
Outside of work, I’m working on a book proposal about the intersection of right-wing media and popular culture. The first chapter I wrote was about my experience at the Turning Point USA conference, and an expansion of a report I did after I came home from the conference. I’ll be writing about misogyny online, about right-wing attitudes on online sex work, right-wing aesthetics on Instagram, and generally the push of the right-wing media into cultural spheres, which is an increasing priority of theirs. As Generation Z comes up, and it’s extremely clear that Gen Z outpaces the millennial generation’s support for liberal social attitudes, there’s this push to create cultural products that connect with the next generation. It’s a really bizarre and ham-handed effort. I’m hoping to get into all of that and looking forward to the project continuing to develop.